We had a debut and a tourist joining us tonight for the long run out to Castle Hill.

It was great to meet Belinda, a Goodgym Worthing centurion, was staying in Ipswich for work. Her hotel was literally a stone throw from our meeting point - good planning or what!!

Lizzie's first Group Run was slightly unorthadox in that she missed us at the start due to problems locating a place to park. Lesser people would have put this down to bad luck and headed home....but Lizzie drove to the task location, pulling up just as we arrived! So the welcome was not as structured as normal but brilliant to meet you.

Prior to setting out we recapped a busy weekend of events and races people had run - including the Woodbridge 10k and Kerry had raced a train in Norfolk (and beat it!)

The task was at a familiar location and involved some weeding in a small area and also cutting back a massively overgrown area - this was hampered by the availability of tools (only a saw and a set of secateurs . Robin and Kerry took these and set too on the shrubs with Lizzie and Nicola picking up off cuts, while the rest of the team weeded, dug and swept.

The shrub proved stubborn and years of tangled growth made it tricky to make any real impact with the limited tools. However the boys gave it a good go, diving deep into the undergrowth to try and find the key branches/trunk to cut.

The main team did a great job of weeding (mainly by hand) the small plot, leaving it looking ten times better than when we arrived.

On the run home there were a only a couple of takers for the side street intervals - mainly due to exertion of races over the weekend! But a steady, even pace by all totted up to a round trip of 5 miles.