After all the celebrations and cake over the past few weeks to celebrate GoodGym H&F's second birthday it seemed rather apt that we had a baker's dozen of runners for tonight's task at Askham Court. A big welcome to Sarah on her first H&F group run - it was lovely to have you along, hope you enjoyed it!

News Line Is It Anyway?

The evening began with a penguin-esk group huddle in which there was the weekly news round-up....

1. September Long Run – this Saturday! This month's long run will be along the Wandle Trail, led by yours truly and Andy from GG Hounslow. There will be three pacing groups and the option of a shorter start point along the way. Post-run we will head for food and drinks at the Dog & Bull in Croydon. Sign up here.
2. Community Mission - 6th October – We will be following-up our August group run visit and lending a hand at Springvale Estate Residents Hall. No DBS check is required. Sign up here.
3. The GoodGym Eurotrip 2019 will be to Sofia in May 2019....racing, pubs, spas, buffets and more! - come & join the fun! Sign up here.

Finally, a big well done to Catherine, Alice and Jason who aced the Kew Gardens 10K at the weekend!

With the news done we completed a quick warm-up followed by a name and number count, and the return of the feared 'question of the week'! At last night's GoodGym Wandsworth the group picked cheese as an overwhelming favourite sandwich filling and I was intrigued to find out if the group would concur. With hummus and falafel and chicken mayo getting an honourable mention, again it was cheese that proved a favourite - in a variety of combinations.

With everyone's Strava's set we headed off on a steady 3km run up to Askham Court. Halfway up we paused to regroup and had the bonus of some wall sits, or in Jason's case some 'Johnny-sits'! With everyone regrouped and wall-sitted out I took a punt on the alley being a marginal shortcut rather than a dead end - much to everyone's surprise it was indeed a shortcut and did not require a sharp u-turn! It wasn't long before we arrived at Askham Court and we were quickly met by some of the residents, Mirko, Ayda and Norma. In a strong case of déjà vu from last week we were led around the back of the same block of flats, except instead of coming face-to-face with an enormous amount of bindweed, it was a mountainous amount of stinging nettles, brambles and weeds - we had a fight on our hands to show our 'heavy nettle' against stings and prickles in the ever fading light!

Saws of illusion

This was no illusion, it looked and was a daunting task. In order to battle the vast quantity of stinging nettles, brambles and weeds the group gloved up and acquired some small hacksaws, garden waste bags and implemented some basic manual hand work or rather 'pulling-power'! Within minutes there began to be piles of stinging nettles and wicked brambles that had lost the battle to remain. Sadly there was no Sophie (head of posing on demand) in attendance tonight but thankfully Helena, Fiona and Jason provided me with a great posing shot.

Pretty prickle GoodGym-ers!

Calamine lotion, one of the things that was missing from the above list and judging by the echoes of "ouch" from within the stinging nettles and brambles many of the group got some lumpy and itchy souvenir stings. With Tom's theory of "once you've been stung once how much worse can it get?!" proving an interesting theory... Anna, Catherine (best leggings of the night award!) and Catriona were some of those that had heeded my advice from last week to wear long sleeves and trousers, seemingly a wise move!

Net gain: H&F GG > dead net(tles) = earth it!

Despite only having half an hour in which to work, the group made a massive dent on the area with a good half of the stinging nettles efficiently removed and bagged into 12 garden waste bags! Soil could now be seen again, it did exist in there! With the darkness upon us and time against us the group efficiently began the tidy up. With all the bags transported down to the designated area, [Alice] brandished the broom and provided one final sweep. All that was left was for the group to pose for a quick photo around the filled bin bags with Ayda and Norma.

Net them eat cake (biscuits)...

Very kindly, the residents provided the group with refreshments of juice, water, and biscuits - some lovely shorties that Johnny (head of biscuits) expertly tasted and handed out - as a big thank you for all their hard gardening work these past couple of weeks.

The fine sprint

Suitably refuelled the group began the 2.5km run back to base, a run that required the successful negotiation of pedestrians and numerous items (from beds to barriers) on the pavements. We briefly paused 1km away from base to enable those that wished to push a bit harder on the way home a chance to do so - Sarah, Sarah, Chris and Tom keenly took up the option of some short fartlek sprints - great sprinting guys! With one final push and sprint for home from the group returned back to base with redder faces and deeper breathing ready for a good cool-down and stretch off.

Next week’s task will be at the Maystar Estate and will be led by the wonderful Alyx – sign-up here. Please bring gardening gloves if you have them.

Good luck to Fiona in the Beckenham Half on Sunday, to Catriona in the Crystal Palace Road Races, to Bex in the Ealing Half Marathon and to anyone else who is running a race or parkrunning - hope you have a good run!

Have a lovely couple of weeks, enjoy next week's task and hopefully see you in two Tuesday's time!

Please note that despite not managing to capture photographic evidence of Sarah (head of bags) holding a bag this week, I can confirm that it did indeed happen, she was seen holding a bag!