A Rose with a Thorn (or two)? Thistle do us.

First, a big hearty welcome to first-timer and brand new member Gabi.

It wasn't as hot as last week, so we decided to make ourselves warmer with a few alien pod circuits with a plank emphasis. There was the plank, there was the plank while patting your own back and there was the plank with the clap (met with varying degrees of success - all negative). One group were so sick of the bloody plank by the end that they provided a round of applause when we finished.

Planked out, we split into two groups. The faster group gave the slower group a little head start by pretending to do some star jumps on the fields (they still caught us).

But, one way or another we all travelled the 3k (ok, 3.4k) up to Caxton House where we were met by Rose, who had several nasty thistly thorny weeds for us to clear from the front of the building (these were officially part of a deliberate wildflower collection that got a bit out of control).

We had 25 minutes to clear the area so with gloves donned we set to work secateuring, yanking, forking, carrying and throwing. we also discovered a surprising number of beer cans hidden in the bushes. It was all very prickly work and there were seeds flying all over the shop (including into our eyes and noses), but it felt good to do good and we got a few thumbs up from passing drivers on St. John's Way which is always nice.

We stopped only for a quick Toffeepop and finished up with a nice cold cup of water provided by Sue.

With everything looking much clearer Steve got his massive broom out a had a quick sweep up, we said our goodbyes and ran off down to the trusty old Emirates Stadium, where it was time for 90 seconds of co-ordinated semi-synchronised non-stop core-style stuff.

Before anybody had a chance to recover we quickly convinced Gabi that fartlek was a real word then got stuck into a letter fartlek session round the stadium. Starting at "S" we jogged between one pair of letters, sprinted between then next, then alternated in a similar manner until we were back at the start. A few moans that the recovery pairs of letters were a bit closer to each other than the sprint pairs, but everybody put in a great effort.

Those pesky fast finishers had a treat in store in the form of an exercise of choice to perform while waiting for everybody to finish.

Phew. Time for a little walk to get our breath back. We had a quick debate/vote (thanks, Gabi for suggestion): Beard or No Beard? There were 6 votes for and the rest against, so no beard won it. However, we suddenly found ourselves in awe of our men of beards Ben and Stephen. We all know men with beards are wise and Ben provided some excellent pieces of beard wisdom: "Don't take too much care of it", and also, quote of the year "You can't uncut hair". Worth considering in a variety of circumstances.

Next week's question (thanks to Steve's mis-hearing): Beer or no Beer?

As nice as walking was, we eventually decided we should jog a bit and then we came across a hill and everybody was really keen to run up it as fast as they could; so we did.

A gentle "cool-down" jog down the hill and a stretch and we were done.

A tough night and a great effort from all.

Thanks Ben and Bridget for super pun title suggestions.

Next week is gonna be mental. We're heading to Newlon Fusion's Barnsbury centre to get stuck into helping with a garden project designed by some students from UCL. Prove that your brain is intact and sign up here

Sim