A good sized group gathered on the steps of our hotel base tonight to run through a couple of dynamic stretches (we’re taking it easy on the warm-up front this summer), before heading the short run around the corner to Weavers Adventure Playground, for our first visit of the summer.

A LOT of work to be done…

On arrival, task owner Alex had a whole variety of very different projects for us to get stuck into: our largest team focused on clearing a huge area around the go-kart track, lifting branches (looked more like small trees, TBH), carting fridges and tables across the playground, and many large objects I couldn’t actually identify.

A second team headed to the skip, the soon-to-be-converted skip, to give it a thoroughly good lick of surprisingly flattering spearmint paint. A third team headed behind the slide to paint benches and tables a delightful combination of Oxford United blue-and-yellow, while a fourth team headed out to the park to weed the borders of the playground.

Industrious or what.

The time flew by. Task owner Alex was rushed off his feet, hurtling from one side of the playground to the other project-managing all the different tasks. Runners got stuck in as usual, with the heavy lifting, speedy painting, proficient weeding, and superb post-task clean up. I am always so proud, you know that? And then it was 8. Well, a little after, and the clean-up continued as David blitzed the last of the paint from the patio, with a big brush and lots and lots of water. We gathered for our cheerio pics, where Alex explained what you’d achieved tonight would have taken him days on his own. It’s that bit that really brings the evening to life even more. A little bit of context to all that you’ve achieved.

A balancing act

And so we headed out of the playground, and onto a spare bit of grass in the park, where we whizzed through our balance and flexibility moves, all taken in very good spirit, particularly as the balance-and-core/flexibility ratio was slightly out (in favour of the former). More sturdy work, team. We then made our way back to the hotel, nearly to time, to continue our Monday evening, safe in the knowledge we’d lugged, glossed, uprooted, discarded to the absolute max, and made a dent in the work for this beloved children’s play area.

Monday shout out’s…

First up has to be a massive, GG warm welcome to Sarah who joined us for her first GG run tonight. Thank you for doing so much on your first run! And thanks for the fun, and for being such a key part of tonight’s wonderful evening and we hope to see you again super-soon.

Thanks to tonight’s contributing photographers, Danny, Charlotte and Steve. Wicked pics everyone.

And a big shout-out to Becky and Danny for beautiful backmarking.

And a great big gracias to Joel who came up with tonight’s perfect, perfect pun (which had me laughing all the way home).

An exciting array of events coming up…

• Now, first up: the GoodGym Olympics is taking place on Saturday! Yes, it’s here, and all the details are here. You don’t need to be booked into any event to come along and enjoy this ultimate GoodGym feelgood fitness day. Just fancy a day of GoodGym socialising, cheering and cake-eating? This should be on your Saturday radar.

• Then, moving into next week, we have a wonderful Community Mission coming up, from 5:30pm next Thurs Aug 8th, helping set up the garden at fabulous St. Margaret’s House for this exciting summer storytelling event! Come and wind down for the week helping Lieke and the team set up furniture, distribute candles and blankets and generally muck in and enjoy this unique event.

• …And then next Monday, the 5th, for our glorious Group Run, we’re back to the Royal London where task owner Nancy is planning our activities as we speak, so do come on board for that.

Right, that’s me for another week. Make the most of the sun, don’t forget to run, and most importantly, look after yourselves. Have a great week!

We were two-tasking it again this evening, and really putting the ‘earth’ into Earth Hour on both our tasks.

A secondary SOS task to Cranbrook Community Food Garden

In an eleventh hour addition to our planned activity, task force member Becky J headed up a splinter group of four to one of our longest standing, favourite tasks, Cranbrook Community Food Garden. Writes Becky, “Just a mini detour en route to Cranbrook this evening, as fellow Task Force member Bryon challenged me to attempt navigating our route without assistance (always a challenge...). This added just one small loop to the run, but I'm all in favour of a little extra (accidental) mileage.

On arrival at the garden, we witnessed Storm Gareth had indeed left a trail of destruction in his wake, felling a tree and damaging fencing in the process. Bryon and Eimear set to work removing twigs from a boundary fence, while Tom and I began the tricky task of untangling climbing plants from a now broken trellis, before pulling down the arch.

Having successfully achieved this, (and, btw, saving a tree we feared may have to be pulled up in the process), we were then presented with a flat pack replacement arch (turns out flat pack instructions are easier in daylight, with a mug of strong coffee, than in a dark garden, deciphered under torchlight alone).

But Bryon and Eimear joined us and together we got the arch standing, just in time to pose for a couple of pics alongside our evening’s handiwork.”

Team Tower Hamlets to the rescue indeed.

Potting at Parkview

Meanwhile, I headed up the Parkview crew who were Glasshouse-bound to this most wonderful community hall on the Parkview Estate. Task owner Catherine met us with two tasks – potting bee-friendly plants and leafleting for the upcoming Spring Fayre - leaving no preparation stone unturned as she presented a proposed plant production line of such efficiency, the likes of which I’ve never seen before; ditto leafleting instructions (think hand drawn maps of the estate).

Two leaflet teams were dispatched onto the estate's many blocks, while the plant-potters, headed up by Luke, and initially Dave (who was then demoted to deputy by young Connie, who joined from the Parkview residents team to instruct on best plant-handling practice) grouped in two different areas of the hall.

It was a race to the finish, but by the time we left all 800 plants had been potted, and the area swept and scrubbed down. Wow.

Tempo run and tree pose

And so we headed to Victoria Park, led by Steve, for some fabulous speedwork headed up by both Tom and Steve, and finishing with a couple of resistance exercises.

And then it was back to our beautiful hotel base, where we were lucky enough to have Christina, a regular runner and qualified yoga teacher, lead us through some fabulous yoga stretches to finish.

Another totally neat night. More missions awesomely accomplished. More thoroughly relieved and appreciative task owners. Well. Done. You.

Monday shout-out’s

A very big shout out to tonight's first time runners, Ridwan, Anais and Eirini – thanks for making such a huge contribution on your first run, and we hope to see you really soon.

And thank you to Becky, for enabling the second task to happen, and for kind of saving the day and for taking some great pics, and writing the report.

Now, don’t forget, we’re doing it all again on Saturday when task force member Bryon leads up a brand new gardening task in E3 – yes, we’re putting the ‘earth’ back into Earth Hour for the second time this week. More details and sign up are here.

Have a brilliant week, won't you all, and hope to see you very soon.