I'm just a trellis guy

What an exciting crew to be heading out with on a Monday night! The rain was no match for Team Tower Hamlets as a group of new and established faces headed to the Town Hall steps for a quick warm-up before heading to Cranbrook Community gardens for a busy evening of varied tasks.

Tasks aplenty

Having visited the garden earlier in the day, it was clear the vegetable beds would be too wet to paint but there was still plenty to do. Our group was divided into four: we had trellis-assembling for the highly-logical and nimble-fingered; cutting, wheeling and binning wood for those wishing to channel their inner-Robinson Crusoe; the gardening group for those blessed with patience and horticultural skills, while the soil-sifting was reserved for those partial to a bit of dirt.

Introducing the Tower Hamlets Signature Snack: Lucky Dip Pick 'n' Mix

No orange segments for us...At half time, the team were presented with a new game: Lucky Dip Pick 'n' Mix which involved rummaging around in a bag taking pot luck on raisins vs Iced Gems. The snacking stakes couldn't have been higher.

And the rain came down...

Despite every trusty weather app promising only cloud, the runners continued to work at a speedy pace for over 45 minutes, only pausing to empty wheelbarrows, buckets or borrow more bin liners. We were drenched by the time we headed onto our fitness session, but feeling very proud and much-appreciated as we bid farewell to our delighted task-owners.

New game alert...

And so to Meath Gardens for our new fitness game, Tempo Tag (AKA Catch Bryon). 3, suitably-long laps of this beautiful green space with the aim of the game being to catch Bryon each time. Well done to everyone for a brilliant bit of running after an already physically-tough night - hopefully you'll have a good idea of your 5/10, 7/10, 9/10 pace now...And extra well done for digging deep for that 9/10 pace as a finale. And Bryon - thank you for being a brilliant sport and pace-keeper.

Each lap involved an exercise reward...Let's hear it for the Bulgarian split-squat, sweeping leg-plank and Pilates pulldown.

As for the Awards, Fabulous Form of the Night would have to go to Michael who, on his first GG run, wowed us all with his single-leg squats; Tim wins Multi-Tasker of the Night for doubling-up on the wood and postcard-writing tasks while Sarah wins Team Leader of the Night for guiding and assisting the whole gardening group.

We arrived back at the Town Hall steps for a quick, final stretch...What a night. Well done everyone - you got so, so much done and worked so hard at your running and conditioning exercises.

Thank you Becky for stats and cheerful and steady backmarking- we ended up running over 5K (42.8 miles between us), peaking at a highly-respectable 10mph; massive thank you again to Bryon, for race-pacing and brilliant route-navigation, and thank you to Sarah, who joins our Task Force as New Runner Rep - thank you for the warm welcome for all our new faces tonight.

And a very big, warm welcome to our new faces, Heidi, Charlotte , Claudia , Laura, Michael, Izzy , Paul , Shreena and Si - thank you for making the evening such fun, and hope to see you again very soon.

We're at Weavers Fields next week for more Adventure Playground fun - do sign up here.

Also, don't forget it's the London Long Run this weekend, a beautiful, 9-10m route following the River Lea, finishing with pizza, and running at a range of paces to suit all levels. Details are here.

Lastly, if you're running the London Marathon, do leave your details with the GoodGym Marathon Group here, so we can track you, cheer you on, and just provide general sound support for you and your fundraising efforts.

That really is it for now! Thanks to you all for making Monday so absolutely marvellous for all concerned - yet again. I CAN'T WAIT to do it all again next week.