The GoodGym Swindon Community Mission saw us marshalling stations at this years Race for Life Pretty Muddy and Pretty Muddy Kids events at Lydiard Park.

The red shirt hero’s had the event cornered; Charles, Emma, Sharon, Simon and new recruit Stuart ‘Beat the Street’ Arthur looking after stations at various points on the course.

Emma and Simon, along with future GoodGym'ers Luke and Grace, were in charge of the High 5 Power Ball station. As Luke and Grace relaxed with Minecraft and LOL Dolls...

Simon shouted encouragement to 'hit as many balls as you can' or 'get those balls swinging'!

...while Emma provided a percussion sound track with maracas, a tamborine and plenty of 'well done's' while ducking muddy hugs and high 5’s. A few parkrun regulars made passing comments on how quiet she is without a microphone demanding silence for the usual Saturday morning pre-run briefing.

Charles looked after the inappropriately named Light at the End of the Tunnel. Looking more like something you’d find at the sewage works, this station had a short climb to three slides falling into a mud pit. The closest thing I could find to the usual 'hump and dump’ reference of a GoodGym Swindon task!!

Sharon controlled Durdles, a simple, yet effective, combination of dirt and hurdles. Knowing the minds of the organisers I bet the runners went under the hurdles, not over the top!!

Special cheers were given to GoodGym'ers Sam and Kirsty who run the course together with Swindon parkrun regulars Alex and Janet.

When we regrouped, Emma had clearly pulled rank as we came away relatively clean in comparison to Charles and Stuart who looked like they had really ‘mucked in’ either having a go on their stations, or getting in the way of a stampede of muddy runners!!

A great morning spent contributing to a really good event for a fantastic and really important cause. Thoughts now more towards the Prospect Hospice Run the Rainbow where we get to legally throw dry paint at people!