Theres a rat in me weeding what am I gonna do!

Not quite the bumper turn out of launch night but the dynamic dirty dozen certainly made their presence felt at the Peepul Centre on Belgrave Rd.

I experienced a bit of a panic at first, the intended verge that we were supposed to be weeding had already been DONE by the maintenence man - Oh No! But no fear, our task master Coro Febres had plenty more for us to do.

A nearby public alleyway, responsibility of the centre was overgrown with weeds and the discarded litter in amongst them was ruining the caretakers power tools so they needed to be carefully extracted before he could attach the strimming.

Armed with just gloves and black bags GoodGym got to work. Within minutes it seemed to have become a competition to see who could get the most precious piece of litter. There was a diamond encrusted heart decoration, a pez dispenser with a stormtroopers head on it, a broom in two halves and several crates worth of empty special strength booze cans!

Highlight of the job was Nicolas near world record high jump - she moved a bit of undergrowth and disturbed a live rat, if you check out the photo she is describing just how pig it was. Ben also found a dead pigeon, sadly well past its sell by date for game pie!

After just 10 minutes "more bags" came the cry. Coro couldnt believe how fast we worked and how many bags we filled - nearly 20 by close of play.

A quick thanks from Coro and then it was off to Abbey Park for some circuits. I am not sure you were taking it all that seriously as there seemed to be far too much laughter and not enough "lets kill the trainer" but in fairness I cant fault the effort, both on task and on the session, but particularly on the task.

The run along the canal to and from the task site worked really well too, finding out random "stuff" about people we had not really met before. Martin is a regular at Victoria Park Run, Nicola is building up the courage to do her first parkrun (no shortage of encouragement from fellow runners) and Faye plays Roller Hockey.

My runner of the day was Mel. She had already done a 10 miler earlier today, encouraging a friend who is training for a half marathon and she knew she would be right at the back tonight. The group were very good at doubling back to pick up back markers. As the night went on every time we doubled back Mel seemed to have kept closer to the front, I havent seen her run that fast for a long time.