There were surprises at Pitshanger Junior parkrun after the morning's fitness session, with a new clip-on tiger tail putting a smile on Kash's face. She showed it off as she and a second tailwalker brought up the rear, making sure all runners made it to the finish safely. They were misled by latecomers, having to drop back to pick up a new 'last child' more than once.

The other 4 GoodGymers, Harvey, Maria, Steph and Sevan were all assigned to be a formidable cheering force at one marshal point, quadrupling their volume to give the runners a boost to the finish line. As well as cheering, Steph and Harvey played a global game of guess the football strip, spotting supporters of Morocco, Valencia, Brentford and the mighty Hanwell Town.

Near the end of the parkrun, the tailwalkers stopped and looked confused. After picking up extra runners around the course. The last one decided to dive into the nearby playground instead of reaching the funnel, leaving the number of today's finishers at 98.

Our GoodGym gang defo got the tutu memo - the dressage was out in impressive force. Extra cudos must go to Sevan for making not one but two tutus (sorry!) and Maria for bagging a bin bag tutu!

The kids may not have got the tutu memo, probably because they don’t know what a memo is. But 50 runners got the message to show up and run round Pitshanger Park - bravo!

It wasn’t just a tutu day, it was also a marshal day, timekeeper day and tailwalker day. The latter featuring a pirouetting Stef, still quite taken by sporting his tutu.

After a short break from the constant downpur on Saturday, the havy rain was back on Sunday morning, bringing plenty of puddles and mud to Pitshanger junior parkrun course. The weather wasn't without impact on the turnout as only 30 young runners showed up and completed the course despite miserable conditions - well done to all of them!

Among three GoodGymers who helped out at the event, was Maria, who came prepared with an umbrella, with which she famously ran to the marshal post number 3. Sevan was guarding the marshal position number 1 and witnessed karma in action when one of top three runners decided to cut the corner and slid on the muddy patch. Kash came into the most contact with the puddles, running the course with the children as the tail walker.

Maria, apart from being an umbrella runner, came to fame, donning the 50 good deeds rosette and the Wonder Woman headband, and bringing her usual upbeat self to the otherwise gloomy day. Well done Maria - onto the next 50 good deeds!

It was another busy day at Pitshanger Junior parkrun, with plenty of runners, volunteers and 7 GoodGymers in total. It was great to see Chris back at one of our tasks after a bit of a break and she was marshalling along with Maria. Chris is not be confused with Chris who was one of many funnel managers.

The first of the 119 finishers was timed at a hair over 7 minutes by Sevan, which is rather speedy. There was more drama to come at the other end of the field as the last runner (let's call her Joan for the sake of the pun) collected an army of hi-vis clad troops in her wake. They included many Duke of Edinburgh marshals and tailwalkers Kash, Steph and Angela, who got up early to attend her first GoodGym session. Welcome Angela! 🥳👏🙌

Joan's poorly camouflaged army marched towards the funnel and stopped just short. There was a stand off, with everyone in the funnel wanting Joan to peacefully cross the line and Joan being a bit grumpy and threatening at the gates. Eventually, Joan's army was dispersed and her mum convinced her to complete the 2km and collect the last finish token. Disaster averted for another week.

Today was the last Junior parkrun before Xmas and Santa had come to town early. There was lots of fancy dress on show at Pitshanger Juniors from the volunteers and also the runners 🤶⛄🎅.

Steph, Harvey and Sevan spread Xmas cheer as marshals, encouraging the runners around the course and making sure they made it around safely. At the other end of the naughty-nice spectrum, tail walkers Kash and Maria turned one little girl into the Grinch 👹.

The girl didn't want to complete the course, didn't want to be spoken to and didn't want to be followed by the tail walkers, which is difficult as that's the whole point of their role. She was being a bit mean and definitely not in the Christmas spirit. Maybe she has tail walker phobia? Her grandma said that the child would drop out, so the tail walkers passed her, then 15 minutes later, she was still working her way around the course. After reaching the funnel, Kash went to find the grouchy child and carefully supported them to get to the finish.

Pitshanger Junior parkrun celebrated a huge milestone today, their 500th event! 🥳👏 To celebrate, they'd asked everyone present to wear blue and one of the organisers had even brought cake to celebrate the 11 years that the event had been running 🎂. Four of the original volunteers from that first parkrun in 2014 were present too.

Little did they know that an elite group of 11 (co-incidentally) puddle jumpers and cake box crackers was present within the 80 finishers and 38 volunteers today. By the time that Harvey and Kash had returned from their marshalling duties, there were only crumbs left of the cake that once represented the parkrun's route. Sevan was timekeeping and his evidence was pieced together with the chocolately finger prints around the crime scene to hunt down the cake robbing culprits, some of whom are still at large 🕵️.

GoodGym will be back supporting Pitshanger Junior parkrun in 2 weeks, when there may be 11 fewer runners present. They would love to have as many volunteers as today, so please sign up to help make this brilliant event happen.