The Potato Stone

As the heaven's started to open across Norwich around 5.30pm I was thinking to myself "how many people will do some digging in the rain?" but luckily it cleared and runners kept appearing outside The Forum ready to do some good.

It was great to see some new faces to as well as many returning from the previous 2 weeks.

Laura and Howard kindly volunteered to be back runners with Laura displaying her red GoodGym t-shirt.

We headed out on Dereham Road to Marlpit Community Gardens to meet Mahesh and his team of volunteers. It was a 4km distance (Google Maps lied and said it was supposed to be 3.5km!) and the team stuck closely together. We may have done some Mountain Climbers on the way too.

Once we arrived we all thought what a beautiful location it is and none of us realised it was even there. We split the team into 2 so half were going to dig a trench to prevent slugs getting into the area and the other half weeding.

The guys had 25 minutes to do as much as they could and boy did they do that!

Now to the reason of the pun. While Kate was forking (that's not another pun/innuendo!) she got really excited as she found a tiny potato and called me over to have a look. I'm not sure if she'd seen a potato before but it was cute how enthusiastic she got over it. The problem was once she passed it to me, I had to break the news that it was in fact just a stone hahaha.

The guys weeding were refuelling on the fresh raspberries as they were working. Scott was definitely loving these.

After 25 minutes I called the team to a halt and we cleared up realised what an epic job they had done in that time. A quick group photo with the rainbow in the background and we headed back, with Lydia and Alix running with a bundle of Rhubarb from the gardens that Mahesh kindly offered everybody.

Some of front runners were put through a quick session of start jumps and squats and then we all tackled the steep Grapes Hill near the end.

It was a really great evening, the runners all chatted to new people, supported each other and done an awesome job at the task.

A few of us then went for a social drink at The Lamb Inn... this could become a regular thing and everyone is welcome to join us. We may have also gone to Five Guys for some food, we'll try not to make this as regular!

As mentioned, [next week's run[(https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/laying-chippings-for-new-woodland-walk-in-bowthorpe) is a longer distance of 5.5km each way. We'll return to The Forum about 8.30pm.