Weed in the Bed(minster)

29 GoodGymers made their way 5.0km to help their local community in Bristol.

: Tuesday, 13th of September 2016
: Led by Melanie Young
she/her

31 wonderful runners met up at Vivo Sports Club for a lovely little run south of the river. I'd been a bit nervous about the turnout as earlier the alleged hottest day in September ever turned in to the wettest day, with a large thunderstorm doing it's best to put people off around lunchtime.

The thunder failed and it was an all out win for GoodGym! We set off slowly but once across the river picked up the pace and headed to a small plot of land in Bedminster that we'd been to several times; every time it gets a little better, so it's like it takes 1 step back, then we give it a push and it takes 2 forwards. And this time I managed to get a before and after photo (with Ben proudly wielding 2 trowels in the middle of the empty patch).

We split in to 2 groups - one headed to a site on South Street and the rest stayed put and got down and dirty with the weeds. We had Mel running with us tonight, she seemed to have more horticultural knowledge than the rest of us put together, so with her keeping an eye on proceedings, we set to pulling up what was not needed. One great find were some cosmia (apologies for the spelling) - a plant that grows from bulbs. It had done well over the summer and so could be split in to several different plants and replanted in new places.

After a good 30 minutes of intense weeding, the job was done, both groups er... regrouped, and we ran off in to the sunset (literally - it's getting darker in the evenings, we're going to start to have to bring head torches!). But the work was not finished...

Walking lunges, sideways squats and high kicks/foot taps were in order to get our muscles fired up a bit more with an aim to improve their strength and flexibility, and so make us better runners. It was oddly hypnotic to watch 30 runners lunge their way around Queen Square!

A good long stretch at the end of the run ensured that we'd be ready for more next week and we also sung happy birthday to Lisa as the darkness drew in.

Great running, weeding, lunging and squatting everyone, thanks for coming!