Tonight's run was the shortest for a while so it would have been rude not to take a detour to the task ;-)

A big welcome to new runners Tim and Jess.

We were visiting The Hamlet Children's Centre at the top of Grapes Hill to do some gardening tasks. A massive thanks to Grapes Hill Community Gardens for lending us some tools .

Now the reason we took a detour to the task is that Sam's (aka backrunner this week) husband made us a glorious looking Damson cake so I thought it'd be a good idea if we burnt off a few more calories, genius idea really. FYI the detour also included running up Grapes Hill.

It was one of those tasks that looked like there wasn't much to do but in fact there was loads. Mainly weeding and trimming bushes (no pun intended).

Some cleaned windows, Calum has a very fancy tool for this and them followed it up with a interesting technique when cleaning the gate poles... I won't repeat he described the so-called technique.

David kindly went home to get a broom and brush, which ended up being very useful to thank you for going to get them.

The team managed to fill lots of bags of green waste and cleared a lot in 40 minutes, especially on the road side where lots were overgrown.

Rumours started echoing through that there was an epic fitness session to finish up the night with... would I do such thing... YES I WOULD.

Alex tried to delay the inevitable by identifying another overgrown bush, apparently he likes them trimmed, again no pun intended. This bided about another 5 minutes but then it was time to head over to Chapelfield Gardens.

1st up was a running routing that involved groups of three. Two would run together a time and each loop they swap over with the runner waiting. That was done for 10 minutes.

Then to finish up was a pairs strength exercise. Person one does 10 squats, 10 push ups and 10 sit-ups. Once they completed those person two does the same and then keep changing over until both partners had completed 5 rounds. Apologies for any aching bodies over the next couple of days.

We headed back to The Forum, had a good stretch then ATE CAAAAAKKKEEEE!

Next week we're visiting Catton Grove Community Centre.