One of the features that makes London such a great city are its fabulous parks. Vicky, Regents, Greenwich, Hyde and co. are magnificent places to chill out, run, walk, picnic and people watch. However, none of them quite match the rambling wildness of Walthamstow Marshes in the Lower Lee Valley, where the intrepid GoodGym Waltham Forest crew set out for on tonight's mission.

The 3.5k run to task built the anticipation as the urban cityscape gives way to surroundings that you would usually see in the countryside, arriving at our destination, grabbing gloves, bags and litter pickers while the horses of the Lee Valley riding school looked on with inscrutable expressions.

As usual, this professional hit squad of task completing professionals made a flying start and began filling their bags with the unsightly litter that was blotting the landscape. A special welcome to new recruit Niamh and thanks to recruiting Sargent Jade for finding such a capable addition to our group.

With our work completed it was time to head back to base and we decided to split the group with one group taking the even more scenic 4k route via the Wetlands but we all eventually made it back to Mirth, Marvel and Maud for some stretching and refreshments.

Excellent work today everyone, you can sleep in the knowledge that Waltham Forest and the world in general is a better place, thanks to you.

I misinformed you all about next week's tasks when I said we were heading to Chingford Memorial Park. That beauty will be on 4th of July, but next week we will be heading to everyone's favourite community cafe The Mill for some gardening, cleaning and painting sign-up here

Peace, Ant ☮️

Missionaries

Given the biblical nature of tonight's Good Gym Waltham Forest (GGWF) task, it somehow felt prescient that twelve runners embarked on tonight's mission to transform St. Mary's Churchyard back to its former glory.

Those of us who know our way around the Bible (or Wikipedia in my case) will not need reminding that twelve apostles worked for Jesus - presumably in a voluntary capacity too. Iconography aside we did a great job tonight and not just for the Church but for Walthamstow as St Mary's Churchyard must be one of the sweetest spots in the borough and is enjoyed equally by pilgrims and pedestrians.

Nice to see you

It was great to welcome GG veterans Hanna and Rob to GGWF today and a special welcome to Hanna who is now a fully fledged member of the E17 massive after moving here from Saaafff London at the weekend. We also welcomed Good Gym first-timer Lisa to our band of brothers and sisters, nice to see you, Lisa. As well as a trio of new runners it was fantastic to see Ms massive commute, Lorna. Despite living and GoodGyming in the posh borough of Wandsworth, Lorna still makes an effort to look in on us WF folks in her capacity as someone important at the local borough council. Last but definitely not least, it was lovely to welcome Shelly back tonight. Shelly battled through injury and illness to join our mission, even though she didn't even get to enjoy a celebratory cocktail at the end of it. Never mind Shelly, there is always next time.

Anyhoo, name checks aside the work on the task tonight was biblical folks. Watching those weeds fall by the wayside and the compost excavations put me in mind of Moses parting the Red Sea (or was it the Dead Sea?), anyway some sea or other.

Hard graft

Despite the plague of gnats and the broken backs the group declined the short downhill run back to base in favour of a wonderful, windy, wayfinder through the streets of Walthamstow village which more than doubled the distance overall.

Before I go I should mention a couple of upcoming excitements:

1. Tomorrow's GoodGym Social
2. Next week's task will see us back at St. Mary's for more miracle working so for fitness, fun and to increase your chances of passing through the pearly gates one day, sign-up here
3. 30th June's GoodGym Olympics

The Olympics is set to be a corker of an event. Thanks to Lorna, we have a GGWF team so you must go and represent your borough. Apparently, last year's event was a total blast so don't miss out.

Oh and finally, thanks to Clara, we now have a WhatsApp Group "Goodgym Waltham Forest" so get yourself on that if you want to know what the cool people in E17 are up to.

That's me done for now y'all.

Peace, Ant