Blessed are the leaf-rakers

As we bring the Easter bank holiday to a close it seemed fitting to do some good work in a churchyard and tonight eighteen intrepid runners did just that as we headed out to the striking St. Luke's Church off Morning Lane in Hackney to clear a congregation of leaves from their yard.

The session began with warm-up in London Fields and the action then took us towards Hackney Town Hall for some drills in the shape of sprints and grapevining. There was some pretty nifty footwork on show from our runners and by now everyone was well limbered up for the next section of the 2.5 km run that took us to St Luke's.

We welcomed three new members to our group tonight, it was great to meet Robyn, Stephanie and Nowrin.

With no time to waste the group went hammer and tongs at the task of clearing a huge quantity of leaves from the churchyard. Two score and ten bin bags were stuffed to bursting completely clearing the churchyard and revealing a tranquil space that could almost have had Thomas Gray reaching for his quill and parchment.

With the sun beginning to set and the task done there was no let up for our band of sisters and brothers as we downed tools and hit the road over to Well Street Common picking up the pace before rounding the final bend along Well Street and back to our Bakehouse base. With 5 km, an interval session and a ton of cleared leaves under our belts it was a job well done.

Despite the great work, I have to end our report on a sad note and console with two of our group who became the victims of crime with a bike and a bike wheel being stolen from outside London Fields station. We all feel your pain guys, absolutely gutted for you, sadly there are some bad people out there and we all need to take every precaution against thievery.