Out, damn pot!

It was lovely to see faces old and new, from GoodGym Hounslow and beyond tonight for our Wednesday run.  We started off the night with some news:

• Congratulations to Matt who earned himself a new personal best half marathon time last weekend 

• Welcome to David who came along for his first group run tonight - great to meet you!

• Look out for the Fareshare, a food poverty charity, and GoodGym community missions like this one happening in Wimbledon which are happening all over London. 

After a warm up we asked what the first object we would rescue in a fire - answers ranged from photos, to paintings, to bottles of wine and, perhaps the best suggestion - a fire extinguisher. Makes sense!

We set off for our task of the night which was at Cultivate London. This brilliant urban farm and social enterprise in West London repurposes disused land and trains unemployed young people in landscaping and horticulture. So after a good run down there where we stopped for a just a few minutes to let a train pass and do some wall sits ("I love it when you humiliate us in public" - Remy) we arrived at the site.

There was a bit of a false start as we struggled to find the entrance of somewhere we'd been several dozen times before, but eventually we got in to find a genuinely enormous pile of plastic pots which we had been asked to sort. Auberon, who manages the site, had asked us to put them in correct sizes so that they could be used again.

After 25 minutes of sorting, one dodgy human chain and several hundred marginally different sized plant pots Lindsay declared time, and so after a photo op and a run back to base it was time to do some fitness.

We kicked off the session with a pacing exercise, before moving onto alternating laps of sprinting with conditioning. It was tough going but there was some great running and impressive form - great work.

Next week we're off to a new task at a school to help with various jobs, including shifting stones and some clearing. Hope to see you there. Until then, run happy!