That was a beach of a hill

Unfortunately we had our group task of painting at the school canceled today and after scrambling around to try to find another task, with no luck at all..... we "settled" for a beach clean. We are so lucky to be able to do that here in Bournemouth.

Today we said a big welcome to two new faces. Pia invited James along and it was great to finally meet him. Welcome James, it was great running with you and we hope both of you come along as often as possible.

We were also lucky to have Megan join us for her first group run, having only heard about GoodGym from a friend on Sunday she signed up straight away. It was great to meet you and I'm not at all concerned about how close you grew up to Andrea!! Coincidences of life! Brilliant.

Both new faces settled in straight away as we set off through the gardens and down to the beach for the first of our hills...and the gang did very well to troop up the first 400m climb...then along the overcliff and down the zig zag...which is way more fun to run down than up!! Then back towards the Pier again for our next 400m uphill climb...that one was tough but Neil and James powered up it with ease! At the top we all pretended to look fresh as daisies....and some did better than others....

Then the lovely trainer took us through the park and into the trees and down some steps....and straight to some steep steps to the next overcliff! Honestly, why would someone do that! Well, hills are great for our leg strength and will make us stronger runners...probably not the message everyone wanted to hear!

We headed back down to the beach after 5km and started on the beach clean...there wasn't that much big stuff around which is either credit to the council or people being more responsible. We did find a tonne of cigarette butts though...please don't leave those on the beach, they take forever to decompose! So sad.

Daryl managed to find a love heart mould which was probably the oddest thing out! Very tame compared to our last outing. We threw our rubbish bags in the big bins and set off back to Flirt cafe...trying to avoid the hills and the usual long hill back up....thanks Neil!

Thank you James for taking some great shot for us!

We will miss Grace who is off on a 5 week summer break, but we'll be here when you get back....promise not to do toooooo many amazing tasks without you!

Well done everyone, next week we should be fence painting! Sign up here