8 lovely runners ran 4k to shift woodchips in Walpole Park!

Well what a lovely evening that was! Perfect running weather, and everyone else in Ealing seemed to think so to as the runners were out in full force in the park!

Sadly Lisa has now left us to do some exciting yoga things far, far away but it was great to be back in Ealing (home of my very first race so it has a special place in my heart :)). I covered Lisa a few months ago when she was on holiday but I met a completely different bunch of runners yesterday! All of whom were lovely! We had Amy and her mum Ann, New GoodGym runner Naomi, GoodGym veteran and token male Graham, Rosie, Kerry and Steph!

We dropped our stuff at the studio and had a little easy jog to Ealing Common and did a little loop to make up a bit more distance, since Walpole Park is literally just around the corner! We manged to clock up over a mile before we got there (nice work ladies and gent!) and headed to fetch the wheelbarrows and trolleys! Thankfully, Rosie and Steph had done this task last week so they knew exactly where to go, which saved us lots of precious minutes! We armed ourselves with shovels and wheelbarrows and headed for the mulch pile around the corner. There was a patch of shrubs across the other side of the park which were in need of some wood chip loving so everyone grabbed a shovel and started filling up the barrows! After 5 minutes or so we were good to go and marched across the other side of the park.

Hmm this wasn't here last week...

We arrived at a large patch of soil which looked like it had seeds which had just been planted... We didn't know whether to go through it or around it but we thought we would just blame it on the kids and go through it! Thankfully the soil was quite hard so you couldn't even see our tracks... Phew!

We emptied and spread the first batch of mulch and then went back for round two.

The park supposedly shut at 8pm so time was a-ticking although all the other park users didn't seem to care or realise that they were potentially about to get locked in and would have to scale a very scary looking metal gate! But lucky these Ealing lot are quick. They spread the second load and headed back to drop off the tools in lightning speed!

Graham had clearly got bored of us all by this point and decided to leave us to go home. But we forgave him as he was going to do some yoga (which is a great thing to do to help with your running!). Plus he had just done Brighton Marathon a mere 2 days prior so we'll let you off.

The ladies and I headed back through Ealing Common for a heart pumping fitness session consisting of some lovely squat jumps that everyone loves to hate (but they're great for strengthening those glutes which are often a weak area for runners) and some speedy high knees. 4 minutes later and we were done!

Rosie peeled off home on the way but she did promise to do her stretches - well done! The rest of us headed back to the studio for a few cool down stretches of our own.

It was so great to meet you all last night! What a lovely bunch you all are! Well done for getting so much done on the task and helping out with directions etc, much appreciated! Hope you had a nice evening and I will see you next week!