A host of cold-and dafts-on-hills

Nine runners ran 5 km (plus a few hill sprints) to Mile End Park, to pick litter up from between the early daffodils.

Andreana reports on a mini-mission

Regular Haringey runner Dave stepped up to lead our run last night as Tom was injured, and we had a mission run alongside the regular task to undertake, too. After a quick warm up we all jogged on down to Mile End Park, where Byron and I chipped off from the main group to undertake the mission run to Mrs.G's flat and help refill a cupboard for her. A few GoodGymmers had ran to Mrs.G's on a previous mission to empty the cupboard, as Mrs.G was expecting a visit from the gas man who required access. When we arrived, the gas man had been and gone, the cupboard in the hallway was empty, and lots of bags & stuff sat around in Mrs.G's front room. The cupboard in the hallway was a big, double-doors affair and so, leaving Bryon to negotiate the space, I started passing him big laundry bags full of Mrs.G's belongings which he fitted back into the cupboard. We formed an efficient sort of two-man-chain, moving stuff back into the cupboard until Mrs.G's front room was once again clear, and the cupboard neatly stocked (thank you, Bryan, for I'm quite sure I would have caused a sort of land slide inside the cupboard). Then we wished Mrs.G a good night, and ran off back to Mile End Park to join the others, thinking why was it so difficult to pinpoint a landmark in Mile End Park to someone unfamiliar with the area? We have ran up & down 'the hill' so many times, but to the unacquainted, it doesn't really look like a hill. It's a deceptive hill. And most of our regular runners were not with us, so it wasn't very easy trying to explain where 'the hill' was, but we found the rest of the group anyway - on a different hill - and joined in with the workout.

Meanwhile back at 'a hill'

Once we got to the top of Mile End park, and waved off our mission team, we cracked out the gloves and bin bags, and set of on a big loop around the south side of the Green Bridge. I set our Goodgymers the challenge of presenting me with the weirdest bit of junk they could find. We were pleased to see that the park was looking quite clean, but still managed to fill up 4 bags by the time we'd finished our loop. I thought I'd get to keep first place, when I pulled out a big hunk of metal from under a bush, but congratulations go out to Tom for finding a 2013 flimsy paper union membership card, which raised more questions than the giant metal question mark.

With the task done we set out to do some hill relays up the steps to Green Bridge. The runners were sorted into groups or three by height, the Odds, and the Evens. The relay would be: jog down the hill, recovery, sprint up the hill, recovery; repeat. Both teams really gave it their all on those sprints, and the finish was a tie! We then talked about focusing on elbow movements, and set off on one last set of hill relay, just as Andreana and Byron returned from their mission. So I made then join in on that last sprint.

Finally back to base for a set of Haringey high-fives and stretches.