Try these pun for size!!

We knew we'd 'lost our silver lining', but then 'we couldn't see the bigger picture'at all as there were 'litterally no tools' so we thought 'what a load of rubbish'. But then there was none.. so we felt like 'you've been FRAMED' which made us as 'Mad as March Hare's'

We could simply leave this as our run report but here's our attempt at making sense of tonight...

10 of us met in Wholefoods and the confusion started before we even begun our run...."why is it still so cold" we asked, many of us missing our layers that we thought we didn't need for tonight. To warm up, we warmed up! On Richmond Green, minding the lamp post as we shimmied, stretched and "stirred" (that's right isn't Jane?) Before running a lap of the green and heading towards ETNA via St Margarets.

When we reached ETNA we went on the hunt for pictures, hooks, and a hammer...after a few moments of weaving in and out of various rooms, feeling like we were playing Cluedo (I think it was the Run Trainer, in the Hall, with the hammer) we were at a loss as to where our tools could be...luckily Mark had another task up his sleeve, that's right, we were double tasking tonight , actually we were tripled tasked tonight but a late cancellation at Silver Birches meant the focus was on picture hanging to brighten up the ETNA walls. However with no tools we had to swiftly move onto our second task - litter picking on Richmond Hill. Due to Mark's organisational skills , litter picks were ready for us to collect from ETNA so we practiced our Tug of War skills by sharing out the litter bags and began our journey up Richmond Hill with picks in hand.

We ran along the river, some of us unable to avoid picking up litter that we saw along the way, before we ended up at Buccleuch Gardens to hunt out rubbish in an effort to #KeepRichmondClean as part of #GBSpringClean. Some of us ventured deep into the woods and managed to find some Richmond debris and some of us...er..herm Mark,, managed to get lost.

Like a force of nature we did some speedy work in minutes and then trotted back over the bridge to return the litter pickers to their new home at ETNA, before heading to Wholefoods.

So although the task wasn't quite what we expected...we got more than we bargained for and our silver lining returned when we realised we had run 8km instead of the predicted 5km.

Welcome to Chris on your first run and it was good to see a new runner who tried to even out the ratio of male to female, hope to see you next week. Welcome back to Claire and Jenny who we have missed running with us.

Good luck to Jane and Laura for their 10km's this weekend.

Oh and Mark shouted out please pass his regards to Desiree next week

Well, who knew that running in the cold and dark could be so romantic? After all, we were running a Valentine’s heart-shaped route (thanks for the visual, Strava). Although, Mark was kicking himself when Kate pointed out that it was in fact Pancake Day before Valentine’s Day this week and oh, wouldn’t it have been much easier to have planned a pancake-shaped route….

We were feeling the love anyway what with all the good we were doing at Silver Birches Care Home in Richmond, our third visit to this residential home tucked away in a quiet leafy neighbourhood and at the end of a long, tree-lined drive. We have filled A LOT of bags with leaves, branches, weeds and the occasional superworm over the course of our three visits to this venue. By the time we left on Monday evening, the tarmac was almost gleaming in our head-torchlight and we had managed to prune the overhanging branches of a stocky little pine tree without a pair of secateurs in sight. Who needs garden tools when you have ingenuity, body weight and sheer bloody mindedness at your disposal?

Not content with the core body workout we’d just given ourselves sweeping, bending, squatting and stretching to clear debris from the drive, Mark then got us working on our stability and strength by doing standing split balances and repetitions of squats and lunges in the care home car park. Treat ‘em mean to keep ‘em keen, eh Mark? ;-)

So, knock yourselves out, GG Richmond, and slather on a thick coating of chocolate Nutella spread on your pancakes this week. You’ve definitely earned it. And in case you’re in need of some inspiration for your Valentine’s card, here is Jenna’s poetry in motion, perfected whilst hanging from a tree branch…

“Roses are red, trees are green, the secateurs were nowhere to be seen.”

Undeterred by the earlier torrential rain, 16 runners made it out for Monday night’s task, including two intrepid newbies, Sundara and Olive (welcome to you both) and our very own Nandos ninja, Victoria, clocking up her 50th good deed on the night.  

Mark had us dancing in circles around his man-bag in the square outside Wholefoods to warm up, finishing with a round of the can-can which, while not entirely worthy of the Moulin Rouge, was certainly lifting the spirits on January’s famous ‘Blue Monday’.

Then we were off up a long hill to Silver Birches care home in Richmond.  The beauty of the long up hill is, of course, the sweet downhill afterwards.  And on this occasion, some of the team were treated to an impromptu demonstration of ‘free-wheeling’ downhill, something most of us assumed would have necessarily involved a bike and no brakes.  But we learn something new every day and this Monday eve had us back to school with Mark dropping PT top tips at every opportunity.

It was good to be back at this great organisation that do such wonderful work in our community and we were there to sweep and tidy the garden and car park.  For some this meant being locked in mortal combat with legions of snails and super long super worms, who were no doubt none too pleased about the disturbance to their habitat.

16 pairs of hands made light work of clearing up the driveway, garden and car park.  We rounded off the evening with a surprisingly tuneful performance of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, distracting us from the muscle burn we were enduring from one of Mark’s strength building exercises.  We can only imagine what the residents thought about it…  Then it was back downhill to Wholefoods for a good, long stretch.

Newsflash: we are now in the middle of the GoodGym January challenge.  Our Richmond team is currently approximately a third of the way towards our goal for good deeds and mileage.  At the time of writing, we have completed 31 out of our target 120 good deeds and 286 out of our target 840 kms.  We have until the end of January to take these targets prisoner, so step it up, people: make sure you’re giving your trainers a good workout this month and remember to link your Strava or Runkeeper account to your GoodGym profile so all of your runs count towards our collective total.  

Happy running

Is anyone else still singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star??"