Oh buoy, what a way to start the week! There was sun (hurrah!), mud, mosquitoes and spiders. Oh, and a boat. In what was a first for GoodGym, tonight's task was to help out a local Scout's group in Richmond by cleaning their boat. And what a great job we did; we really pushed the boat out. Quite literally...

Before we could get started on the task, we had to get the boat onto the 'beach' (or the banks of the Thames). Sounds easy enough, right? Wrong! With a low tide and a rusty pipe working against us, a tug of war ensued between us and the boat. The boat almost won, but thanks to our perseverance and excellent manoeuvres from Mark up the wall - which would make Spider Man proud! - victory was ours: the boat was in place. Aboat time.

A tug of war ensued between us and the boat!

Finally we could start scrubbing! And scrub we did - despite the mosquito bites and spiders! By the time we had finished, one side of the boat was gleaming, entirely silt free. The other side would have meant wading through the river to reach - and we didn't fancy trying to move the boat again! We'll take our wellies to finish off the other side next time...

This was all after Mark had put us through our paces with a few sprints thrown into the run tonight. We definitely earned the free Graze snacks that Tom had kindly brought along.

We really 'sunk' our teeth into this week - I'm looking forward to next week's task already!

Lauren stepped up tonight in Elaine's absence and nailed a great report.

Tug of war training doesn't come much more hard core than tugging a boat out of the Thames. So this should put us in good shape for 9th June. We intend to have a bit of a social after the event so please come along whether it is to take part, cheer us on or have a drink. Please let me know asap if you wish to be part of the team

If you are interested in joining Jane on the 100 mile cycle ride with SPEAR please email to this address, fundraising@spearlondon.org

Next week, Himalayan Balsam - bring an extra pair of jogging bottoms/tracksuit to combat the nettles on site.