31 runners ran 5.4km to help Wheels for All at the County Ground in Swindon

So welcome everyone to GoodGym Swindon! With much anticipation and excitement our launch night had finally arrived. HOORAY!!! GoodGym was first talked about in Swindon by Paul 'The Scientist' Bonner back in the summer of 2016 and now at last it was here thanks to Paul and a small team of Run Leaders with interesting names:

• Emma 'The Trainer' Sperring
• Paul 'The Scientist' Bonner
• Emily 'Crazy Legs' McManamon
• Lewis 'The Bird' Bird!

Feel free to chat to Emily 'Crazy Legs' as to the meaning of these names! You will know her by sight as she has a reputation for wearing brightly coloured leggings at every opportunity!

With the paparazzi taking photos and people passing by wondering what was going on, the GoodGym Swindon crew gathered outside the the Oasis Leisure Centre ready to get going! Thanks to the Leader of the Council, David Renard, for the opening speech, Emma, 'The Trainer' then continued with some very important announcements, which I'm hoping everyone listened to?! Maybe the parkrun megaphone would be useful in the future?!

Following a headcount, we then made our way to the County Ground, home to Swindon Town Football Club, foregoing the shortest route so that we could go the Scenic Route around the Magic Roundabout, a new experience for our GoodGym visitors from Royal Wootton Bassett (you know who you are!), Bristol and London.

Then at last we turned the corner, ran towards the Athletics Track, and saw 'Bike Mechanic' Lew Lawton and the team from Wheels for All with buckets of soapy water and sponges ready and waiting for us to arrive to clean those dirty bikes! And what fun we all had not only cleaning the bikes but also testing them out around the County Ground Extension with Lewis 'The Bird' one of the first on a tandem! Thanks to Lew for his extensive knowledge of bike maintenance but also Ben, Rich and James from Wheels for All.

We then decided to head back to the Oasis, home of the famous Domebusters(!), with one group going the quickest way and another group taking a detour around Tesco, we all arrived back pretty much safely keen to do some stretching before Coffee Corner closed. And the best bit of the night - relaxing and having a chat while eating mini milks. Heaven!

Please come and join Paul 'The Scientist' next week for a steady run into Penhill. We will be getting those paintbrushes out ready to help Glynis at the Haven. From all of us at GoodGym Swindon we look forward to seeing you all again soon!