Wednesday 24th November 2021
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Report written by Amy L (she/her)
This evening's group run took us back to the Maidenhead Community Allotment, the task location for our first ever GoodGym group run, and the setting for many happy sessions watering, weeding and digging since.
We met at the Windsor Castle pub, resisted the urge to go in and instead welcomed everyone and warmed up in the car park. It was great to meet Anita, who officially joined us for the first time, having met Sheila 'At the Cutting Hedge'. We also admired Sheila's brand new black t-shirt, signifying her completing 50 good deeds with GoodGym. She only reached the magic 5-0 a week ago, but somehow she's clocked up another 5 good deeds since then....incredible stuff!
To reach the Allotment, Carina, Jess, Steve, Jen, Jack and I ran a 3km route, with a few squats thrown in along the way for good measure. Thanks to Jess for back-marking and to Sheila for walk-leading with Anita. Hannah met us at the Allotment having stayed home a bit longer to try and get small children to sleep - arguably a bigger challenge than anything the rest of us were doing!
At the allotment, we read through task owners Sue and Gary's instructions, which included weeding, digging in manure and covering two beds with weed matting, as well as a spot of litter picking and grass trimming.
As always, it was a case of manure hands make light work. Everyone mucked in, we manure-vered our way through the list and weed did it! I know my puns really stink, but they are nothing compared to the whiff of that manure. It was scent-sational! It wasn't long before it was time to clear up, celebrate with a one minute plank and say smell you later.
Sheila and Anita walked back, Hannah returned to parenting duties, and Steve, Jen, Carina, Jack, Jess and I headed for the hills, or rather 'the only hill in Maidenhead' as Strava would erroneously have you believe. We challenged ourselves to run up and down this steep stretch of Boyn Hill/Punt Hill Park as many times as possible in 5 minutes. Between us we managed 19 reps before we were dung for - not bad! I'm trying to think of a hill areas pun for this part of the report, but can't come up with anything funny...
A few of us then jogged back to the pub for stretches, whilst others peeled off home.
Well done everyone on another great evening of GoodGyming and extra kudos to Steve for this evening's title pun.
The Maidenhead Community Allotment is run by a group of volunteers, who grow food to share with local residents, the users of the Boyn Grove Community and Resource Centre and Maidenhead Foodshare. They work with Men in Sheds, who are based on the same site. Men in Sheds is an initiative to combat loneliness by providing a space for men to connect and chat over practical tasks.
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