Spades of Glory!

10 energetic Ealing runners ran 7km to shift a whole load of dirt at the Certitude Centre in Perivale!

Well what a successful evening that was! It was session number 3 in Ealing and I was greeted by yet another new set of runners! Plus the lovely Kerry who I met last week! There were three GoodGym first timers - Jags, Rajinder and Tash who all know each other from another running club. Welcome! Give them all a cheer and celebrate their first good deed! Hope you had a great first run guys!

Our task last night was a little further away than usual but we set off together and made our way up that nasty hill. But no one was even phased, everyone attacked it and we were up there in no time! A little break at the top and we pushed on!

I think that's someones house...

2 miles later and we arrived. Well... we thought we had. Or at least Google Maps thought we had. Just as I was about to open the gate into someone's back garden, Graham and the gang shouted from afar to say they'd found it. PHEW.

We were greeted by the lovely Kasia who showed us through the centre and to the back garden where the magic was about to take place! There was a HUUUGE pile of dirt out the back and we needed to transport it to the skip round the front of the building. Thankfully, Kasia had a wonderful shed fully stocked with gloves, shovels, forks, boots, wheelbarrows... everything we could possibly ever need! Perfect! Tash embraced it all and even sported some nice wellies for the evening!

Everyone got stuck in! There were two wheelbarrows, one unfortunately with a very flat tyre but it did the job!

These guys did not hang about. They were filling the skip at lightning speed and the pile was slowly but surely going down. It was a pretty stubborn compost heap with loads of roots and rubble amongst all the dirt and grass, which made for quite a workout. While the lads Martin, Alex and Tim took it in turns to empty the wheelbarrows, Emma and the rest of the gang were breaking everything up, trying to loosen the pile to make it easier to scoop!

Decision time!

It got to about 8 o'clock and we were getting really close to finishing the job. Kerry was filling all sorts of containers taking them round to the skip. I gave the group the choice of calling it quits to do a fitness session or sticking at it for longer to see how much we could get done. Of course everyone wanted to stay and get as much done as possible which was great! Plus all this shovelling was a fitness session in itself.

Everyone was firing on all cylinders for the last few minutes, sadly we weren't quite able to finish it all. HOWEVER we did leave it in a far more manageable state for the volunteers to finish off at a later date. Kasia was delighted and really appreciative of everyone's hard work. And so was I! AMAZING JOB!

We took a few photos and then headed back the way we came. A few stretches and then everyone headed home!

Really well done last night gang! You really made a massive difference and it would have taken 2 people hours to achieve what you did so really good going! Give yourselves a pat on the back!! Hope to see you all next week!

PUN CRED: Graham! :)