Another beautiful evening in Ealing but thankfully with a slightly cooler temperature made for a perfect evening to do some good and go for a run!

We had a team of 11 runners to see to our task at Hestia this week which included planting some flowers for the greenhouse and having a little tidy of the surrounding area. We also had a bonus indoor task of sorting out a store cupboard all to help this fantastic centre that empowers its service users to find their feet after being affected by homelessness.

We started by meeting at our base just under a mile away and had a chat about all the news for the week. The main topic was about Jenni’s 50th good deed happening next Tuesday, it’s also her birthday and she’s worked really hard over the last few weeks to make it to the black t-shirt milestone before her special day! Do sign up and celebrate with us next week as we’ll head to the pub after the task!

Then we were off leaving in a chase style run up Castlebar Hill to our destination. Those wanting to push the pace left last chasing the rest of us down on our short run commute! There we were met by Sandra and Theo from the centre who had a few plants for us to pot to give thier greenhouse a new lease of life!

We also found a few other tidying tasks around the garden including some weeding and shifting a pile of old compost to give the overall grounds a boost!

Meanwhile Larissa and Lionel were summoned inside to organise a store room which included sorting Christmas decorations, quite possible the wrong time of year and wrong temperature to think about such things!

Before we knew it we’d wrapped up all the tasks and had plenty of time for my favourite fitness session… hills! They’d been warned that the quicker they worked the more hills we could fit in so I can only assume by the groups efficiency that they were super keen to fit in as many as possible!

The hills are alive with the sound of runners!

Over to West Walk we went for a chasing hill sprint session, the idea is that you push as hard as you can on the uphill (at your own pace) and as soon as the first person reaches the top a whistle is sounded and you make your way down from wherever you get to. Each time you try and make it a little further up before the whistle goes. It’s a really great session and everyone gave it 100% so well done!

After 4 reps of killer work we headed back for a lovely stretch on the green, what a great way to round up the evening!