under the pylon

Tonight's run was a serious one.  The plan was to do a gentle 4k run over to some allotments just North of Prince Regent DLR station and then to head back in two groups.  The route took us over the point  at which the Lea river joins the Thames - a place surrounded by flyovers and dual carriage ways that were hard to escape.  We started  heading directly East from Canary Wharf, which proved to be a very urban route; very few trees or back streets on this run.We headed up and over the Lower Lea Crossing, full of traffic but with great views:  to our right the Millenium dome and the new Olympic ski lift, and to our left the Olympic Stadium.We arrived at one of the New Shoots sites, just off the Victoria Dock Road.  We were aiming for the pylon in the middle of the allotments.  We'd covered 4.3km in 31 mins by the time we arrived.On arrival, Alison dished out gloves and trowels and  we got to work quickly, gathering large quantities of weeds from around the planters.Within our alloted half an hour we'd cleared the weeds from between the planters and made good headway into the weeds along the fence.  The compost pile could take no more.Before we left we looked up at the massive pylon we'd been working underneath:The route back got slightly complicated as we tried to opt for a scenic route along the Victoria Dock. Instead we got stuck in a hotel and had to do an about turn.The route took as hurtling back over the dual carriage way, this time carrying the scars from the nettles and weeds we'd been wrestling.Big congratulations to new runner Temi for completing the run, and for having the energy to take the stairs up at the end.