This week our group run was part of the Great British Spring Clean for Keep Britain Tidy.

We only had a short distance to run so after our warm up we first headed across to Manor Park for a lap and then some relay dashes across the park to get our distance up.

Well warmed up with all that on what was a chilly windy evening, we moved on to meet with Kevin from ABCD Luton, who is leading a clean sweep across Luton, working with loads of local community groups to make a complete chain of litter picks from North to South.

Our stretch seemed fairly simple and clear but once we started probing the bushes with our pickers we soon found loads of litter. We ended up with one trolley 🛒 and 11 bags of rubbish, including a small bucket of pickled herrings, a shoe, a boot and a Christmas bauble among all the usual foot and drink wrappers.

finally back to Manor Park where the basketball court hosted our super quick six minute abs session before we had a cool down walk back to our start point.

This week we took on a couple of riverside tasks, first clearing up a ton of litter revealed during some scrub clearance work at a quiet riverside spot. While there we also spread out woodchip on the paths to make a nice mud-free riverside path. then we jogged on to another spot further down where a natural den by the river was attracting anti social behaviour, we took out some saplings and shrubs to open up this area and make it less secluded for dodgy activities. With the playground nearby this makes it a nicer place for kids to play and they can get in more easily to explore the river now.

We were joined in all this by Sam from the council who looks after all the volunteers in Luton's green spaces. He's been a fan of GoodGym for ages and regularly sets tasks for us but finally managed to join us for his first run as joint member and task owner!