Sweeping our way to victory at Jenni’s 50th (Ealing) MILE-stone

THE BIG 50!

Rain threatened our evening run but nothing could dampen our spirits for Jenni’s 50th good deed and birthday! 14 of us came out to do some good and eat some cake to celebrate this amazing achievement!

We also had one new runner with us, Joanna came along for the first time after a strong recommendation from her brother Sam, one of our lovely regulars!

Thankful for a few drops of rain to keep us cool, we got our energy levels up with an assortment of high knees, heel flicks, and jogging warms ups. Then off we went on the run, keeping a hearty pace through the glorious Walpole and Lammas Park, picking up a few cheers on the way. Then we reached our task at one of our favourite local charities, The Log Cabin where we split into two teams for gardening and flyering, the centre are having a fun day and asked us to help promote it in the local area as part of our visit, we were more than happy to oblige!

Chris, Shan and Marline took on the challenge of logging some extra miles on the leafleting front and the rest of us cracked on for a good tidy up in the playground and garden! We got stuck into weeding and sweeping the paths with only a few being randomly distracted by the playground attractions.

Well it would be rude not to have a little play right?!

Mike demonstrated his skills on both the adventure playground swing and basket ball court, while 4 brave souls took flight on the sea saw swing, there was some serious height on that thing!

We had a lot of fun but we also made sure we made a difference for this brilliant charity!

So back to work for a last check and tidy up, clearing lots of litter and making the playground look great for all the children to use the next day. Team flyers met us back at the task after their adventures down nearby Windmill Road filling those letter boxes with news about the upcoming event!

Then it was time to shoot back the way we came but this time we weren’t just passing through the park, we were taking on The Ealing Mile! A fun challenge we’ve taken on a few times over the summer it’s a great distance to push yourself and test your fitness. Lammas Park has a marked mile course and it’s great to have this right on our doorstep and be able to put it to the test as part of our evening run!

Here’s the times from last night:

• Chris 6:08
• Andy 6:22
• Michael 6:56
• Shan 6:58
• Lionel 7:30
• Lauriane 7:38
• Michelle 8:23
• Alex 8:35

Well done everyone, some great times there! Chris is now on a hat trick of wins but Andy was hot on his heels tonight! A special mention goes to Lionel this week who really pushed himself and gave it his all on his first attempt at the distance!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENNI!

After all that we were ready to celebrate and off to the pub we went to eat cake and embarrass Jenni with a loud rendition of happy birthday! Over the couple of months Jenni has squeezed in lots of extra GoodGym runs in different areas to jog this amazing milestone in time for her birthday and for that we think she’s a superstar! Jenni is a real asset to our GoodGym community in Ealing and I’m so grateful to have her as part of the task force and to have gotten to know her over the past year! She’s pretty awesome!

Here’s to the next 50!

This run report was written in part by all the runners tonight so I’ll leave you with this little poem one of the group wrote, happy running!

‘To the Ealing mile we ran, to show to Liv that we can, we gave it our all and no one did fall’