This morning nine intrepid GoodGym volunteers helped out at Walthamstow Parkrun. After meeting and debriefing outside Greenleaf Road Baptist Church at sunrise, we headed off to our destination.

Along with a clutch of regular runners were delighted to be joined by Dr. Helen for the first time. Helen has wanted to join us on a Wednesday run for some time but has been too busy saving lives in a local hospital! It was also good to see Lawrence, yet another hardworking local who has joined us once previously, but the demands of work have made it difficult for him to schedule a return engagement.

Of course, all of our volunteers today deserve enormous thanks for getting up early on a cold Saturday morning to help 135 people participate in a 5km run.

Anyhoo, back to the day's events. After a 1-mile run to Parkrun, we arrived warm and ready to go. We met with Ellis the day's Run Director and, after setting up, we were allocated various roles for the event. With plenty of mud on the course, marshals played a key role in helping to make sure people didn't arrive at the finish line looking like a Tough Mudder competitor. In addition to our marshalls, we had race timers and token scanners. Our Parkrun crew of volunteers were bolstered by a pair of splendidly kitted out tail-walkers, replete with a couple of tremendous tails too.

No sooner than we were all in place than all the runners arrived at the startline and Ellis got things going. With a challenging course choice of footwear was essential for the runners and sure enough, spike wearing East London Runner, Patrick Brown crossed the line in 19:56, the fastest time of the day. The day's fastest women was Ellie Hallsworth who bagged a PB with 24:56.

After these swift runners crossed the line runners came in thick and fast and our timers and scanners beavered away to ensure that all participants had their times clocked and barcodes scanned.

After one hour and twenty-three minutes of action, the final participant crossed the line and our smiling, but numb toed, volunteers packed away and headed for a well-deserved breakfast.

Great work, everyone. If you want to join for the next session, we will be painting a nice warm, dry room in Walthamstow Village, sign-up here

To find out and participate in Walthamstow Parkrun look here

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Welcome to 2020 one and all.

As if to mark the occasion GoodGym Waltham Forest moved home over the Christmas break, and today we set off from our fabulous new base, Greenleaf Road Baptist Church. These luxuriant surroundings come with comfy sofas, a chill-out room with table tennis, decent changing rooms and the melodic sounds of a local choir group down the hall. Tonight we were treated to Downtown, originally a Petula Clarke hit back in the day.

With a new home and a new year, I was hoping for a new runner and my wish was granted when Charlie joined our group tonight. Great to see you, Charlie, I hope you are going to help us kill this January Challenge by joining us for a spot of painting next week!

I did shed a tear for the demise of our former home. The marvellous Mirth, Marvel and Mauad shut down at the weekend, but I gather it will reopen after some renovations at some indeterminate date.

Anyhoo, with all these opulent new surroundings, it was hard to prise ourselves away from the warmth and comfort of GLRBT but prise we did as we burst forth into the night and headed for another holy location, St Mary's Church up in Walthamstow Village. Actually, our task was at the Welcome Centre next door and who doesn't like a spot of gardening on a cold damp January night?

Attack of the plants

We let me tell you this was no ordinary gardening task. As we walked through the gate and with just the eerie light of a few head torches for company, we entered a domain where plants had well and truly taken over. Man (and woman) sized weeds loomed large from cracks in the paving. In the shadows, claw-like branches seemed poised ready to entangle unsuspecting humans who dared to draw too near.

Undeterred by the little shop of horrors, our plucky crew set to work. It was touch and go for a while, but eventually, GoodGym prevailed, and the plants were vanquished. It was a sight to behold as probably half a ton of organic matter was eventually piled up on the compost heap.

To round off the evening we did slow, medium and fast reps of the churchyard nearby before heading back to our lovely new home for a chill-out and a chat.

January Challenge

Don't forget to sign-up for next week's run - a lovely warm indoor task. We are going to crush the January Challenge.

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