Led by Sam (who was excited to flaunt his new run leader responsibilities), a small but select group of four runners head to the Whitton Youth Zone. We took the scenic route, quite literally, crossing fields and winding along the river Crane on a balmy spring evening.

We arrived 6.5km later, and met Adam who had found a more direct route to the task, and Mandy from the youth centre got us set up for the mission. She also kindly provided us with cool water to drink and a selection of snack bars to replenish ourselves after the run there.

Our job for the evening was to help in the garden, and get rid of weeds and creepers that were over growing along the path. We hadn’t been to the Youth Centre since the darkest winter, so there was lots to do.

We got started with filling our big blue sacks, pulling up weeds, tackling giant creepers and hacking back plants. Whilst we worked, topics or discussion for the night included the best shows on the telly right now (recommendations were Beef, Fargo and Richmond’s own Ted Lasso), political parents, Eastern European holidays and where our names came from (we found out Liz was named after the Queen and a coin toss, and not a reptile!).

Forty five minutes of weeding later, we had a made a big difference, and Mandy was very pleased with our hard work, and was already planning our next visit!

The only thing left was to get back home. After a bit of debate about how to get back (do we run, or do we get the train?), we took the more direct route along the less scenic A316. We left the candy floss pink and peachy skies of the west and jogged along to the cool blue of Richmond as the sun set and we finished off a total of 11k and arrived back at the Tap.