TEN brilliant runners joined me in Brent to run 5km help the amazing Cricklewood Town Team and NW TWO and do some fitness fun!

What a lovely summer-esque evening we had in Brent and we had a lovely group for some much needed help in the gardens around Cricklewood Station.

After we had all gathered together we did a quick intro covering the recent Sofia trip, the upcoming Olympics, socials in June and in Brent in July and talked through the task today! We also welcomed Valentina properly as the last time she came to Brent we missed her and she joined us at the task! We did a quick warm up and then we switched things around and I asked Liz to lead us to Cricklewood Station and I took the up back-marker position.

It was just over 1km to the station and we tackled it at easily. Once there we met Marie and Lindsay and soon we were split up and working away:

• Pete and Karishma were on watering duties filling up buckets with water at the station before using a shopping trolley to take them to tree pits down the road
• Tabitha, Liz, Marcos and Felicia took on some weeding and general sweeping duties
• Valentina, Clare, Samina, and Claire took on weeding duties doing so well they moved on to a bigger area around the corner too

Amazing work from everyone with a good 30 mins of hard graft - the ladies were so impressed (see thank you email in pics) and have asked us back for as much help as we can give - we'll be back for sure!

With that the task done it was time for some fitness, I led the group down to Gladstone Park and then set out the fitness plan. Today we were combining three things that make fitness the most fun of all:

• running
• drills
• competition

We split into two teams of five and using lampposts and benches as markers we set out running distances and then exercises that had to be done. The teams then had to plan who would be best placed to take on the drills and then set their order. It was a super fun race, everyone put their all in and due to some mix ups I declared everyone a winner as it hadn't been quite the fairest race! Well done and here's to more sunny evenings for more fitness sessions.

Once we had got our breath back we said goodbye to Marcos who headed home from the park and then we headed back to base with everyone working super hard to get up the final hill. With that all done we did our all important stretches and then headed for a drink and most importantly of all we congratulated Pete on his FIFTIETH GOOD DEED! Amazing from Pete and well done everyone.

Remember we are still running next week - no bank holiday will stop us! Task to be confirmed asap but sign up here.

Cheers,
Pritesh