Tough hills make tough runners

Today we ran between just over 4km to the Salvation Army in Booth Road to weed and tidy the enclosed garden at the back of the building which is a lovely area for the users to sit and relax.

After another hot sticky day Chris welcomed us again with much needed drinks and then showed us the area we needed to get working on. So we weeded, pruned and swept until the garden looked like a much more pleasant place to take some time out. There was a lovely smell of sage after Geeta and Leanne gave the sage plant a close shave! On our next visit we will hopefully be doing some work on the fence to finish the job off. After working hard for around 40 minutes we cleared up, had some more cold drinks and headed off to Duppas Hill for our fitness session.

Tonight’s fun fitness session (my words not theirs!) involved hill sprints where we were aiming to improve our strength and improve our running technique. Starting at the bottom of the hill each group ran for 20-30 seconds at an effort level of around 8 out of 10. Impressively they managed four long sprints before we had to head back to base.

We also had three new members today Ian, Sarah and Emma - so a big welcome to them and hope to see you in your red t-shirts very soon. Jennifer survived her 24 hour relay race at the weekend so well done to her – very impressive.

Next week we’ll be heading to Wandle Park for some more litter picking and our fitness session. Here’s the link to join up.