Hot to trot

In the sweltering heat what better way to kick off our run than to do a sloowww warm up and play a game of Hotter or Notter than London? So as we did some dynamic stretches we named various spots around the world including KL, Lagos, New York and Porto to guess where it was warmer. Turns out we were top of the pops in London and hotter than pretty much everywhere!

We took a slow and steady run down to Battersea Park, making sure we hydrated on the way, and ignoring the delicious smells coming from the BBQ, headed straight for Thrive. Thrive is a charity which manages therapy gardens for people living with disabilities. It's a beautiful space full of gorgeous plants, pathways, trees and beds. The therapists there work with people with all kinds of disabilities, including mental ill health, visual impairment, dementia, learning disabilities, older people and young people with special needs as well as veterans.

The team there asked us to come and help out with various jobs, so while Janice and Steph got the enviably weather-appropriate job of watering the pot plants, Annabel and Alice got stuck into the compost beds while I tackled the weedy pathways. The compost task was to sieve and bag up the good stuff, and all was going very well until they uncovered the biggest toad, who we quickly named Terry. We didn't want to disturb Terry's habitat too much, so with a good lot of compost done, we let him go back to bed.

All that was left was to take a gentle jog back to base and to stretch out those hot muscles. Watch out for the community mission next Monday which will happen in place of our usual group run, plus plenty of other opportunities to get involved throughout the week. Stay hydrated if you're out and about running this week, and run happy!