Roses are red, violets are blue, we transformed the Rose Bowl and now the community love you!

What a lovely group the Islington Goodgym crew are! Thank you for making me feel so welcome, you lot are amazing!

It was good to welcome some new runners to the group this evening, so welcome to Helen, Becky and Joe, give them all a big Islington cheer!

So after some quick introductions we did a quick warm up, then set of in search of the Rose Bowl community centre. It was a relatively short run, so decided to all run together. Caroline announced she wasn't feeling well, so wanted to back mark and I let the way at the front! Hope you're feeling better soon Caroline!

After about 8 minutes we arrived at the Rose Bowl and met Ceri, who was in charge of the transformation of the outside space. After a quick refuel, we split into two groups. One to cover the front garden and one to look after the back.

Steve made a dash for the bamboo section, quicker than any panda I've seen and set about cutting it back from spilling over onto the road. The transformation in just half an hour was amazing to see, great job!

Everyone else grabbed the tools and set about clearing the copious amounts of ivy that was growing up the metal railings, it really was everywhere! But as you can see in the photos, the difference that 18 Goodgym runners can make in just 30 minutes is quite amazing, what an incredible job everyone did!!

So after half an hour of chopping, pulling, snapping, moving and generally attacking every weed in sight, we filled up the plastic bags and moved everything over to the main pile ready for the council to collect.

Transformation complete, well part 1 anyway, as we will be returning in a couple of weeks to finish everything off.

We filled 8 of those huge rubbish sacks!

Ceri was so grateful and had left out oranges, bananas and more water. How good is this task!?!

The boys went charging off

Some of the boys wanted to go a bit faster on the way home, so they left slightly early and look a longer route back to the park. Needless to say, the girls group made it back to the park on-time and were left waiting for the boys. Now there's a surprise!

We did a quick intervals session of sprinting out and then recovering on the way back. Now I thought this would be tough, but everyone is smiling in the photos! I think that means I'll have to make a extra tough fitness session when I return in a couple of weeks.

Graham ever so kindly went and bought everyone biscuits, how kind is that! I'll get a few packets when I return in a couple of weeks, although I think shortbread with chocolate will be very hard to beat, but the challenge is on!

WELL DONE everyone on such a great task and really making a difference in such a short space of time. We will be returning in a couple of weeks to finish the job and I'm so excited for what it's going to look like.

Remember to sign up for next weeks group run by clicking here!!