Guardians of the Ballast Quay!

A record breaking 29 runners ran 5km to paint the railings and pull out weeds at Ballast Quay Gardens!

So yesterday was pretty big right?! When I left home, there were 22 sign ups and 3 people had already messaged me to say they could no longer make it so I was expecting a little fewer than 20. And then BOOM the headcount confirmed a whopping 28! And then to top it all off, along came Lee mid warm up, bringing the total up to 29... painfully close to that big 3-0 but I'll take it! AMAZING EVERYONE!!!!

Amongst this HUGE crowd, we had 4 first timers: Manju's friend Rachel, Christian's work friend Linda, the twins' housemate Matt G and lastly the lovely Xanthe! Welcome everyone! And thanks to you guys for recruiting your friends!

We also welcomed a few more new faces to Greenwich: GG veteran Beth who has probably done more good deeds than ALL of us put together! And finally Lewisham runner Helen S! Great to have you run with us ladies! :)

Happy thoughts!

We went round the group and heard everyone's happiest moments of the day which was LOVELY. We listened to people's tales of eating lunch in the sun, booking annual leave, having a lay in, meetings in The Shard, eating ice cream at hourly intervals, and finally bringing the correct DBS documents for me to check.. lots of happy moments!

A little warm up on the grass and then we headed straight over to see the super lovely Diane (with Mridula leading the pack can I just add) and dog number 1 of the evening, Tom! (Side note: I really like it when animals have human names). So Diane has been looking after the garden here since 1962!!!!!!!! Isn't that insane. Since before some of your parents were even born. And unfortunately, and quite understandably, she isn't able to maintain the entire thing herself which is where we come in!

Our task was to finish what we started a few weeks ago and paint the other set of railings and also to clear the area of weeds. Since there were so many of us, we split into two groups. Ben and Vickie took a fast group out at 7.30/mile pace for 20 minutes along the newly re-opened Thames Path, whilst the rest of the group got to work!

The first task was wiping over the railings with white spirit to strip off any old paint and get rid of the dust and cobwebs etc. And then on with the paint! Clare got everyone organised and assigned posts for the painters. Amy M was doing a beautiful job but with a degree in art, I would expect no less! The rest of the group got cracking with the weeds, attacking them with the scrapers. DIE WEEDS, DIE!

Anyone want my sweaty glove?

The speed squad returned, got their breath back and tagged in the others who I could tell were just dying to go for a run! Nina peeled off her sweaty gloves and offered them out, not sure if she had any takers. Either way, everyone got stuck in and took over. Most of the weeds had been cleared by this point but Amy B noticed some stubborn ones in between the paving slabs. One of Diane's neighbours came along with dog number 2 of the evening who seemed to be quite excited by what Amy was up to! Matt G decided he didn't want to wait any longer to cover up those greys so just used a bit of paint which worked perfectly! James did a bit of sweeping and then hacked down a dead tree/plant thing which then got given to Alex to throw into the river #thuglife.

10 minutes later and group 2 returned from their nice river run! We said our goodbyes to Diane, took a group snap or two and then headed back to do the fitness session with a lovely burning sunset behind us <3

Dog number 3, the best dog

We got in a nice big circle ready to do a bit of core work and along came just the cutest little thing EVER. The white ball of fluff made it's way round the whole circle to say hello to everyone. Sadly for everyone's tummy muscles, the dog had to go! 2 rounds of 3 exercises, 45s each. There were some likely inappropriate jokes going on in the Nina/Mridula corner but if something comes out of Mridula's mouth that isn't inappropriate I would be worried so nothing strange there. A little stretch on the grass and then we were done!!!!!!!!!

Well done for getting so much done everyone!!! The place looked amazing when you were finished with it and Diane was so happy so massive thanks to you all. And also just thanks for being there and being part of yet again our biggest ever run! See you next week!

Oh also I definitely can't take credit for this pun. Thanks Helen S!