This week is the Jo Cox Foundation's Great Get Together, which encourages communities up and down the country to get together to celebrate kindness, respect, and all we have in common. All Goodgym runs this week are in partnership with the initiative, and you can find out what else is going on here. Goodgym really is the perfect example of ethos the Great Get Together is trying to encourage, as everyone is friendly, welcoming, and enthusiastic about helping and supporting each other and their community. Despite my tongue-in-cheek title to this run report, this week's group run was no exception to this!

After distributing wrist bands and stickers celebrating the Great Get Together, as well as the ever-essential gardening gloves, we set off to our task at Iffley Glebe, chitter-chattering our way along the Iffley Road. A moment of distraction, and we had our first accident for the incident log, as an uneven pavement caused a tumble and a bloody knee: Hope it isn't too sore today Mark! Fortunately the injury didn't end the run, and onwards we went with barely a limp, through the pretty village of Iffley to meet Rachel from the Oxford Preservation Trust at Iffley Glebe.

Iffley Glebe is an important piece of meadow land in the heart of Iffley, which helps the area retain it's rural character despite being in the city.

At this time of year the grass (and nettles!) are tall, and there is an abundance of wildflowers in the Glebe. The grass will be cut for hay next month, but for now it is a mini jungle, which is a perfect habitat for wildlife. We were previously at Iffley Glebe in April, clearing the old stone walls of ivy and other weeds to help preserve the stonework. Our repeat visit was to remove any returning weeds in the wall bordering Church Way before they get established, and to start work clearing the tenacious ivy covering the wall with the cemetery. The cost of repairing stone walls runs into thousands of pounds, so keeping the weeds away is vital. This time we also had the bonus task of removing the metal cage from around the trunk of a young walnut tree now that it is big enough not to need the protection.

After an explanation of the tasks from Rachel and a brief history of the Glebe, we split into teams, our tallest runners setting to work on the walnut tree cage, as they were the only ones who could reach the top of it! Meanwhile a quartet headed out onto the pavement along Church Way to weed the wall, and the remaining Goodgymers armed themselves with secateurs, handsaws and loppers and set to work on clearing the ivy along the cemetery wall.

As always, 30 minutes flew by...despite the fact that we know we can achieve quite a lot in half an hour we are always pleased to see the results of the hard work!

We managed to completely remove the metal cage from around the walnut tree, clear almost all of the back wall of ivy, and de-weeded the whole front wall. Team work makes for dream work!

Returning tools, and pausing for squash and shortbread (thank you Rachel!), we set off to our 2nd stop of the evening - the Iffley Road Sports Centre. Scooting straight through to the Roger Bannister Track we now had the opportunity to see if we could run a sub-4 minute mile!

Whilst none of us managed to equal Sir Roger Bannister's achievement, I'm pretty sure that we would have done if we weren't already a bit tired from our hard work at Iffley Glebe :-)

We will be back to Iffley Glebe again in August, by which time the grass will have been cut for hay, and so we have been invited to take the frisbee for post-task fun and games in the meadow.

Thanks to Sarah for backmarking the run, Mark for taking some of the photos, and to Oxford University Sport for allowing us to run on the Roger Bannister Track.