On a sweltering day 13 runners gave it their all and dared to take to the heated streets of Cardiff.

With a shorter run planned, the run leaders gave the addition of the Goodgym Olympic 1km run, as usual the group met at 18:15 in Yr Hen Lyfrgell catching up, with some members that hadn’t been seen for a while. Conversations of the Tafwyl festival which is on in Cardiff this weekend, where Lowri would be singing the praises of Goodgym Vale and hopefully finding us some lovely new runners, the Snowdon trip which many of the runners were going to over the weekend and just general chit chat.

Today was to be led by Mikey helped by the wonderful Darren and Ellen all the way there and back again. A very quick warm up (given the temperatures), and what can only be described as the first attempt at the Senegal warm up, we will perfect this at Snowdon and then beyond. Better descriptions next time please Darren.

And we're off

Just a short run, a few posed moments and we were at the Grangetown Hyb. Tonight we were to help out, litter-picking around the perimeter and attempting to clean windows in a heat that wouldn’t allow it. We always get a warm Welsh welcome when we knock on the door of the Hyb and today was no exception. We split into three, two groups George Formby’d for cleaning windows with the final group from the Inner Circle that had been waiting a la la la la long a la la la la long long li long long long time, for a litter pick of this and a litter pick of that. The groups got to work, litter pickers following the shade of the car park before moving onto the road to create a cleaner society, with Aimee and Emma counting cigarette butts in French (200 being the final total) and Lucy and Adam moving from car park to streets cleaning everything in their actual path

The two groups inside had a difficult task, trying to clean windows, but just as quickly as they wiped them with a wet rag the heat had dried it with even more smears. Ellen managed to find the coolest room in the entire city, the computer room with air con to spare, a runner’s dream. Cleaning away with what looked like an old pair of knickers, she certainly worked for the pleasure of coolness. Darren, Rachel and Lowri took to the automatic door of joy, wipe on wipe off, open and close, repeat……. Like some sort of karate kid loop but determined with the goodgym spunk.

Su, Jane, Martin & Gweni went for the back door, which confused everyone thanks to the brightness doing nothing but highlighting the marks. Undeterred they attacked, armed with buckets, spray, paper towels and more, a song in their hearts and a spring in their step soon they were wiping on sunshine, whoa oh.

As Mikey ran around taking photos galore, telling everyone about the 1km run some more and discovering what patterns people may try to do, everyone worked on their tasks, before too long shutters began to close and it was time to say farewell. Everyone regrouped for a bad-gym photo, the heat was getting to us.

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We ran on, saying farewell to three runners along the way, ready to attempt the 1 km GG Olympic run. Dehydrated, maybe slightly delirious the remaining 10 gave it their best efforts. Thankfully it ended close to the Cardiff and the Vale GG meeting point, with the final easy run back everyone picked up the pace to get back by a wonderful 19:59.

World cup to watch

Darren led a cool down, if that was even possible in the scorching heat, final items were collected and we made our way to the usual local ‘Glassworks’ for two / no wait three drink Tuesday. It is summer after all………..Football watched, conversing complete, and some additional planning for our trip to Snowdon, it was now time for home. Thanks to everyone that turned up today to take on not only the street but the heat, kudos to you beautiful people.