A small band this evening of Hilary, Rebecca and Nick - very much quality over quantity - met up at the Aquatic Centre (just about still light-ish), and navigated our way through the Olympic Park along the canal to find Ange waiting for us, with spades and wheelbarrows neatly parked...

The dune of sand(?) that we'd initially attacked back in July was our task for tonight (https://www.goodgym.org/v3/reports/leaps-and-mounds) - the dune had shrunk a bit since our last visit as Ange (with a few other smaller people helpers) had managed to get some of it moved to various parts of the playground over the summer, but there was still enough to keep us amused for a good hour.

With Hilary and Rebecca on shoveling duty and Nick on wheel barrowing, we soon established a chain gang that worked pretty well to get the sand shifted from outside of Ange's "office" to near the Big Ship where we slowly built a new dune...with only three of us on duty there were no tea breaks allowed in spite of occasional groans from one staff member whose shoulders were starting to complain.

When Ange comes out and compliments you on a job well done, you know you've done something pretty good, and at 8 we parked the spades and barrows - there's still quite a bit more to get moved, but we don't think you can long jump into what remains...which is real progress - and had a sociable run back to the Olympic Park along the canal, avoiding the occasional unlit pedestrian and bike rider along the way...

Another perfect morning greeted us under the Big Tree today - and the blue sky, sunshine and ideal parkrunning conditions (occasional fallen leaves aside) brought out a crowd, with 61 runners completing today's 2 lapper around the fields, which included 8 absolute first timers and a whole series of PBs. Excellent work by all concerned.

Nick, as today's RD, was very glad to have the support of London Fields GG regulars Sooz and Hilary, along with Fuad, John and Louise who had answered the call to various local GG groups for more hands, and volunteers Gary, Marion, Nick, Tom and Ching-Yi, who all kindly gave up their time this morning to make it all run as smoothly as it did. Judging by the (mostly) smiles and out of breath faces as runners got their barcodes scanned having sprinted down the finishing straight, everyone did a great job.

We'll be back next week under the big tree for more of the same - can't ensure it'll be the same clear blue skies, but join us if you can - feelgood and happy smiley junior runners guaranteed.