Runners on the Edge

12 of us ran 4km (some, 6km) to edge the Cycle Path at New Walk.

We welcomed new runner, Tasha to the crew and set Carl as our back marker before heading off on Nunnery Lane and along the river. After crossing the famous Blue Bridge, we were greeted by Win from the Friends of New Walk - a small group of community volunteers who look after this patch. Their group had been out braving the horrible weather over the weekend and had made a start on the edging further up the path.

"It hasn't been done for two years, so the path has narrowed a lot with all the flooding" - Win, FoNW

With enough spades for everyone, we split into two teams with a smaller team heading north over the bridge and a bigger team heading south. It was a tough task - shovelling the edges and clearing the mud as far from the path as possible.

Ten minutes into our task, the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress came along to have a gander at what we were up to. It didn't take long for them to don spades and get involved, with the Lord Mayor showing quite excellent technique (bending the knees and not the back!) and vigour.

"Local people were walking past and saying thank you, which was lovely!" - Leanne, GoodGym Member

After 25 minutes of hard graft, a good half a kilometre of path widened and two storm drains liberated from their muddy, leaf-filled prisons, our work here was done.

We ran up to the beautifully illuminated Millennium Bridge for an energetic running circuits session involving steps, squats and the agility ladder whilst a few hardcore members of the team boshed out two 1km sprints along the river. Bev even tackled the bunny hops so fast she had to commando roll out parkour-style. When everyone was back together we had a hilarious time seeing who had the fastest feet and the most coordination!

Once back at the Premier Inn, we had a nice stretching session to make sure those digging muscles were all eased off. Good thing nobody could see in the window, the 'happy baby' stretch would have looked very peculiar indeed..

..til next week, be a good one!