Huge bags of sticks

Lauren Garland writes:The incessant drizzle didn’t make for inspiring running weather last night, but an impressive 18 runners turned up at the Arch Gallery for our weekly Monday night Goodgym run. Our task was to head to Bow Church for some leaf & branch clearing in the church yard.After our traditional pep talk from Ivo and a few stretches we set off, we were also set the additional challenge of handing out GoodGym flyers to other runners we passed en route. It was a comfortable 3.5k run to Bow Church, winding along the canal and through the back streets of Bow. This is always one of my favourite things about these group runs, running along roads that aren’t far from my usual solo route, but I’ve never had reason to run down before. We wound through these back streets & cut through estates until we came out opposite Bow Church DLR, and then as we rounded the corner Bow Church came into view.I must admit I’d never really noticed there was an enormous church right on Bow roundabout before. It’s quite well hidden behind a veil of trees, but I still probably should have noticed. We went through the church gate and through the graveyard with the church tower looming ahead of us, headed up the very slippery path to the door, agreeing how spooky the church would look if we had to do this task on one of our dark, winter runs.We were greeted by Sam and Amanda from the church who dished out gardening gloves and steered us round the side of the church to another part of the cemetery. They had a large pile of bags full of old leaves and broken up branches that they needed moved out to the front of the church for collection. We quickly realised that the small alleyway we’d been steered through was the only access to this part of the cemetery and it was single file only as we lugged the heavy bags back through to the entrance. No wonder they needed our help!Once we’d cleared these bags we could start filling up some more. We had 20 minutes left before we needed to head back to base & Ivo set us the challenge to fill 20 bags in that time. If there’s one thing that spurs us on, it’s a challenge, and the leaf and branch clearing began in earnest. I love seeing how little teams pop up when we do this, one person holding the bag, the other filling it, someone else breaking up the branches. It turns out it’s an efficient way to work, we cleared 23 bags of leaves & branches in just 20 mins. Not a bad effort.We gathered at the entrance for a couple of photos and a head count to make sure we were all there, and not only were we all present, but we’d grown. There were now twenty of us. Perhaps instead of losing people under the leaves we’d uncovered a couple! Or maybe some of those flyers had instantly converted people! Then we split into two groups, a direct run back the way we came, and a slightly longer, faster run for those not tired out by all the fetching and carrying.The run home was great. I went for the direct run back, slow & steady through the drizzle, with lots of chatter and plenty of amusement. Mainly at Mark chasing down other runners on his bike to give them flyers, and hopefully recruit them to our gang.More photos are on the GoodGym facebook page.