On a beautiful Sunday morning, waking a bit more tired then normal having lost an hour sleep, Junior Parkrun was ready to start. On heading to Woking park, lots of children were quickly heading to the park excited to be there for their Sunday morning exercise through the park.

I arrived and Goodgymers Wayne and Anne were there already and waiting. Wayne was taking the role of marshal by the park entrance and Anne was in charge of handing the tokens to the children as they passed the finish line.

As Rich, the run director was announcing the accolades accomplished by some of the runners, one stood out for this event. Ethan, a regular runner and someone that volunteers often had reached an amazing milestone in junior parkrun history, not only had he volunteered for parkrun a great number of times; this event was his 250 junior parkrun having started from the first junior parkrun in 2017. What an amazing achievement.

After we all applauded that great achievement, wishing all the mothers a happy mother's day. And once the warm up was finished and everyone headed to the start line. James quickly made his way there as his role was time keeper. The run started and everyone made it safely too the first marshal before circling around the cricket pitch. The sun was shining brightly by this point and the wind eased off, although still a bit chilly!

It wasn't long before the first lap was completed and the children running were fully spread around the course. My role was to ensure only children went through the finish line!

The first child crossed the line in under 8 minutes, a really impressive time. There was a little gap before more children came streaming through the finish line. In total 96 children completed the 2 lap course and so the cleanup started. And well done to Wayne and Anne as they headed to their next task. 👏🏾💪🏾

Six GoodGymers, Agathe, Katie, Nadia, Rebecca, Wayne and Anne met at the Leisure Center last night. It was still light and mild, but some of us were cautious and wore an extra layer of clothing and a torch. These were useful during and after the run as it became dark and chilly! But bonus points for the optimistic runners who made us believe that spring was really with us!

Well done Wayne who had already run about 10 kms with some hill training just before meeting us at the Leisure Centre. It was great that Rebecca, despite her heavy schedule, managed to run with us. Katie has resumed her regular training with the aim of completing the upcoming Martian Race.

We started the session with a warm up and a group photo. Nadia and Anne guided the group to the planned 5 kms route as they had already done it with another running group. We all ran at a comfortable pace allowing us to chat and catch up with news.

Agathe impressed us all by completing the session without walking at all. Agathe cycles everywhere, but running is new to her.

We hope to see you at junior parkrun this coming Sunday. Or you might prefer helping out WEAct making Woking a healthier, greener place for us all? We will remove brambles and thinning out holly shrubs? See the diary for more details.

Happy running to you all.

*White Rose Lane Nature Reserve 🍁 *

This morning we were out in nature again assisting WeAct 🌎 at white rose lane nature reserve amongst the big Oak Trees 😄

Wayne & Anne finished volunteering at junior park run and met up with Luan at the leisure centre. From here we ran 2k to the nature reserve 🏃🏼‍♂️

The meeting place was by the bridge going over the Hoe Stream. Here we met up with Chris and the rest of the WeAct 🌎 team. It was great seeing Chris again, Luan did fantastically well running the 2k.

From the bridge we walked over to the other side of the stream where Charlie showed us what we had to do. The main job was ro remove the Himalayan Balsam which grows up to 14ft in very quick time.We also had to removed Laurel and create dead hedges.

We split up into 2 groups armed with all sorts of tools we got stuck in. Wayne & Chris started cutting the big Laural logs into smaller sections while Anne & Luan gathered the Laurel and started to build the dead hedge it was a beautiful morning to be out in the reserve ☀️.

While removing the Himalayan Balsam Anne came across a pile of old shoes under the laurels (No Matching Pairs 🤣)

Luan was loving her time out this morning and found it some interesting facts. The laurel that was cleared today wasn't native to the reserve 🌳 it was brought over in the Victorian age because it was fashionable to have green hedge leaves and branches cover the forest floor, but actually it smothers other plants and trees and shades everything so it cannot grow, hence the reason why it needs to be managed.

Half was through a well deserved cuppa was had and in no time we had done so much this area of the reserve was looking great.

We have many more out door tasks coming up please check the listings , Happy Mothers Day to all you amazing mums. 💐

St John's Lye Heathland 🌳

This was our 2nd task of the day and once again we would join up with WeAct 🌍 to assist them with expanding the heathland by removing invasive saplings.

Wayne, Karen, & Adam were coming straight from Junior park run. Wayne drove to the Lye as he had to get away earlier than the rest of the team, Karen &Adam ran the 3k to the meeting point.

Anne & Agathe met along the canal at WWF an ran the 2.5k route. We all arrived at pretty much the same time. We met up with Charlie and his team after a brief of what we were going to do we walked to the heathland.

After a 7 mins walk we arrived to a shocking scene. There has been a fire over the last few days as WeAct were at the site at the beginning of the week and it was clear. The grounds were black with Ash and burnt grass heathland. Hayden from WeAct said it could have been started deliberately or was natural as it had been very dry recently.

WeAct had done some prep work already as they had cut and piled up silver birches which were over taking the heathland. We started to process them by cutting them back and making wild hedage fence. Anne, Karen, & Agathe were part of this team. Adam apart from running wanted an arm and shoulder workout 👊 so got stuck into removing some tree stumps Wayne was using his weaving skills to build up the hedge as well as putting in steaks to extend the line of the hedge fence.

While working away conversation started about Karen 3 week trip to Machu Picchu when she flys out on Thursday. Sounds amazing and we are looking forward to seeing photo's and hikes and following Karen on Strava 😊.

Withing an hour the hedge had grown and Adam was looking like the Hulk 🤣.

We have a few outdoor tasks coming up over the next few weeks with WeAct 🌍 which have been listed as part of Goodgym's Working in Nature partnership with WWF.

Woking Junior Park Run

Woking Junior Park Run returned this morning after last weeks Surrey 1/2 Marathon had taken over the park. It was great seeing the faces of the young runners who also took part last Sunday for the Kids Race showing off their medals 🥇

Wayne, Karen, Adam, & Caterina were out on the course as marshals cheering and encouraging the runners around the 2k course. Even though the sky's were gray it was great conditions to run 😊

In total this morning there were 131 runners with the fastest time an amazing 07:00. There were also 62 PB's greatrunning by everyone.

Sean Coxhead Inspiring Individual Award 2024 Trophy Presenation 🏆

This evening Woking GG celebrated all that is good and wonderful about our Anne 😇

Woking GG had reserved a VIP section at the Sovereign's and it was great to see such a good turn out. All our fantastic crew Adam, James, Wayne, Katie, Alys, Agathe, Maya, Rebecca, Kirsty, Lauren, Julie, Nadia, Luan, Caterina, & Sally Anne who was back in town for a few weeks as she was on uni break (Was great to see Sally Anne) and a lovely surprise for Anne 😄 it was also great to see Phil who joined us to celebrate Anne.

Anne has been with Woking GG from the very beginning she was there at the launch night back in 2016. She has seen many faces come and go but Anne has remained that constant face encouraging, supporting showing kindness to all that have joined. Her dedication and commitment has been amazing and it shows with over 300 good deeds and still going strong ❤️

Anne has taken on the roles as task force and now run leader, and continues to help others with organizing hill training sessions as well as tasks within the community.

Woking GG are very lucky to have her, Anne in her speech tonight dedicated her award to all her goodgym crew who she said also deserved the award but in our eyes Anne is a worthy winner of this amazing award as she also has all the attributes that amazing Sean had ❤️