Drawing the Short Saw

An amazing 44 GG Yorkies ran to St Nicks for an epic log sawing task!

Paul came along for his first ever group run with us tonight so give him a big old cheer. We also need to give some massive cheers to Jeff because he came to do good with us on his birthday AND banned birthday squats, an unprecedented move but once which pleased lots of people.

If you make anyone exercise in my honour, I won't provide cake! Jeff

We arrived at St Nicks and were met by Maria who not only challenged us to saw many logs of varying shapes and sizes, but also challenged us to build a wood store using some planks, bits of wood and plastic sheets. It's fair to say her expectations of how the wood store might end up, were not high.

A team of eight created a project plan for the wood store construction whilst everyone else split into pairs or threes and grabbed a saw and a log. When there were no more logs, we sent people to get more.

If you haven't got wood, come with me!

New logs were arriving thick and fast by the barrow-load and everyone was working quickly to saw the logs into 30cm(ish) long pieces. There was an intriguing array of sawing techniques going on including lots of bum wiggling and Babs sawing whilst running on the spot to keep warm.

The wood store team were on top form and kept calling me and Maria over to proudly show us their perfectly measured sawn planks and their expert tongue and groove fittings.

Look at our diagonal strut! You should make up a 'diagonal strut exercise' to celebrate - Nick

Abigail and Lucy were trying to saw an especially girthy log with the shortest saw I've ever seen. The rate of sawing action was off the chart. Flying insect wings don't even move that fast.

Why are we doing this? Max

Good question Max! Maria explained that the donated wood will be "seasoned" (fancy word for "dried) and after a year or so it will be used as firewood to actually heat the Environment Centre, making it even more sustainable.

In just 30 minutes we had created a huge pile of sawn logs and I have to give massive kudos to the wood store team for creating and constructing something completely robust and very impressive. Maria's mind was totally blown.

After a group picture we split into two groups with an easy-paced running group heading back whilst a faster-paced running group stayed back to form a human log chain and get all those logs into the new wood store.

We're having a log of fun!

We finished up staying on the woody theme with a few planking exercises to finish a brilliant evening.

Next week is my last ever group run as the boss, let's make it a massive one!