Hoe and take a running stump

What a night and what a group. The prospect of rain, hills and darkness didn't put off our group of runners from making the 3km round trip to Lettsom Gardens to get rid of an overgrown heap.

Simon, the chairman of the garden, along with Lizzie from Grove Allotments next door, met us to show us the patch of land which they needed clearly. Before spring kicks in, they have a memorial tree that needs planting within the gardens. Our job was to clear a 6ft circle of Ivy, bay leaves and general overgrown weeds so that this can happen.

As ever, it always feels like we'll never get it done but we cleared the patch and left the tree stump for Hamish, the tree technician, to deal with.

In order to distract us from the rain, discussion turned to angry commuters, horror movies which involved woodland, darkness and rain (timing!) and back to which pub is best for our first social.

Having been reliably informed by GG newbie, Hayley, that the Victoria Inn does macaroni cheese scotch eggs, we're 99% sold. These chats, however, couldn't change the fact that we weren't going to get the tree stump out. Convinced that it was like Excalibur or Thor's hammer, we each took our turn (and own methods) to see who was the one with special powers. Perhaps we'll find that out doing some other tasks.

As a trade off to not run more hills, we did a bit of partner work involving suicide runs, burpees, hopping and squat jumps to shake off the rain and mud.

Muddy faced and a little bit rained on, we smashed it. What's that, you'd like more of the same? We're back at Galleywall Nature Reserve next week. Join us