Tonight we had eager runners ready and waiting in the sunshine of Daveena's Cafe courtyard at 6.15pm and it was a while before I realised we had special guest Katie who had travelled all the way from Portsmouth to join us! Katie is the trainer in Portsmouth and she set up the Goodgym there so I will be picking her brains in the future about how we can continue to build up Goodgym Poole!

So we set off up the steady incline of 2 miles to St Aldheims Church for our first task with a return visit! A few warm up drills in the park along the way to make everyone think about what they are supposed to be doing before each run (but probably never do!)

Up the hill we stomped and to the final resting place (well sort of...) of St Aldheims Church where we found some wheelbarrows, forks and spades and our task leader, David hidden amongst the bushes!

David as the church volunteer once again got us organised with clear instructions on getting the roots up! He quickly spotted Aaron as a potential tree puller so he was soon given a fork (which lost a prong 10 minutes into his gardening) and up came some bushes! Good training for the next Ultra adding in the power work! Jason and Nicki worked on some beds (deju vu for Nicki who did this just 2 weeks ago!) whilst Sian and Katie happily pulled weeds from around the church.

The hard grafting it turns out was around the corner as the Liz's, Anne-Marie and Rob worked on cleared a thorny patch of ground ready for future planting! It was pretty hard work but Anne-Marie took satisfaction of completing an edge of border whilst others were digging for roots! Rob was kept busy emptying wheel barrows into compost heaps avoiding the prickles! Both Liz's are graduates of a Couch to 5k programme so good to see they are now adding in strength training with the gardening!

As a amateur gardener, tonight I learnt that roots of brambles are not prickly (thanks to David) and moss can be killed with salted water (cheers Jason!)

Pip, the minister came out to chat to us and we finished by checking out the inside of the local church and hearing about the history of it in the local area - what a great way to end our task! The church inside is beautiful and just celebrated 125 years of being in the local community. You can really see how the church is looking more open to the local area with the work they are now doing - both phyically and with the support it offers.

Thanks to Jason for being back runner and Aaron for leading (he bearly broke a sweat all night i'm sure - next time we will find him a bit more to do!)

I hope we can go back to keep working on the grounds with David again - The difference is already so great!

Ps Pun courtesy of David himself! Pps Goodgym Tourism is clearly a thing just like parkrun tourism - I look forward to visiting others in the future! Katie you rock!