Wednesday 6th March 2019
Report written by Sarah Place
14 awesome runners ran 3k to put up bamboo fencing at Christchurch School!
Well what good luck we always seem to have on Wednesday evenings in Greenwich eh! We narrowly missed the rain which allowed for super fun fence erection session!
Before we got going, we chatted about the pancakes we enjoyed 24 hours prior. From the lovely classics of nutella and lemon and sugar to the not-so-typical tuna and cheese combo... I wonder if Sean will be making those at his pancake party on the weekend...???
After working up a bit of an appetite it was time to run! We did a little warm up then headed off to the school. We were greeted by the lovely Fiona, Patrick and Rich who gathered us together to explain the task at hand. The main job was to put up a bamboo screening around the outside of the Forest School area. This involved pulling away any old fencing that remained, cutting back the branches and twigs that were in the way and then unravelling the bamboo and wiring it to the main fence!
We assembled into teams, grabbed some loppers, forks, secateurs, fencing, wiring.. basically anything that was available and got straight to it! Rich being super organised as ever got everyone in position each doing vital tasks. We had some people cutting and clearing the areas, and then once it was clear, the fence could go on. Once the fence was on and it was flush and straight and taught, it needed to be secured in place with some wire rope... and Jenny was just the woman for the job! We certainly trusted her not to get her wires crossed!
Time was a-ticking and after 30 minutes, the area had been cleared and most of the fencing was up! It was just time to secure it all in place. Once the final bit of wire was in, we gathered up all the tools and bits of old bamboo to bring it round to the front of the garden and it was time to head back to base!
Another successful task at the school! NICE WORK!
We had a group photo and said farewell to the team. Hopefully we will be back soon to do the rest of it... because it's going around the WHOOOOLE woodland area!!!
Time for a sit down
We headed back for a quick (although not as quick as I expected) fitness session which involved one simple thing. A wall sit. Everyone's favourite. I have been doing this in all of my sessions with various running groups and gym classes this week and not a single person has managed to hold it for longer than 90 seconds.... yet pretty much everyone tonight did.. AND THEN SOME! Holding that position for one minute is good, holding it for 2 is great, holding it for 3 is verging on crazy, and, well, holding it for 4 means you must have some superhuman special powers or something! After 4 and a half minutes it was Andy and Lee who were the victors... very well done!!! Those are some seriously strong quads you both have!!!
We slowly limped our way over to the pillars for a stretch and called it a day!
Well done everyone! Great work on the task! It was quite a fiddly one but you did a great job and the guys were so pleased with what you got done! Hopefully see most of you on Sunday for The Big Half!