Michelle Burke

Michelle, Juli and I braved the first rain shower in a long time to help tidy the allotment today. Filling the water butts, weeding some of the beds, planting beneath the fig tree and getting a new bed ready for the Spring. It is a little while before the allotment takes off with seedlings, fruit and vegetable and we can not wait to see that it all in a few weeks and months time!

What great evening! A lovely setting at the Braywick Nature Centre (which GoodGym March Quest runners now know used to be a stable block for Braywick manor), a tree-mendous task to get our (saw) teeth into and lots of chatter and laughter. It was delightful to hear Rekha exclaim on seeing Georgeta: 'we've met before! I once threw a pancake at her!' Only at GoodGym...

It was a chilly evening but the firewood kept us warm - well the effort of sawing it up did anyway! It was a great upper body work out. We worked in pairs taking turns to saw and hold the logs steady - the most effective method seemed to be casually sitting on the log. Slowly but saw-ly the pile of long poles, which the Braywick team had collected from the reserve, dwindled down, and the pile of 12 inch (ish) cut lengths grew into an impressive heap. This wood will season over the next year, ready to be used as firewood in outdoor learning sessions run by the centre.

There are only a few poles left for next week's team to tackle, but no doubt the Braywick team will find some more tasks to keep us busy.

Well done team! Hope your arms aren't too saw in the morning.

What a month of running tag antics! Well done to everyone who has tagged, nearly tagged, been inspired by the game to plot a new route, or helped the rest of us with clues on the WhatsApp group. As many of you will already know, we've enjoyed this game so much that we've decided to keep it going for another month. Hurrah! If you haven't already signed up, then click here for the May listing.

**Report written by our brilliant Quest Quizmaster James Lovell:

Well done to everyone who took part in the Mad March Quest, and especially to the amazing eight people who got all the questions, Juli, Sophie, Claire, Michelle, Matt, Tara, Amy and Jess!

Looking back on it all now, what an exciting month it was. Juli leapt into an early lead with a stonking 10 on the first day, a lead that she would never relinquish for too long. Jason put up a strong challenge early in the month keeping Juli on her toes. Meanwhile Sophie and Claire gradually accumulated away. At the end of the first week the most popular question was about a pub – perhaps we were all dreaming that they were open!

At the half way mark, Juli, Sophie and Claire were all within 10 of the end, but the clues were getting trickier to get to. Sophie and Claire ticked them off one by one, edging towards the finish over a couple of days. Juli on the other hand went on one long run, smashing the last few clues to jump to the top of the leaderboard and be the first to finish. Sophie followed within hours to claim silver, and Claire a few days later for bronze. Juli’s effort was particularly impressive, not only did she finish first, but she also completed all of it on foot – 160Km in 18 days. A special mention also to Matt who started late, but completed it quicker than anyone else, in just 15 days.

One of the main challenges for the Maidenhead-based people was how to get the Windsor questions. Sophie and Claire, and Paul and Tara, went on epic bike rides to achieve this – Sophie in particular complaining of a sore rear for days afterwards! Paul and Tara were on a birthday outing and racked up a massive 32 answers, the most in a single outing! What a way to celebrate! On a separate occasion, Tara demonstrated her route planning ability, plotting a route in the shape of a large…finger.

There were interesting scenes in Littlewick Green where they were filming a Midsummer Murder about scarecrows, and a couple of people reported asking bemused film crew members to go and get the answer for them. From scarecrows to scary, Jess and Sophie terrified themselves on a ghostly night run in the woods looking for a memorial to a crashed WW2 plane.

Some incredible distances were covered in pursuit of the truth. Jess completed her first half marathon by accident, just going for one more clue a few times too many. Clare had an amazing 30km walk/run adventure around Cookham and Hurley, fuelled by ice cream delivered to her on route by her husband.

But for me the highlight of the month long quest was Sophie and Jess, at dusk by the river, having to ask two men smoking ‘special’ cigarettes to move off the bench they were sitting on to see which organisation had donated the bench. Well done ladies!

Congratulations to everyone who took part, here is a links to the finishing leaderboard and answers.

This was the first Goodgym mission since forever and running to the meeting place and seeing the other Goodgymers with their red tops really brightened our day.

6 of us descended into the various fields of Ockwells Park equipped with hoops, bags and litter pickers. 2 teams of 3 runners each peeled their eyes to the ground to find any rubbish.

We were talking about the conflicting idea of whether we want to find loads of litter to fill our rubbish bags or whether it's better to not find anything because it means everyone who visits the area takes care and their rubbish back to the appropriate bins.

Overall it was a successful mission with 3 bags filled but also not too much rubbish to lose faith in humanity!

Other park users complimented our efforts and some young children informed us that they had already learnt in school that you are not supposed to leave your rubbish... well done to the schools for getting the message out.

After the litter pick we made our way to a 0.5, 0.6 or even 0.7 mile away green space for a fun and engaging fitness session that included balancing a loo roll on your head, jumping jacks and everybody's favourite BURPEES.

We felt tired but grateful and really can't wait for the next mission.