On a balmy evening in Cardiff, a smallish but perfectly formed group of great GoodGymmers ran over 6k to tidy up the grounds around the STAR Hub in Splott!

This week, our regular running crowd was greatly diminished by the absence of 9 runners who went to the Bucharest Running Festival over the weekend. Well done all who ran and joined in the festivities. Can't wait to hear more news of the races next week! Further good news is that our task numbers were buoyed up by 3 new faces: firstly by a guest from the east, Alex from GoodGym HQ. He was in Swansea looking into a possible new GoodGym there, and wanted to join us here in Cardiff for the group task. Great to meet you Alex, hope to see you again in South Wales soon! Secondly, forget Two-Drink Tuesday, it was Two-LACE Tuesday last night! A couple of our regular runners Pablo and Fiona brought along friends: welcome Emily and Tanya! Luckily I had two red laces on me to hand out - whew!

So after intros all around, and a quick but dynamic warm up, we headed out and made our way to the STAR Hub in Splott. We took a direct route to cover the 2 mile distance in time, which gave as a good opportunity to get in a steady run, with Charlotte and Fiona backmarking - thank you both! We've been to this Hub before, to wash windows in preparation for a royal visit a few months ago. But no royalty this time - just the staff and regulars who were happy to see us. We had a nice intro from Mike the manager on duty, who explained the relationship between the leisure facilities and Cardiff Council, and the work they do to get local children into sports and activities on site. Sounded right up our street, so we were keen to get on and get stuck in. Our task was to litter pick around the grounds of the centre, and we broke into teams of 2-3 and headed out into the fresh air. Before we started, we were alerted to the fact that because a school group had done this task just a week ago, there may not be a lot of litter around. But this is Cardiff where there always seems to be litter 😔. Indeed, our first piece of litter was right in the centre itself - a Penguin Bar wrapper right at my feet (not mine!) Later on, Fiona reminded me of that wrapper and provided the pun for the run: to P-P-Pick up a Penguin. If anyone needs a reminder, here is the reference to P-P-Pick up a Penguin! (Maybe before our time, right folks?)

All in all we collected 6 bags of rubbish - a fab job team GoodGym! Must be all that sunshine 🌞 We then headed back to base, had a good warm down and stretch, and some of us headed off to the local, for a cool drink. Not before we reminded everyone of the First Anniversary Run and Celebration Dinner next week !!!! It's going to be a good one, running to St Monica's Primary School in Cathays and then dinner afterwards at the Stable in town. Get signed up to both on the website and see you there!

Riddle for the Run: What has 6 wheels and flies?