Oh, boy! At GoodGym Worthing tonight seven runners turned out for a lovely summer’s evening run, they were of course met with rain and a gloomier evening than normal (something to do with an eclipse, not of the heart, and it wasn’t raining in my heart).

It was lovely to welcome back Anne for her second run, and Alex – I didn’t bribe him to come again honest!

A big shout out to Gill who completed the 2 Tunnels Ultra in Bath on Saturday – you were missed tonight buddy!

After a gentle warm-up we headed off on a steady 2.5km run towards our task at Buddy’s Café which is a wonderful café and drop-in centre in Worthing for those with special needs. Nick led from the front whilst Beth back marked to ensure no-one was lost en-route.

Once we arrived at the task we were welcomed by Debra who explained that she would love for our GG team to prune a large tree that was overhanging the fence. Everyone armed themselves with loppers and began making light work of cutting the branches back level with the fence, within minutes huge piles of branches appeared...It’s so easy.

Alex down-tooled in order to tackle a particular tricky tree branch with his hands and ensured he was victorious in the Man v Tree tug of war competition. Belinda, Duncan and Anne continued with the lopping while Sue and Beth began chopping-up the ever increasing pile of branches into the gardening bags. As always, there were some tough to reach branches so Nick maximised his height using the very handy stepladder he had dropped off to the task earlier.

Nick was a step ahead with his plans

By the end of the task there was a marked difference in the appearance of the tree and there were two large gardening bags that were very much full to the brim with cuttings; Beth had unsurprisingly very willingly offered to jump in the bag half way through the task in order to maximise the bag capacity.

We posed for a few group photos and then said our thankyous and goodbyes to Debra who was incredibly grateful for our hard work before heading off on our 3km run back to base.

What a difference! It’s unrecognisable from half an hour ago!

Obviously a Monday group run wouldn’t be complete without a fitness session (despite a few wishing otherwise) so we had a quick stop off in Homefield Park for some sprint lap circuits led by Beth. One full sprint circuit was followed by a Parlauf sprint circuit which was of course made into a competition...so who could get back to the start point first?! Well it was a close finish between Alex and Duncan, with Alex just edging out Duncan for the glory.

Red faces, heavy breathing and faster heartbeats, and the murmurs of "bring back Julia, all is forgiven" were both seen and overheard so Beth decided to stop with the task master fitness session and begin the final short leg back to base before a quick cool down and stretch.

Many thanks to you all for your hard work put into the sprints and on the task tonight. Every week it amazes me how fast half an hour goes on the task and just what you can achieve in that time!

Pruned to perfection

You’ll be pleased to know that Julia is back next week for the Kamelia Kids weeding/garden tidy-up task and fitness session. Why not sign-up here for next week’s bank holiday group run?

p.s. well done if you spotted all the Buddy Holly songs.