Litterally Pick It Up As You Go Along

Another brilliant sunny day for our GoodGym Redbridge mission!

Well, you know what they say: Sun's out, Litter Pickers Out.... :)

Arrival We met by Acle Close, with Linda arriving as always early, followed by Julia and James. Kristian got a little bit lost but thankfully he was wearing his bright red GG tee so we spotted him jogging by in time!

Location This Saturday we were ticking off Claybury Woods as our destination for September Parks Challenge . Claybury Park was once part of the Claybury estate, held by Barking Abbey from the 12th century; it contains Claybury and Hospital Hill Woods, remnants of ancient woodland of Hainault Forest. It was also a site of Mental Asylum at one point, which was where now an exclusive gated commuty of Repton Park is.

Mission We went around the park picking up all sorts of things, including lots of disgarded alcohol bottles, golf and tennis balls, usual take away boxes and lots of plastic and paper. We also found some bags of rubbish thrown out onto the top of bramble hedges, which made retrieving them very difficult but some thorn-torn t-shirts and long arms later, we've managed to retrieve the rubbish.

Jog/Walk/Hills Once we deposited our bags by the bin, as advised by the Parks team, we went for a little jog and did some hill training on what someone very aptly called on Strava Segment a Bastard's Hill.... There was definitely lack of enthusiasm to start off with but after a first climb, things progressed and everyone did a fantastic job of climbing the hill 3-4 times before we carried on climbing another hill into Claybury woods for a shaded jog to the finish line. Great effort everyone!

Next week we are venturing out into another fantastic location - Hainault Lodge and Hainault Forest! Hope to see you THERE