Last night 14 runners ran 4-5k, and in 30mins cleared 2 chicken sheds, transplanted 15 lettuces, moved 8 barrows of woodchip 250m and fertilised a raised bed.

We gathered at the Arch Gallery and performed a few mobility exercises before raising our pulses to get blood pumping to our muscles. With Will leading and Patrick backmarking, we set out down Old Bethnal Green road, then south down Valance road to Buxton Street where we met Richard at the farm.

"high knee march"

Richard divided us into groups - some to harvest spinach, some in charge of barrows, some to move lettuces to a safer bed and a team of shovellers. The harvesters, Richard and Zosia, worked on squats to get down to the spinach and moved around the beds using high knee march with toe extensions. Barrowers ran with barrows filled with fresh chicken manure fertiliser, and shovellers shifted shedloads of woodchip to refill the chickens' homes.

"grabbed a bunch of spinach"

After 30 hectic minutes, we each grabbed a bunch of spinach and ran back onto the streets. One team took a 3.6k route north to the canal, the other ran 2k back planning future races to train for - who's up for a coastal trail half marathon in March?