James and Steve Helped Ms J tidy a wintry weedy garden into something ready to embrace spring.

James and Steve met the lovely and super-appreciative Ms J on an increasingly sunny Sunday morning. She gave us some tools to get to work and the two of us set about clearing the front garden of weeds, freeing up space between some rose bushes which should look spectacular later in the year.

James was a-hurtin’ from the Goodgym team’s venture to Brighton the day before for a pretty brutal sounding X-Country race that overdid it on the cold, mud and bad weather. Can’t dampen the spirits of Red Thunder though!

Conversation amongst the flowerbeds covered Labradoodles, Schnoodles, entitled cats, Berlin (the city, not the band), “are there any weeding puns left?”, broken ankles (ouch!) and upcoming big runs such as The Big Half, Colchester Marathon and LLanelli Great Welsh Marathon / Half. Steve is also hatching a plan with Tom Benson and Graham Atkins for the Lakeland Trails Marathon / Half / 10k trip, one of the Goodgym Big Six this year. Watch this space!

Ms J offered us some water and was really grateful for the help. She mentioned that her back garden also needs some attention - we may be back soon!

We set off on our way, with both of us stepping up our running somewhat and headed east - James to help out on another mission with some of the Hackney Goodgym team (hooray for James!) and Steve to continue his run to Victoria Park.

Wish us luck!