Meeting up on the first Monday since the clocks changed to signal the appearance of winter. The pre-run chat was about the chilly evening and how hard core Robin and Nicola were having completed a marathon & half marathon respectively on Sunday.

Our task this evening was to visit Castle Hill Community Centre, which entailed our longest run to date, a round trip of five miles. This particular task had been postponed a few times so it was good to finally get it under our belts.

On arrival we were greeted by Garath and directed to two rooms, one which needed preparation for painting and one which was ready to be painted. Robin, Matt, Hayley and Gemma dived into sugar soaping the walls in the first room while everyone else headed up the grand stairway and grabbed an array of paint brushes & rollers and set to.

The challenge was to try and get one coat of magnolia paint completed on all the walls in 30 minutes. This seemed like a tall order but as each 10 minute time point was called out it looked likely it might just happen.

With designated "cutting inners" and "rollers" working in happy harmony along with Matt's height proving a superb replacement for a ladder - he didn't need to stand on a chair at all - the light, bright magnolia swiftly replaced old, dull brown.

As the time ticked by we agreed with Garath to return next week to complete a second coat. He couldn't quite believe what we had achieved and everyone was keen to see the job through to completion. So the final few rolls and brush strokes completed the initial coat and it was fantastic to stand back and see the transformation from a dull, grubby looking room to a brighter and cleaner space.

The return run took us back on a slightly different route and on the 2nd half the whole group stayed together, with in a train formation - with each back marker sprinting to the front of the group in turn.

Our longest run yet was achieved with everyone arriving back at UoS together, before a quick stretch to finish. Great work specially by those who had never run as far before.

Next week we'll return to Castle Hill for the sequel.... sign up here http://tinyurl.com/y84awamh