Rupal and Shannon welcome to your first group run, I enjoyed how you both got stuck in and chatted with the group it was as if you knew everyone at the task the way you both seamlessly just slotted in.

Yesterday 8 runners met outside Solutions Health Club to run 2 miles to our task in West Croydon where we were met by Orsetta, who welcomed us and explained the task she had for us to complete. There were 4 ton bags of soil she wanted us to empty in the raised beds and spread while pulling out any weeds we came across.

Following the briefing from Orsetta we set off to the ton bags, with 2 wheel barrows and some big yellow buckets, our first round saw us filling the buckets and taking them to the planters and emptying them. We had to spread the soil out amongst the plants that were in the planters without them being buried. Rupal and Shannon assumed the roles of spreading the soil in the planters while the others alternated between filling the buckets and transporting them to the planters.

After a few rounds of decanting the soil into the buckets, one of the bags was able to be taken to the other side of the garden, which led to a team event between Orsetta, Callum and Yasser together the dragged the bag across the other side with a little sprint. We had managed to technically empty one of the ton bags with three more to go. With an eye on the time and 3 more bags to go I put it out there to the team to see if we would be able to get all three bags empty before our time was up. The challenge was accepted and everyone moved a bit quicker to beat the clock. Before we knew it another bag had been decanted enough for it to be moved, this seemed to be the part everyone was waiting for as it gave them an opportunity to do a sprint drag across the court yard to a nearby planter. Up stepped Nic, Orsetta and Yasser, check out their effort on our insta story and give them their ratings.

While spreading the soil in the raised beds there were so many different scents all smelling wonderfully, which prompted us to talk about teas.

Shannon harvested potatoes while spreading soil, which later turned out to be our reward for a job well done we emptied all for ton bags and was rewarded with organic Croydon grown potatoes to take home. Yesterday was first for us in Croydon working with Urban Growth but we showed them that despite the size of the group we do pack a punch.

We said our good byes to Orsetta & co and began our jog back to solutions.

Along the way back you could see that some of the group was feeling the workout however, Callum and Yasser seemed to be still buzzing from the task and had a bit extra in the tank. We split the group into two with a shorter route back to solutions led by Nic and a longer route back led by me. It was no surprise that Callum and Yasser chose the longer route however by the time we got back to solutions where the others had been awaiting our arrival they had burned the extra energy they had. :-)

After allowing them a little break to catch their breaths back we did our stretches where we were joined by a member of the public who wanted to show us his skills at doing the splits however it seemed like he got stuck in that position while we did other stretches. It amused us and his friends.

Well done all for a wonderful evening together and hope to see you all next week, there are talks of a social.