On the hottest bank holiday on record four brave runners gave up an evening of frolicking in the sun to come an frolick in the sun with me!

We were unfortunately without task this week but it didn't stop Beth, Deborah, Samina and Tabitha from coming down to The Queensbury for a run and some fitness.

We didn't have a proper task but before we left we helped out the Queensbury as they were short-staffed and quickly went round helping to clear empty glasses for them - not your average goodgym task but we weren't going to leave our home in the lurch.

With that done we headed off to Roundwood Park. Normally we just use the park as a cut-through to get over to Harlesden but this time we entered the main park. We did a little plogging picking up some litter as we went and then ran to the high point of the park where we had a lovely view to Wembley.

After that we played a little game, pairing up and playing rock, paper, scissors. The winner had a short run up a hill and back and the loser had some exercises to do. We went through - burpees, squats, jumping jacks and the old spotty dog! After that we went on a run around the park but went along doing the Indian file - here we run in a line and the person at the back sprints to the front, we did this for a while and then came to a rest at a map of the park. The map had some walks marked on it with distance which was handy - we used this to plan a little run and off we went!

After that we ran back to base, it was a tough evening in the heat so we rewarded ourselves with a round of soda waters and a tap water for Tabitha who is doing this awesome challenge - please do support her here.

Thanks everyone for a fun evening - next week Damian will be in charge and we'll be running to the canal in Harlesden - sign up here.

Cheers, Pritesh

First we had eleven, by the end of the headcount we had twelve and by the end of the warm-up we had thirteen of us ready to get our fingers turned veritably green as we helped at the Gladstone Park Allotments!

With everyone together at last we headed off towards Gladstone Park, despite all my map checking I still managed to take us up one wrong turn but we didn't go far and what's an extra half a kilometre?! It was great to be running in the light although there was still a chill to the air. Kudos to Liz who not only came along in just shorts and tshirt but was also was fresh from having run her first half marathon in Wales on Sunday - amazing effort!

Wrong turn

Once we got to the allotments we were met by Carol who had heard about goodgym through North West TWO, a residents association for the Cricklewood area. She took us down to the plot we would be working on where we also met Michael. The main task in hand was weeding between the plots and in some of the over grown plots too. Everyone donned gloves and got straight to work pulling up the weeds and clearing around the allotment plot. Nadeige, Emily, Caroline and Uthman teamed up to replant some of the strawberry plants that had get tangled amongst the weeds. It was a great team effort and we replanted the strawberries in half a plot whilst clearing the weeds from another half. Nadeige got so into it we thought we were going to have to leave her behind to as she wanted to finish the job!

Teamwork, good for the soil!

We worked hard for about 40 minutes and had made a massive difference - Carol and Michael both remarked that we'd got a huge amount done in the time and it had made a big difference for them. Before we left Carol kindly provided us with some cordial and garibaldi biscuits. With everyone refreshed we said our goodbyes and headed back to base. The temperature had dropped significantly so the pace back was quite a step faster. Everyone did great and we even managed a session of squats in the park!

It was superb evening and after stretching off and hearing the news about the GoodGym Olympics (we need a team this year!) and the London Marathon Cheering we split and some headed home and some stayed for a much deserved drink!

Next week we are doing some leafletting, it's going to be a short task so we'll finish with some fitness work or if we are lucky we'll have a couple of tasks - sign up here!

Cheers, Pritesh