On a super muggy, sweaty evening, 36 runners sweated a lot whilst doing some good.

Pete set off early on a secret mission to retrieve our injured comrade, run leader Paul, and push him in his wheelchair to the task. The next departure was Ed, who had quite a crew on his first stint as a walking leader.

Paul and Pete had the task instructions sorted by the time Nick and Ed arrived with the rest of their groups, and Paul was taking his official photographer job very seriously, snapping photos in between supervision duties.

The task at Acomb Primary was to convert an old pondy wetland area into a sensory garden. The actual pond area needed all the reeds pulling out and it was a toss up between Max, Digby and Ed as to who would fall in first. Ed toppled and let slip a bad gym F-bomb but in the end Pete saved any debate and waded in to the pond to help dig out the more stubborn plants from the centre.

No frogs were harmed in the clearing of the pond - Nick

Back-marker Vicky commandeered a giant tea tray from somewhere to act as a raft and everyone generally put their backs into it - those pond weeds were stubborn swines apparently!

At St Oswald's Church, my group had an absolutely gigantic task, but not as gigantic as planned, as a group of volunteers from the church had been through with strimmers to cut back the massively overgrown weeds - mostly nettles - which were dominating the borders.

We had a few tasks:

• dig out all the roots from the huge border so that grass seed can go down later
• shift a massive area of gravel so that weed membrane can go down
• deliver a batch of newsletters to local residents

It took all of about five minutes for Tom to break a fork with some extreme weeding antics, but he earnestly worked with half a fork for the whole task without complaint.

Meanwhile, Huw and John double-teamed some massive roots whilst the four-man crew of Michael, Steve, Stef and John tackled the gravel with hearty vigour.

Tristan and Aidan shot off for a speedy newsletter drop in the local streets, getting back just in time for the end of the task when we cracked open the amazing home-made biscuits from the church volunteers.

Back at the pond and with only 15 minutes left, it didn’t seem possible that the task would ever finish but at the 5 minutes countdown, hope was restored. By the time the finish ticked over, the pond was empty, the site was tidy and the job was done with enough time to go and play in West Bank park (Nick, you mean do fitness, right? Egg)

For my team, it was a run back along the river with a very quick stop at the Millennium Fields fitness station where we did a selection of hanging, dipping, pull-ups and lots of squats. Tim was the only one who sprinted over Millennium Bridge to nab the Strava segment (good work Tim!).

Back at base we had a second celebrate of Huw's 100th good deed last week and he provided a second batch of treats which made everyone really happy, yay!

With so much to do at St Oswalds, we've listed a community mission tomorrow (Tuesday 25th) to go back and dig out a lot more roots, you can see the details and sign up here.