Tonight, we noticed a dancing theme evolved for our weekly run! We had all been peeping out of the window throughout the day and promised the group we had spent the afternoon sun dancing in the hope that the rain would stop so we would remain dry for the duration of our run and task. So when we met in the Guildhall, we were quite chuffed that our efforts seemed to be working as although still grey out, it was at least, not raining.

Our brief saw us welcome back Leo and Marit on their 2nd GoodGym Kingston run tonight and had us prepared for the evening ahead. Then it was to market for our warm up, after stretching on the green outside Guildhall we literally lunged into the Kingston market square and proceeded to interval jog around the square using the natural space around us to pull up, dip, wheel barrow, squat jump, press-up and more – Oh and a few rounds of ‘Ready, steady, GLOVE!! (I’ll explain another time) All in all a seat in the square looked very tempting at this point but of course ‘No Way’!! Good deeds to be done so we fired up Strava and was off running.

Part one of our 6km run was outbound to Kingston Cemetery. It was a return visit and the task was to clear the headstones of intrusive self-setters and brutal brambles that were taking over in the graveyard. On our way the lucky front runners were treated to a loop of Fairfield Park while the rest of us caught up! Mark tried to explain it was a bonus for such pace but not all were convinced and for a change us further back in the pack felt less envious of pace as it proved to take a long road getting there!

Once everyone had arrived at the cemetery, we chose our tools and went on the hunt for the trespassers. With saws, secateurs, loppers and rakes we managed to clear a few areas, uncovered some stones that had been totally overgrown and tidy where we could but the job is huge and we hope to return sometime soon to make the differences we can around the site and keep up the good work!

The skills our GoodGym runners have are endless...#goodgym #volunteering #kingston #Cemetery #tuesdays pic.twitter.com/Dc2SMo0mVR

— GoodGym Kingston-upon-Thames (@GoodGymKingston) June 5, 2019

We were surprised how quickly time passed and you know something, the sun had been shining on us all the time we were there too! Easy to lose track of things working on the site when the evening was so pleasant in the end. Our normal cue to down tools from the caretaker was missing as well and tonight instead, we were able to leisurely pack up our tools under the watchful eye of a striking fox among the self-setters. It was as if it was inspecting our work or had he come to tell us it was time to leave and usher us out. Either way we took the hint and fox trotted out of there for part two of our run which saw us return to Guildhall for a full on stretch and bite inspection.

Great work team from sun dance to fox trot we made good things happen!

See you next week ; - )