The GG Richmond gang assembled in force on a balmy Monday evening to go on the pull - and it wasn’t even student night. It was a baptism of fire for newbies Emma, Neil and Gurinder, with a monster Mark warm up and a giant task - quite literally.

The warm up on the green featured the usual collection of exercises and finished with a fun game of tag with multiple chasers. You could even say they had the moves like taggers...

Warming up and ready to take on the nasty Balsam! #goodgym #richmond #richmondgreen #warmup #fitness #Mondays #runninggroup #running #getfitbydoinggood pic.twitter.com/K9rC0pqJ2P

— GoodGym Richmond (@GGRichmon) 2 July 2019

Ahem. Anyway. The run to tonight’s task location saw us head up Church Road and round the Star and Garter and after some unplanned meandering from the backmarker group we arrived by the river to be assaulted by clouds of waiting mosquitos.

Luckily our task was a bit inland from the water and we avoided the nasties (except those of us who lost a battle with the nettles.) Our prey was the Himalayan Balsam, which towered over us like a scene from Day Of The Triffids *(does anyone know that film or is this going over your head?!). *

We were fired up and started our night on the pull. At first we were eyeing up the ones we fancied from the edge of the dance floor, but soon we “stalked” in with some slick moves and some even slicker lines (well, plenty of expletives) and before long we were pulling the slender crackers (and snappers and poppers) we had been lusting after. And they weren’t too shy to show that they were really (t)horny (you just had to look at their roots...)

Getting to the root of the problem and looking like we are using magic to do it, were we in Hogwarts?! #greatfun #balsam #richmond #riverside #petersham #goodgym #weeding #runninggroup #doinggood pic.twitter.com/qQaGAZ1TeH

— GoodGym Richmond (@GGRichmon) 2 July 2019

Sadly after such a successful evening on the pull none of them came home with us. But compensation was there in the form of the monthly social and a happy birthday celebration for Jen. Welcome again to Emma, Neil and Gurinder, and look forward to seeing everyone back again soon!