A slightly rainy evening after a weekend of torrential rain and floods meant our gardening job was postponed until things were less muddy, but continuing the watery theme our backup task was ideally suited.

Earthwatch, the people behind TinyForests, also do a big national water quality survey to assess the health of our rivers and waterways. Our task this night was to walk and run out to four different spots on the River Lea to collect water samples to test for nitrate and phosphate levels, two indicators that things are getting into the river that shouldn't be, like fertilisers from farms and sewage from towns.

We spend many of our sessions running by the river, working next to the river, and sometimes even in the river, so it's good to know what lies beneath the ripples! We collected water from the new Hat Garden section on Bute street, Wardown lake, Runfold Avenue and all the way to Leagrave Park for a photo with Bob Marley and a total run distance of 12km, our longest in quite a while. Fishing for water with a test tube on a string along the way was quite fun!

I got the water samples home and conducted the tests, and I am pleased to report that the levels detected were classed as 'moderate', so not too bad. The levels were quite consistent throughout the length we tested so its good to know that it doesn't get any worse as it passes through town.

This week for our group run we ran up the hill through High Town to our task on Hitchin road where community clean-up coordinator Kevin from ABCD Luton and some local residents had already got started.

A couple of road-side areas were overgrown with shrubs and weeds and needed cutting back and tidying up. On arrival our team were tooled up with shears, saws, loppers and brushes and set to cutting back and clearing up.

With our large team we managed to clean up a huge stretch of road and filled an amazing five big bags of cuttings which needed dragging up the hill to the point that the council was booked to collect from.

Before retreating back down the hill we took a few minutes to do a few rounds of walking lunges, crunches and squats in the park to round off an energetic evening.

This week a rainbow shone over our warm-up and the ascent up the hill to our task for the evening.

We were heading to the gravel sign that welcomes drivers from the M1 into Luton where some patchy weeds needed clearing. We also took some time to rearrange the black and white pebblrs to restore some clarity to the letters which were suffering from some blurred lines!

When the task was completed we headed over to Stockwood Park for a blast through some sprint intervals to build some power in our legs before heading back down to our finish point back in the Hat District.

In the last of a summer series of dual-task group sessions, our team was split with a walking/biking group heading to the Penrose Roots to Recovery garden and a running group heading to Holy Trinity Church.

The team's task in the garden was to tackle a patch of stinging nettles that had taken over a storage area behind the polytunnel. Kitted out with shears and rakes we worked from each end to meet in the middle, uncovering lost garden supplies in the process and filling two big bags with compost fodder.

Meanwhile the running group's task at the church was to give the railings a second coat of paint to finish the task we'd worked on over the summer stripping and repainting.

It's the time of year that darkness is creeping in so we had a dark journey back into town. Don't forget your lights for next week's run!

This week we returned to a community garden on Bristol Road that we helped set up a while back. Since then a small group of people, including Gareth and Kev who met us there have been trying to keep control of the space but the brambles and weeds that used to be there were making a comeback!

Our team arrived on bikes and by running and walking to all pitch in and reclaim the ground from the weeds. 40 minutes later we'd make a bit pile of green waste.

We also topped up some of the raised beds with topsoil that needed shoveling into a barrow and moved down from the entrance.

This week was the final pre-season visit to 61FC for a last effort to smarten up this football club's grounds and clubhouse.

After a good walk/run/bike to the Kingsway Recreation Ground we met Richard and Cliff who had several tasks for us. We cleared up the rubble behind the clubhouse and added to a pile generated by nearby work to add a new footpath to the park. Meanwhile we had a four person ladder/painting team scraping the old blue paint from the fascia boards and painting them bright white instead.

While all that was going on we also cleaned up some chalky doodles on the walls, painted some of the railings gloss blue, leveled a mound of old woodchip on the grass and had a good sweep up around the building.

So many tasks but with a strong team we got it all done in time to enjoy some strong orange squash and Quality Streets to fuel our journey back into town.