Eight runners ran 7.6km to help clear bramble and litter at Saffron Acres

GoodGym runners aren't the type to be deterred by a pesky storm and eight hardy souls braved the elements to run to Saffron Acres to help out a fantastic community project that offers educational opportunities to schools, people with learning difficulties and people out of work looking to develop new skills. We heard about Jen and Michaela's continued marathon training, Huw's rogue parkrun trip to France and Mel and Dave's visit to Woolaton Hall parkrun's inaugural running. This prompted a question from Dave about the parkrun "Wilson index" which sparked further discussion on the run and task!

For safety reasons we avoided the usual route along the river heading up past the football stadium and Saffron Lane Athletics Stadium to the Aylestone site. As usual, Jimmy cracked the code for the padlock and we got hold of the tools left for us on the composting toilet. We spotted a lovely new fence around the pond in an area we've previously worked in.

Our first "winter" visit in darkness on a completely unlit site could have proved problematic but our headtorches and worklight meant we were good to go. Mel and Jimmy set off litter picking around the site. Natalie, Dave, Michaela and Sharon took control of the cutting equipment to start removing the bramble from alongside the fence while Huw and Jen were in charge of moving it into one neat pile by the main building. An efficient team effort saw us complete the task pretty much bang on 7pm.

Sprouting from Dave's parkrun question came a discussion of various running challenges to be found on the parkrun chrome extension including the Wilson Index, Alphabeteer, Stayin Alive, Pirates, Stopwatch Bingo and many more. For those of you wanting to geek out on it and find out what you've already achieved without realising it follow the link here. Let us know what badges you've got next week!

Coming up we've got part 2 of our leafleting for LOROS and a visit to Scope. Then we're into March, lighter nights, better weather, and panic stations for the marathon runners in the group!

Happy running, HD