14 runners ran 8km to help Harrison Road Methodist Church prepare their garden for their family fun day

Horrific rain at 3.30pm , 13 signed up to help, brace for dropouts or the task owner phoning to cancel. Wow, wow, wow. GoodGym runners are a hardy bunch and not only did all 13 turn up, we had one extra too to make a wonderful group of 14 runners who ran and gardened in challenging conditions to help out Harrison Road Methodist Church.

Tonight we were delighted to welcome Chris, Dani, Dave, Elena, Louise, Matt and Sam along to their first ever group run and boy did they pick a lovely night for it! One of our longer run commutes to a brand new task and rain that got rather heavy as we approached the end of our task. Every one of you got stuck in on the run, the task and the social side of the group. We hope you enjoyed it and tonight will be the first but certainly not the last time you come along to be part of GoodGym! A particular well done to Chris who was dragged along by Elena and worked really hard to run the 8km (sorry for making it a bit longer than advertised!), a great effort! We congratulated Dave and Jimmy on their Swithland 6 runs on Sunday and Irene for her Edinburgh Marathon the previous weekend and then we were off.

After taking the slightly more scenic (longer) route to the task along the river past Abbey Park and across Cossington Rec we arrived at the church to be greeted by Ajay. He showed us the front and back gardens which both required our attention. Dave E, Louise, Lindsay, Elena and Chris got stuck into the front while Dani, Sam, Mel, Dave S, Jimmy, Matt, Irene and Sharon headed out back with Huw flitting between the two and occasionally getting his hands dirty. Borders were turned over, weeds were removed, bin bags were filled, all while the rain threatened to get heavier, finally delivering on its promise ensuring we were all absolutely soaked to the bone when our time ran out. A cracking effort given the conditions and Ajay has already emailed to thank us, well done everybody!

We opted for the more direct (shorter) route back to base with lots of traffic crossings giving people a brief breather, landing back at DMU having run just shy of 8km...Chris and Elena even managed a cheeky sprint finish!

There will be an opportunity for a community mission to return and add a few finishing touches to the garden there, look out for it on the website, in the weekly fitness email on Thursday and on the Facebook group for more details once we've agreed on a time/date.

Next week we're off to support the Rothley 10k raise money for some fantastic local charities. There are options to volunteer before the race and enter it or join us for a shorter group run before marshalling the race itself.

Happy running, HD