One of our coldest runs, this one! We reluctantly dragged ourselves out of the heated halls of Vivo gym and assembled in the little car park next door to the gym for a warm up. We had not 1 but 4 newbies - welcome to you all!

Our run was short and a little fast - no one wanted to hang about. We got to Emmaus in good time where we met up with Elle, the warehouse manager and our task master for the evening. Our job was to fix up some of the donated furniture so that the charity could sell it in one of their charity shops.

The gang set to the task with their usual enthusiasm, and after about 20 minutes had fixed most of the furniture, so Elle went hunting for more. From desks to wardrobes, shelves to...er... more desks, we fitted new handles, removed stickers, sanded and varnished, and all round made things a lot better. It was a great task given it was #GivingTuesday - a bit of an anti capitalism movement that encourages giving money or time.

We went in to overtime to ensure that we'd fixed up 13 pieces of furniture, and then once more braved the cold. The run back was again a little more zippy than usual, especially the now traditional sprint up Union Street hill.

We whizzed through the stretches and announcements, and then rushed back in to Vivo to warm up again!

It was a tad wet and cold for this run, which was lucky as it was really really REALLY short.

We met up at Vivo, a slightly smaller group than usual due to the temperature and the rain, and headed off to Quakers Gardens where we met up with Hannah from Incredible Edible.

We'd helped at the garden before, much earlier in the year and it was amazing to see how it had transformed from a frankly dodgy little park in to a much nicer green space with a lot of mint growing in it.

Our tasks were to weed a big patch of garden, shift a load of soil to go on to the area we'd weeded, wheel the weeds away, and other weed related stuff. As there was lots to do, and it had taken us only a short while to run to the garden, we stayed for a long time and got loads and loads done - the initial flower bed was blitzed so we moved so other parts of the garden.

Once completed, we ran off, and due to the cold and the close proximity of our base camp, the pace went quickly from a gentle jog to an almost flat out sprint as we got in to Queen Square. It was decided that it was too cold for lunges, so we wrapped up a little early - whilst there had not been a huge amount of running, the work we got done was phenomenal!

Great work, everyone! P.S Apologies for the lack of photos - they're all terrible and blurry, plus my iPhone is refusing to sync with my PC at the moment.

20 lovely people met up at Vivo on Tuesday night for a really short but exercise filled run.

It was a little cold and getting dark when we met up so we got nice and warm before heading off to the Bearpit where we were due to meet a great lady called Hannah who represents our good friends Incredible Edible. As it was such a short run, we made it to the Bearpit in no time at all, and so I had no option (honestly, I couldn't help it) but to keep the gang fit by making them do a series of exercises - press ups, lunges, tricep dips and drop squats. We were gearing up for an agility game/shuttle run combo when Hannah appeared - I'm sure everyone was very disappointed!

Hannah dished out a wide variety of tools that we took a short distance away to a small plot of land located between two busy streams of traffic. Sadly for Chris L there was no mattock.

The land was very overgrown so the team massacred the weeds with much gusto and verve. During the task we learned what a tansy is (aka Golden Buttons!), discovered a dead and mostly decomposed crow and tried to recreate the famous picture American Gothic with mixed success.

Because we were so close to Vivo, we stayed a little longer than normal and then pelted back as fast as possible... Gary was some what hindered as he decided to give Alice a piggy back!

There were lots of announcements at the end -
1) It was Gary's 200th run. Good job my friend, good job! 2) There's a run to Bramble Hill Farm on Saturday. Have a look here for more info 3) We've got a ton of social stuff coming up... a bit too much to list so keep an eye on the website! 4) I think that there was a no. 4 but I've forgotten.

I want to finish with a word from Gary as he started to log this run by mistake. I think we can all agree that these are profound words to live by:

Updated this one accidentally...
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