It was a gloriously muddy morning at London Fields junior parkrun, with 28 young runners lining up despite wet and muddy conditions. We welcomed two first timers to the course — one of whom took part in an incredibly close photo finish for first and second place, edging it on her debut!

GoodGym was out in force, with Lobo, Anna, Sarah and Rue supporting the event, and Nick expertly taking on the role of Race Director. Huge thanks to the whole team for keeping things running smoothly in tricky conditions.

The mud didn’t slow anyone down, with some super-strong finishes, impressive determination, and even a few joyful slides over the finish line. Some may have slipped on the course too, but as Nick said it was all character building! (and definitely not an incident)

As always a brilliant display of effort, encouragement and community spirit from start to finish. All the mud, all the smiles, all the reasons we love junior parkrun — we’ll be back for more next week.

We had a lovely day out in the sun in Ms A's back garden today. Kevin, a former professional gardener was the man with the plan. Myself and him got to work on uprooting the many tree stumps in the garden while Ilana took on the prickly task of putting part of the large pile of thorns and branches into garden bags so they can be removed. Several stumps later and with 3 full garden bags Ms A treated us to some lovely coffee and biscuits to top off the mission. Some return visits will definitely be necessary.

Volunteered at Hackney Night Shelter

It was somewhat atmospheric first thing at the Fields this morning as Rue and I laid out the cones for event #355, as a thin layer of mist hung in the air. We felt we might be short of volunteers but true to form as the clock clicked closer to 9, we welcomed Lucinda and Kareem for another week of high vizzing - with Rue directing the show once again and leading the warm up with the Hackney Haka, and Nick on barcode scanning we had decent GG representation - 6 other helpful volunteers stepped up, and we were able to get the show on the road for another week.

4 first timers took on the slightly muddy 2 laps today, and our first two finishers sprinted down the home straight to only finish a few seconds apart in an exciting finish. 44 keen runners took to the course, setting 4 pbs and everything seemed to go remarkably smoothly in spite of the slippery conditions underfoot!

Volunteered at Hackney Night Shelter

It is a little pet hate, these hard heavy canisters rolling about on pavement & streets.

I do (too regularly) spot the odd one around Hackney, not often 9 in one go though. Yes the blue bag contains another 5.

Now safely removed and dropped in the scrap metal bin. Besides sorting a safety issue, a workout as well carrying these things.