Tom's tan...it can't bee-troo(t)!

"Put a towel on the floor, stand on it and scrunch your toes " said an extremely tanned looking Tom. I quickly typed that advice into a note on my phone along with all the other plantar fasciitus tips Tom kindly gave me. As I did that my phone flashed a silent ring. It was Will Carter. "Mate, there's an unexploded World War Two bomb near me. I'm going to be late".

After that typical start to Tower Hamlets Monday, Tom put his bottle of fake tan away and took the red army out for a quick WARM up by running a lap around a local park, getting progressively quicker until we could feel the BURN. Our BRONZE Adonis leader then set up some cones and finished off the warm up with some shuttle run sprints. This really put the COLOUR back in our cheeks. Can you see where I'm going here with these puns? I was going to ditch the CAPS, but they kind of add to the effect (although I'm not sure how I'm going to work 'Piz Buin' into this).

With our new found GLOW, we met the BEAMing Margaret from the Hollybush Community Gardens who explained our task for tonight. We needed to fill a few really big rubble bags with leaves, branches and other recently cut fauna from one of the gardens and drag it a few hundred metres up the road to another garden where they were building a home for some new tenants....Hedgehogs! Our second task was de-weeding some vegetable and flower patches. Margaret had planned ahead and FACTORed in the number of tools that we needed. A few of us made use of our mobile phones to SHINE lights onto the DARKENED soil beds to help us see what we were doing. As we were finishing up we hit upon a patch of veg that was ready for harvesting. Beetroot and Celeriac. We were kindly given the Beetroot which made our smiles even more RADIANT.

With our GOLDEN haul of Beetroot and both tasks complete, we dashed off into the SUN set and split off into two groups. Bryon lead a group of runners into London fields for a quick lap, whilst the rest of us did some core work with Tom after he finished putting the rest of his AMBRE SOLAIRE on. I made that last bit up, so yes I am taking the PIZ (buin). Phew.

Yours lovingly, Hass

p.s. Beetroot really is an awesome food. It helps to reduce blood pressure, lowers the risk of heart attacks and strokes, lowers cholesterol and in exercise it makes your muscles work harder.

PPS...not alternative title....'Run to the Beet'