13 runners, 6km of street pounding and hundreds of bitey red ants! All in an evenings work for GoodGym Ealing helping Trees For Cities.

In the mix last night we had Samina, brand new to GoodGym (and running full stop!) she smashed out 4 miles and got stuck in the the task at hand. What a great achievement! Much like the ants I hope she's been bitten by the running bug! We also had tourist, Jenny, from GoodGym Barnet join us for the evening, great to have you Jenny!

After some introductions and some warm up exercises (not much needed on such a muggy evening!) we weaved our way down to the canal where we met with tools and shown back to the spot we had started to clear a few weeks ago. There was still so much to do and many more trees to unearth so we all got stuck straight in.

Once bitten...

It wasn't long before we realised the stinging in our legs wasn't the familiar nettle sting we were all used to but we had in fact been joined by hundreds of bitey red ants! The key was to keep moving and not stand too still, all just adding to the exercise for the evening. Undeterred the group ploughed on and continued to unveil lots of hidden saplings now being given the space to continue to grow.

Although a little stingy at times, everyone really loves this task. It's great to see the difference we've made straight away and we all left knowing that we'd helped with a really important job that would otherwise struggle to get done.