Last night 20 runners ran 6.5 km to Waterside Adventure Playground to make it safer for the children who play there

While Paul Bown rested his weary legs last night in the aftermath of an absolutely THUNDEROUS London Marathon (read his inspiring blog post about it here!) I popped over from Southwark to lead Islington out on a run. It was great to see familiar Islington faces and plenty of new ones. Big shout out to Morgan and Francesca who joined us for the first time last night. Kudos to you! And a big old hoorah for Kike who did her 200th good deed last night. Blimey o riley!

After an intro and a briefing we set off with Speed Steve Coman leading us on a scenic tour of Islington on our way to Waterside Adventure Playground. There we were greeted by an always enthusiastic Dawn who set everyone to work in groups. Most of the group were tasked with forking over the bark around the structure itself in order to make it softer for the children who land/throw themselves on it. Others were turning over the earth in flower beds and generally tidying the whole area up.

Much hard work was done and we finished in 30 minutes what would have taken Dawn on her own the best part of a day!

The playground is now safe, clean and looks fabulous. Great work team! Dawn particularly enjoyed Kike and Graham racing to finish their section of ground before we had to leave. We’re nothing if not committed!

Before leaving we (obviously) had to take advantage of being on a giant climbing frame to get an awesome group photo.

We thanked Dawn and off we went, pausing at Highbury Fields for a strong sprint all the way across. Stopping to catch our breath using belly breathing we then carried on back to base where Graham crept in stealth-like with a packet of hobnobs whilst we were stretching.

Thank you Dawn, we can't wait to come back :)

Next week Islington are off to help Age UK tidy up furniture. Sign up here.

Thanks for a great evening! Come see me in Southwark sometime!

Keep running happy, Lucy J

24 fit and fabulous runners headed off to the Children's Scrapstore yesterday evening.

A chill wind was a little off putting but once moving, we got lovely and warm. We made good time to the Scrapstore and got divvied up in to several teams.

Team 1: Notice board sorters. Their mission was to remove all out of date notices.

Team 2: Stirers. Their misson was to open old tins of paint and give them a good stir. It was amazing how the paint changed colour!

Team 3: Fluff makers. They were given some Stanley knives and cut the ends of reels of thread from spindles, creating a large amount of fluff in the process!

Team 4: Net cutters. At first just 2 people but then their numbers were bolstered by newbies Leanne and Pramimder (welcome to the gang ladies!).

Team 5: Fabric slicers. A huge amount of Fireman Sam print fabric needed chopping, then a rather fetching scarlet cloth.

Last but not least, Team 6 were once again on phone sorting duty. Every single time we have been to the Scrapstore, there are phones to unbox andsplit in to components. One day we will reach the end... One day.

Then we headed back really fast, and had a great stretch back at Vivo. Top work team!

25 fine and upstanding individuals braved the cold to help their community last night by weeding and digging over some flower beds.

We met at Vivo Gym and after introductions, including a big welcome to Wade and Tom, and a quick health and safety briefing (e.g don't jump in front of cars!), were off! We ran the shortish distance over to Victoria Park, the site of many run throughs but few run toos, so it was about time we helped this sprawling green gem in south Bristol.

We met with Alex who is part of the community group who keep an eye on the park. She explained that there were some flower beds that two nearby schools had been using to teach their students about gardening, and that these flower beds needed a bit of a going over so that the schools can start with a bit of spring planting soon.

With trowels, spades, forks and a wheel barrow, everyone literally dug in and in the usual double quick time, we'd uprooted weeds and turned over a lot of soil, as well as rescued a worm. Those flower beds are now just about ready for the new season of growing!

As there were not quite enough tools to go around, Chris took some of the runners off on a little lap of the park, and then made them do lunges whilst the tools were being packed up! He's a big meany! He also led the pack out of the park mostly because I keep getting lost there, and didn't want us to be running around the paths forever. Our feet were caked with mud from the flower beds so it took a while to knock it all off, for a few moments, we were all about 3 cm taller. It was rather nippy up there and the cold clearly froze my brain as we left without having a group photo! DANG AND BLAST!

Back in Queens Square, just a few metres from Vivo, we had a good stretch out and of course enjoyed a great round of applause.. and then another because Daniel was just so happy!

It was a cold night for 17 runners to be out and about! We met up at Vivo Sports Club and after a quick introduction, wasted no time in heading up to Clifton. There was a lot of up but that seemed to be absolutely no issue for Matt G who pelted up Jacobs Wells road like a spring bunny! The rest of us didn't exactly hang around, and at the top we split in to 3 groups to distribute loads of flyers about food waste recycling.

The group I was with, called Group C quickly distributed our leaflets, but not discovering several things about the Clifton area (for those of you who are not from Bristol, it's the very posh area of town!). 1) They have well oiled letter boxes. The more you flyer, the more you appreciate a smoothly opened flap! 2) They have tiny letterboxes. Why? No clue, but they're about half the size of a normal letter box. 3) Where the Lido is. And how to say Lido (was it 'lee-do' or lie-do'? 'Lie-dough' if you want to be really phonetic!). 4) Basement flats in the dark are a bit scary. We may have missed a few because we didn't want to come a cropper on gloomy steps!

Once our cargo was distributed, we met up with most of the others (some were doing a slightly longer run!) and galloped back down the hill to do some laps of Queens Square. At this point, dear reader, you may be wondering where the name of the run came from. Well wait no more! As the gang ran around the square, they noticed a woman practicing fire-breathing! Wow! Also she was either naked, or half naked, depending on who you spoke to. Double wow, given how cold the wind was.

What a great night and what a fab bunch of runners - we stretched, made a few announcements, and then retreated to the warmth of Vivo.

P.S Sorry about the lack of decent photos this time around - people were moving too fast!