Harry the potter and the philosopher's cat's snail

11 wonderful Goodgymers zombie ran 4k to help Colchester in Bloom with a spooktacular effort.

The excitement started as everyone arrived because it became apparent Harry the pumpkin was joining us on the run. The question was how would he travel? Pass the pumpkin, of course! Many of the group arrived in their Halloween outfits for the night - we had a cat, a witch, a vampire, a zombie and a ghostbuster! A few trick or treats were pulled from the lucky dip bag and we saw Ella and Tav get to work on some pumpkin twist lunges. Much to Emily's surprise, she got lucky and pulled a pumpkintine token out.

After a quick warm up, we set off and made our way to Pam's house. As ever, Pam greeted us with a big smile and was impressed with the turnout with it being Halloween. She was quick to get us straight to work. Ian, Stuart and Louise worked on planting pansies in a very precise 5 - 4 - 2 - 1 formation in big planters on Southway, whilst the rest of the group got planting in the planters at the underpass. In no time at all hundreds of plants had been planted and Pam thanked us for our hard work. She then informed us that the plants we planted this evening were the same plants we had helped to pot at the allotment on a previous task a few months back. As the seasons pass we may be seeing those plants again!

After we said our goodbyes, we set off and made our way to a space by Lion's Walk to get involved with the evening's fitness, aptly named 'Trick or treat' - everyone took it in turns to pull their trick or treat out of the bag and got straight to work on their 'tricks' and adored their 'treats'.

40 tricks and treats were drawn from the bag in all, with the treats including pumpkintine tokens, positive notes and trick exceptions, and the tricks including Frankenstein lunges, spider crawls, monster mashes, pumpkin lifts and more!

On our return to Leisure World the pumpkintine tokens were cashed in and the prizes claimed and Halloween treats were shared by all.

What a frightfully wonderful night we had! I couldn't have thought of a better way to spend it with the best of company, getting fit and doing good.

Remember, you are all someone's reason to smile :)

Don't forget - next week sees a social at the New Inn after the run and get your Christmas meal orders and money to Ian in the next couple of weeks.

Adios amigos