Stone me, what are we doing again?... but "Bags" of fun in the end.

We learnt a lot tonight. We learnt just how far we can get out from base AND do a significant task. We learnt that a cunning plan to include some of our runners who were less confident about the distance works just fine, and again we learnt that many willing hands can achieve just about anything.

Our advance party set off from their short cut start, all as arranged and ably led by Mel - 3 new friends who had never met each other until 3 weeks ago - thats the very essence of GoodGym.

The rest of us set off from base for a challenging distance, I clocked it on Mapometer at 3.15 miles, just to get there! But get there we did, in about 32 minutes. A lovely flat run taking in the usual stretch of canal, into Abbey Park (where we shall litter pick next week), past the National Space Centre and then onto our task at the Leicester Outdoor Pursuits Centre.

When the main group got there the advance party had already made a start, but what were we actually doing? There was a bit of confusion at first, did we move the gravel or the sand, did we rake it or leave it in piles, and had they got any more tools, GoodGymmers are here to work, not to stand about.

No, there were no more spades and rakes, but the staff did manage to find some buckets and plastic boxes and a very useful shopping trolley. We focussed our efforts on moving gravel from the jumbo bags to the area where it needed to lie and just as we were about to finish someone came up with the brilliant idea, "surely the bag is light enough to drag now that we have taken so much gravel out of it" . Sure enough, it was no match for the combined might of Goodgym. With about six of us dragging the bag we managed to move it and tip it out on the spreading area. So once again, in just half an hour we had noved about half a ton.

We welcomed tonight new runners Kerry, LIndsay and Marie and in no time at all they were chatting away to others.

In other news we recognised the maiden parkrun from Nicola, paced by yours truly she achieved a target busting 31:57 - not bad considering her best before was 36 minutes and her target was 35. Marie had also recorded a PB on Saturday too,

There was news on the night of a couple more tasks coming our way, just awaiting the info from Charles and Sam.

And we also heard that Charles and Martin will be taking part in the Leicester 10K on Sunday - good luck to them. No doubt many of the rest will be doing the LRRL 10 miler at Countesthrpe?

On the way back to base we did a dynamic fitness session - snake/indian line - call it what you will, for about a mile.

I have nothing but respect for the effort put in by all tonight - that was no easy run, nor an easy task, but I am sure it will have done everyone good.

Well done everyone