This evening we ran around 3km to help in a school garden and nature area

A lovely crisp and dry evening saw an amazing 18 runners turn up tonight to head back to Park Hill school – not put off by our last soggy venture there. With Ellie now being a qualified Run Leader – well done Ellie – we split into two groups after our warm-up in a local car park. Ellie headed off with the swifter of foot and the rest of us headed up at a more chatty pace.

We met Esther again at the school and she had a variety of tasks for us – some needing brute strength and others needing a more crafty approach. The largest task was clearing and leveling a piece of ground to build a circle of logs for the children to use for lessons and nature watching. This involved lots of digging, raking and heaving and rolling of logs into position. A beetle hotel was also installed and a toad hiding in the earth narrowly avoided being an ex-toad. Philip rescued him and took him over to the pond where hopefully he/she will live a little more safely. At the top of the nature area a dry stick wall was built and some of the raised beds were covered in leaves and grass to help prepare them for planting. The pond was cleaned and an area of planting was squirrel proofed to give the bulbs a chance to grow. A very busy session indeed and a fantastic job done by everyone. We are looking forward to going back next year to help out more and also see the results of our hard work.

As we were running short of time the runners were given the choice of a timed lap round the school or a circuit session. They chose the circuit session which involved a forming a circle round an agility ladder and a series of exercises while each runner took it in turn to run with high knees up and down the ladder and then around the circle back to their spot. Not sure which of the exercises they “enjoyed” the most – might have been the low pulsing squats, the high knee jogging or even the burpees!

Next week is the last run before Christmas and we will be helping out Evolve.

As it’s our last session of December we will be heading to BoxPark afterwards and not forgetting to put on our Christmas hats, jumpers, tinsel and whatever festive apparel you can find.