A very small but select band gathered this evening - the unseasonably warm weather along with the long weekend and bank holiday Monday conspired to keep our attendance low!

However, Kerry, Alex and Lizzie and myself made up for the low attendance with great enthusiasm for the task of litter picking the River Path for Rivercare and a challenging fitness session in Alexandra Park.

The aim of tonights task, on behalf of Rivercare was to plog (pick litter) along the river path to prevent rubbish, particularly plastic going into the river.

We ran the short distance to the Princes Street Bridge reference point along the River Path then turned and litter picked our way back, unsurprisingly the majority of the litter we found was around the skate park area. Between us we filled 2 large bags with mainly cans and plastic bottles.

With the litter picking done we retraced our tracks back to base and up to Alexandra Park, where we did a reecie circuit of the park before setting up a group time trial - worked out when I got home it's 640m ! So Kerry, Alex and Lizzie hit it hard ( all coming in between 2 mins 20 secs - 2 mins 30 secs) In the spiriti of togetherness I then gave it a go..... although they didn't realise it, this was thinly disguised as a recovery for the others bdfore they had to repeat the effort in the opposite direction, with the challenge of beating their previous time.

The park is surprisingly undulating and the loop is quite challenging when done at pace - so an amazing effort on the second loop by all three amigos! As a reward we jogged down to the low end of the park and did a few hill intervals --- These guys are hard core!

Finally a light jog once more around the park before bidding farewell - everyone (except me!) was running back home and they all promised faithfully to stretch when they got home!!