Seventeen savvy GoodGymmers ran 5km to Stephen's House to help in the Bothy Garden 🌿

Meeting at the Phoenix, we welcomed tourists Dharmesh and Patrick to GGB - nice to see you gents! ✈

We also welcomed back our runners from a stellar weekend of racing: Shaun had done the Edinburgh Half, while Abi, Charlotte, Mumtaz, Sally, Patrick, Dharmesh, and Rob smashed the Vitality 10k in Central London on Monday. well done guys!!! 🏅🏅🏅

It is ALSO Katie's 50th good deed! give her a cheer! Phew!

We set off to Stephen's House with Abi and Charlotte backmarking. It's about 2.5km so we took it at an easy pace to start with and we scooped up Fay, Claire and Mumtaz on arrival.

We met Alison and Warwick who let us into the Bothy Garden and explained the task. The Bothy is used by a handful of charities who offer therapy and counseling services, for which the beautiful garden is very useful. Unfortunately disaster had struck: an infestation of box caterpillars meant that the plants, especially the bushes surrounding their new flower beds, are dying. The only solution was to dig up the afflicted plants and take them away to be burned 😔

Using gloves, forks and shovels the team got to work digging up the bushes were chopped, grabbed and squashed into bags and dragged away to be burned.

After half an hour we had cleared most of the plants and dragged the bags away. Our hosts Alison and Warwick would finish the job (and tidy up a bit) the next day. This was particularly heartbreaking for Alison and Warwick because they had worked so hard to get the garden looking so good. We are ready to help to get it back to it's former glory!

After a quick group pic we found some open space and worked on everyone's favourite: core! We did 6 core exercises, with 40 seconds on and 20 seconds rest in between. Well done everyone, especially after such a physical task!

From there it was a nice run back to the Phoenix, plus the sprint finish, then stretches.

We then headed to the Clissold Arms for our GGB SOCIAL! Thanks very much to unofficial-official social sec Mumtaz who not only organised, but ALSO baked brownies! Picture evidence above. Give her a cheer!!

See you all soon.

🤘🤘🤘