This evening was our 10th Group Run, and it was great to welcome some new runners to Goodgym - Tom, Adam, David, and Sam - as well as Abi visiting us from Camden for the first time.

Give them a cheer on the website!

Once you've completed 10 Group Runs with Goodgym you'll get an invitation to get a little more involved by joining the Taskforce (it's totally optional), so it was great to hear a bit about how this works from Abi, who is on the Taskforce for Camden.

With bumper numbers this evening we set off in gorgeous sunshine on the first run to Iffley, with Sophie kindly making sure no-one got left behind.

At Iffley Glebe we met Rachel from the Oxford Preservation Trust, who was ready with gardening tools and explained our task for the evening. Iffley Glebe is one of Iffley village’s most important open spaces, playing a vital role in maintaining the rural atmosphere of Iffley within it's city setting. The field is full of wildflowers each summer and the ancient hedge across the field provides birds with nesting places, and insects and berries for food. At night the glebe is an important hunting ground for bats and owls. The stone wall surrounding the site has a lot of weeds growing in it which, although pretty, needed clearing in order to keep the wall in good condition. Ensuring that we all knew to avoid the stinging nettles, we gloved up and set to work.

It turns out 21 pairs of hands makes light work of weeding a wall. Despite some minor traumas (spiders, sleepy bees), snickering over childhood names for galium aparine (aka...sticky-willy), and resisting the urge to stick goose-grass on anyone's back, in 35 minutes we had stripped the main wall along the Glebe of the worst of it's weeds, and made a good start along the side wall too. Taking a brief breather for some water and squash (thank you Rachel) and a group photo, we decided to take advantage of the beautiful evening sunshine by taking the scenic route home along the Thames Towpath, with Ash back-marking this time.

Iffley Lock didn't disappoint by providing me with my first bug-swallowed-on-a run moment for 2019 . Running's a glamorous hobby isn't it?!

Hopping off the river path at Donnington Bridge, we had to do the Meadow Lane lamp post fartlek session because it is fast becoming a Goodgym Oxford tradition (In the spirit of primary school level humour - fart! and willy! in the same run report!). Then....

FRISBEE!

It seems that frisbee brings out the killer instinct in all of us. Who knew that our most mild-mannered runners are actually fiercely competitive when given a frisbee and a goal to aim for?! 3-1 to the non-red-clothes team clearly calls for a re-match as soon as a few more people have their Goodgym Tshirts through the post.

We completed the Tour of Iffley by running home past the Roger Bannister track, where the 1st sub-4 minute mile was run: had to show off Oxford's Claim to Running Fame! Then back for drinks to celebrate our milestone 10th run.

Next week we are helping the Children's Allotment. Long trousers are advisable because of nettles and brambles on site.

To mark the 1 month birthday of Goodgym Oxford we headed back to the scene of our first task at Donnington Doorstep.

After welcoming our new runners Bryan and Alejandra, and welcoming back Matt visiting for the 2nd time all the way from Liverpool, we set off for the 1 mile run to our task. A hop, skip and a jump, and we were already arriving at DDoorstep, where we were welcomed by the lovely Dilyana. The Pre-school has a store cupboard which was in need of some sorting, tidying, and generally getting in order. Stacks of boxes awaited us to be sorted through, so channeling Marie Kondo we got to work.

Does it spark joy?

We sorted, we agonised, we folded, we tidied ..."how much duplo is too much duplo, 3 bears or 5?, what would Woody and Buzz say?"...we tried not to get distracted by playing with the toys or reliving our own childhoods. Before we knew it we had worked through all the boxes, re-stacked the keepers, and amassed a pile for re-homing.

Setting back off into the night, fueled by Dilyana's malteasers (thank you!), we took the long route back to base because Anwen is obsessed by the lamp-posts of Meadow Lane. It's the perfect spot for a fartlek session - sprint 1, jog 2, sprint 1, jog 2, all the way to Jackdaw Lane.

Having got the heart-rates up, the group may have thought that was their workout done for the evening, but wait.......there was more!

Splitting into 2 teams we got the competitive spirit going with a sprint relay game on the edge of the park. With much encouragement of each other, and some Bolt-esque displays of speed, it turned out we were impressively well matched, with only a few metres between the teams by the end. That was the most sprinting most of us had done since school! A short jog back to base, passing the Roger Bannister track on the way - I'm sure we all ran faster than 4 minute mile pace in those sprints ;-) - and the Group Run was over for another week.

We've already been asked back to Donnington Doorstep to help make-over their garden, so watch this space for more tasks there.

Next week we are teaming up with WWF Earth Hour, and running to Rose Hill to help clean up the Nature Reserve. You can sign up here. I'm hoping for daylight for some of the task, but bring a head torch if you have one.