Autumn is truly upon us judging by the chill in the air first thing this morning and the leaves on the ground, but that didn't deter 50 keen runners arriving at the Fields for another Sunday morning two lapper - including two first ever timers, 10 PBs, and some overseas visitors from Germany - quite a selection to cheer on.

As always our volunteer force were able to make it all happen successfully - so much thanks to Sarah, Hilary, Rue, Md for helping Run Director Nick navigate event #393 and keep it all on track.

Our first finisher today, a first time visitor, sped round in 8:13 and had quite a gap behind her as she crossed the line before our next group of lead runners came down the finish funnel, and after that it was the usual steady stream of slightly breathless smiling faces collecting a token before we got to the tail end of the pack who were clearly enjoying their morning run/walk in the sunshine.

Meet us under the Big Tree for more of the same next week.

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...