As I watched Run Director Rue lead our 62(!) intrepid junior runners in the infamous Hackney Haka at 0855 this morning, I did wonder if he'd deliberately timed its welcome return to coincide with the start of the Rugby Premiership season, having put it out to pasture (as it were) over the warmer summer months that we've just lived through, where such vigorous warming up wasn't in much demand...

Not that it was too chilly under the big tree this morning, well clearly not judging by the amazing turnout, including lots of absolute first timers to junior parkrun (10), whom we hope to see regularly over the coming months. Ably assisted by Sarah at her usual tree, Hilary at her now familiar spot at Gate One, and Nick doing finish tokens and barcode scanning, Run Director Rue was able to get the crowd away on the dot of 9, and soon the field was spread around the fields, with our usual speedies having a close battle at the front, followed by the more relaxed (and smiling) runners and walkers taking things at a slightly more leisurely pace, although we did still have 15 PBs, so clearly they hadn't skimped on breakfast.

Before long the first finishers were coming down the funnel, and a steady stream followed after that, and so concluded another successful morning at the bright and sunny Fields.

More of the same next Sunday if you can join us - we'll certainly be needing more Hi Viz volunteers as quite a few of our GoodGym regulars are busy with other activities.

A welcome return to see our host Taiwo at the Greenway Orchard, who had forewarned us that we'd be doing a lot of digging out of roots this evening to try and stop the brambles and everything else that we've spent the summer successfully removing from the flower meadow, growing back anytime soon, and had borrowed some more forks specifically for the job in hand.

It was also a warm welcome to Rebecca, who joined Hilary, Adam and Nick on the 3km run from Freaks and Geeks and admitted her last GoodGym session had been quite a few years ago, and to Kyra, who met us at the Orchard and for whom this was her first GoodGym mission...and conveniently local. Welcome both, and hopefully you'll be able to join us on more tasks around the neighbourhood over the coming weeks and months.

Armed with gloves and forks and a few other instruments of plant torture, we quickly got to work on root removal, realising that with sunset at 7.15, it would also start to get dark pretty soon - we're clearly back into headtorch season once again.

A huge amount of effort was applied by the team to remove as many of the roots and plants as we could, some proving more resistant to removal than others, and requiring a combination of forks, hands and sheer grunt to get them out of the ground. Adam proving that even the hardiest of forks was no match for some of the embedded root networks...

With darkness now upon us, and with aching backs and tired hands, we called a collective stop at 8pm, leaving behind a patchwork of disturbed earth and a healthy pile of uprooted brambles and plants to be added to the compost heap.

We plan to be back again at the Orchard at the start of November, with lanterns and spotlights, and hopefully not too much regrowth in the intervening weeks...