This morning nine intrepid GoodGym volunteers helped out at Walthamstow Parkrun. After meeting and debriefing outside Greenleaf Road Baptist Church at sunrise, we headed off to our destination.

Along with a clutch of regular runners were delighted to be joined by Dr. Helen for the first time. Helen has wanted to join us on a Wednesday run for some time but has been too busy saving lives in a local hospital! It was also good to see Lawrence, yet another hardworking local who has joined us once previously, but the demands of work have made it difficult for him to schedule a return engagement.

Of course, all of our volunteers today deserve enormous thanks for getting up early on a cold Saturday morning to help 135 people participate in a 5km run.

Anyhoo, back to the day's events. After a 1-mile run to Parkrun, we arrived warm and ready to go. We met with Ellis the day's Run Director and, after setting up, we were allocated various roles for the event. With plenty of mud on the course, marshals played a key role in helping to make sure people didn't arrive at the finish line looking like a Tough Mudder competitor. In addition to our marshalls, we had race timers and token scanners. Our Parkrun crew of volunteers were bolstered by a pair of splendidly kitted out tail-walkers, replete with a couple of tremendous tails too.

No sooner than we were all in place than all the runners arrived at the startline and Ellis got things going. With a challenging course choice of footwear was essential for the runners and sure enough, spike wearing East London Runner, Patrick Brown crossed the line in 19:56, the fastest time of the day. The day's fastest women was Ellie Hallsworth who bagged a PB with 24:56.

After these swift runners crossed the line runners came in thick and fast and our timers and scanners beavered away to ensure that all participants had their times clocked and barcodes scanned.

After one hour and twenty-three minutes of action, the final participant crossed the line and our smiling, but numb toed, volunteers packed away and headed for a well-deserved breakfast.

Great work, everyone. If you want to join for the next session, we will be painting a nice warm, dry room in Walthamstow Village, sign-up here

To find out and participate in Walthamstow Parkrun look here

☮️