It was another week of GoodGym doing a little bit to keep parkruns across Birmingham running. Balal was timekeeping at Edgbaston Reservoir and Naneesh and Bal once again got the course set up at Perry Hall. Balal went for a Man Utd away shirt to celebrate the signing of Christiano Ronaldo, and his own birthday, as opposed to the GoodGym red today.

This week we had five goodgymers helping at two parkruns in Birmingham. Liam was giving out tokens and Aslaug was marshaling at Edgbaston Reservoir. Naneesh was out early with Bal setting up the course at Perry Hall while John set up the finish area. Naneesh was then able to take part while James scanned the finishing tokens and John was timekeeping using the app. With the rain deciding to fall just after the start time at 9am, it turned out to be a better day to stand under an umbrella, with a lot of slog and toil for the runners being celebrated by all the volunteers.

It has been quite a month for parkrun in Birmingham, with most events resuming 4 weeks ago, the inaugural Woodgate Valley last week and the first parkrun at Edgbaston Reservoir that two of us volunteered at today. Liam has been involved with organising this parkrun and getting it ready to start, and he was timekeeping today on the app. I was also using the parkrun volunteer app to scan barcodes for finishers at the end of the run. We were joined by Miriam and Balal who took part in the run and it went well with all runners enjoying the picturesque surroundings.

Across the city, after two weeks of training, Naneesh and Bal set up the course at Perry Hall, and as you can see in the pictures, the cones were laid out in exquisitely straight lines. I definitely couldn't have done better myself.

Today we had three goodgymers donning the pink hi-viz vests to help at Perry Hall parkrun. Again, I helped to set out the course with Bal and Naneesh. We had done our duties, walking and chatting around the park, by the time the runners had gathered for the start. It was great to see James as we ran around, as he was marshalling at the bridge and giving much needed vocal encouragement to us and everyone as they took part in parkrun today.

Today I set up the course with Naneesh and Bal, who will be doing a few more set ups over the next few weeks, so were making sure they knew the positions of the cones and signs. Doing this, we were all able to take part in the 5k, thanks to the other volunteers, including Aslaug, who was doing her first GoodGym task today. It was great to see her although I can't say we met properly as it was mainly very breathy thank you's as I pushed around to get a fast time.

It was great that James also reached out and volunteered at Cannon Hill parkrun, as Perry Hall had managed to fill their volunteer rota. Fiona also volunteered at Brueton parkrun. It was a valuable thing to do as all of the parkruns are having to find more volunteers than ever because of the Covid framework that they are setting up events with for the foreseeable future. On that note, if you are free on any Saturday mornings coming up, find one of the community missions coming up for information about how you can get involved with your local parkrun.