I've got a creche on you

Now I am not saying that I deliberately planned a task that was only 150 meters away from our Group Run base this week, but while still suffering post marathon stiff legs, it was quite handy that it was so close. Our destination was the fantastic Greenleaf Road Baptist Church (GRBT) which is just around the corner from our base at Mirth, Marvel and Maud. Our ranks were swelled last night by a couple of new GoodGymers Catherine and Phil. In fact, Phil made up GGWF's first parent-child outing as he is the father of regular runner, Pippa. Both Catherine and Phil were great additions to the team exhibiting impressive painting and running skills alike. We also welcomed back newly anointed Yogi, Jo. Great to see you Jo and I can't believe I forgot to ask you to lead a cooldown!

Painting you say? Yes, that brings me to our task for the day at GRBT. We were met on site by Keith who had prepared our assignment perfectly. All equipment laid out neatly and ready to use and the offer of tea coffee and biscuits! What more could we ask for, thank you, Keith! With such perfect pre-task preparation the group wasted no time in getting stuck in. GRBT is a real rabbit warren of a building from the outside it is a fairly standard looking modernish church but inside there is much more to this comfortable and welcoming space. We were focussing on a former creche that is being temporarily converted into a recreational space for older children. It is however in need of a bit of TLC to take it from its rather shabby state and restore it to the light and airy condition it craves.

The paint was splodged, brushes were stroked rollers were rolled, sugar was soaped and the first coat went on. I think another one or two are needed to get us where we need to be but a significant difference was made during our visit so well done all.

After downing brushes, we headed over to Lloyd Park and after a full warm-up lap we hit a hard mile time trial. This is where runners predict their times and see how close they can get. We will be running this test at least once a month over the summer so it's a great way to measure progress. The results are below and I will track results on this spreadsheet

I have to confess to being a bit of a hard taskmaster and practically bullying most of these guys to reduce their predicted times by up to a minute. I put this down to the fact that after suffering so much during and after the marathon, I wanted everyone to share the pain! Nevertheless, it is good to set tough targets and I think there was some outstanding running on show here with a notable debut from Catherine and an excellent performance from Nerys, who is looking dangerous for the Hackney Half in a few weeks.

Next week we have a long run to South Chingford Memorial Ground. With that in mind can I ask everyone to arrive promptly and if you can't make it, try and let me know. We waited in vain yesterday for several signed up runners who didn't show up.

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