A GoodGym bonanza today with Hilary, Nick and Md all joining from Newham.

It was a quick setup by Sooz, Nick and regular Mas.

Sooz led the usual announcements including a quick passing mention of her birthday and announced muffins and flapjacks for the finishers!

Sarah heading to her space at the tree, and with almost more volunteers than runners, we were off.

16 youngsters made it across the line and although there was a slight hiccup with the first place finisher having taken somewhat of a shortcut all was soon fixed and complete for another week!

The original idea was to help set up the family party for our friends at the canal club, not least so Tower Hamlets had a Saturday morning task that week

As it happened, we were involved in another task https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/setting-up-a-stall-for-the-cemetery-park-summer-fair-c49d2f87-92f2-412b-8628-5a61e8b8a8dc that morning, and coincidently, Sally from the canal club phoned on Wednesday to suggest we instead served coffee in the afternoon. Synchonisity!

So five of us turned up in dribs and drabs, to find the task had changed yet again – we were now looking after the barbeque! And it turned out that special guest Sooz from Hackney was a dab hand at turning chicken, halal skewers and sweetcorn, until they were just nicely cooked through the inside

Other useful attendees were Sam, despite a late night at the Queen’s Head in St Pancras, Ilana, who’d just knocked nearly a minute off her previous ParkRun PB (despite a lack of photographic evidence), and Adam and Emma, who stayed well beyond the call of duty in order to tend the barbeque and keep everything safe and sound.

Lending their hands for the second part of this Bike Shed thriller, Sooz and Matt should be commended for their diligent patience. They were left twiddling their thumbs for a good part of an hour as the dismantling overran. Maybe the timings were over-optimistic given the shed’s size…

Meanwhile, en route fast from the dismantling, Bike Shed originals Audrey, Louise and Md blitzed a sweaty scenic run through Victoria Park whilst Jack lazily took a lift in one of the vans - enjoying the A/C and eating cake whilst doing so, probably.

When the truck finally arrived at the school we carefully worked in teams to lift, manoeuvre and place down the heavy pieces in an organised fashion. Our work mirrored an Ikea instruction manual on the playground.

The trickiest part was moving the perspex roof covers, which bent and wobbled, teasing us that they might crack and make all our work in vain. It took all of us and some chuckle-brotheresque communication skills (to me, to you) to slide them off of the truck’s footbed and stack them daintily on top of each other.

By the time we had unloaded and organised the pieces it was sadly time up for the gang. With no time left to reassemble we vowed to fight another day should we get the call from the parents in need.

The Bike Shed saga, to be continued…

There are plenty of new youngsters coming down to this regular GoodGym x parkrun task at London Fields. Today's first place and first timer to London Fields clocked in an impressive 07:27 and it wasn't even his personal best!

A crowd of usual GoodGym suspects joined the ranks with Rue taking up the post of Run Director - with his trademark warm up routine slightly shortened for the hot weather. But the cries of "You're amazing" could still be heard across the Fields.

Sooz was trusted with Timekeeping and tokens - an easier role today with only 30 participants - and Sarah of course could be found under her tree.

Join us next week for more fun at the Fields!