This week's group run was a return to the very long task of removing invasive goldenrod plants from the riverside meadow.

A few years ago when we started tackling this task the plant covered the whole meadow and was shoulder high all over. The big thick clumps took all our might to pull out.

After several seasons of pulling by us and other volunteer groups the meadow is showing massively improved biodiversity and the goldenrod that remains was just knee high little seedlings and shoots from fragments of root left behind last year. The pulling was also much easier as they didn't have as firm a grip of the ground.

With six of us picking our way between plants and pulling up piles of plants we made a huge impact toward finally getting this patch cleared. Plus we got it all done before it went to seed! We'll see what returns next year but it won't be much and we'll be back to finish it off once and for all.

This week we had a double-task of sorts, first task was to visit the orchard trees at Stockingstone Meadow, these had been mulched by contractors but they had piled too much mulch up against the trunks of the trees so we needed to scrape it away to prevent trunk rot and spread it more sensibly around the roots of each tree.

That was an important task but didn't take too long so we then moved on to the nearby Riverside Meadow, where we've been waging a long war against Goldenrod. The meadow was looking much more diverse than in previous years when it was just a blanket of goldenrod. But some remnants of roots in the ground have sprouted smaller weaker plants so we spent half an hour picking them out. Still plenty to do here, so we left plenty for other volunteer groups to deal with. We will return another day to get the rest if needed!

On the way back we took a moment to stretch and strengthen our hip flexors and glutes. Often overlooked muscles they really help with running when they're strong and healthy so it was worth ten minutes to focus on them.

It was a decently large turnout for the monthly people's park litterpick in spite of the light rain showers. Five from GoodGym joined another bunch of Friends of the Park and out we went across the park and over the hill searching for the litter dropped by local park users over the last few weeks.

Altogether we got about 15 bags of litter plus a DVLA car clamp and left the park spotless for the weekend visitors.