On an unusually warm, but wet and windy October morning, 17 runners helped the Mina Road Park Group out of a bit of a bind with bind weed at Ashley Street Park. In honour of leading my first run, star jumps were a key feature of the warm up. It soon became clear that star jumps are not everyone's favourite! Since it was a weekend, we took a leisurely pace through Riverside Park and took a tour of the roundabout under the M32 to add a few extra meters to the 6K run. Once we found Ashley Street Park, we quickly set to work freeing the apple trees and shrubbery from the bind weed that had cleverly used artichoke plants as a trellis.

Needless to say we didn't choke!

What looked like a relatively small job at first, soon turned into a huge clear out as the pile of discarded bind weed threatened to overtake the children's play area (which some GoodGymers used to indulge their inner child). After about 50 minutes, the area had been completely transformed and I was kicking myself for not taking a "before" photo. The impressive and efficient work showed just how much of a difference a few determined runners can make in less than an hour. By the time we had returned to Mud Dock, the sun was shining and many of us stayed to reward our efforts with late breakfast and cake.

Welcome to our newest runner Jason and a special thank you goes out to Dave for backmarking and to James for bringing the gloves!