On a lovely Sheffield eve we headed out to meet Karen Malone and two other keen Pitsmoor Pickers in a new area of town to our usual spot to get picking!

Tom was the can man for the eve, collecting as many cans as possible to be recycled and cashed in for money that goes back into equipment for the Pitsmoor Pickers.

Amongst items found were individual shoes, suspicious coloured liquids in bottles, the all now common catering sized N02 dispensors.

It was great to be in a new area and to meet some new pickers!

Until next time, happy running! :)

Five fitness fanatics frolicked frenetically to meet Karen and her other volunteer at Stanley Field near Neepsend. We were aiding the Pitsmoor Pickers to pluck lots of trash from the wooded embankment down by the side of the road.

On the way to meet Karen we were having a bet about what colour her hair would be on this occasion... nobody guessed red, and that's what it turned out to be! Appropriate for a visit from red thunder.

Karen distributed pickers, hoops and bags and sent everyone on their merry ways.

We worked our way through the dark, dank woods, blitzing the leaf litter of litter!

Some interesting finds of the evening were several large gas canisters (which Karen takes to a specialist recycling company), 75 drinks cans (which are exchanged for money that is used to buy equipment), cannabis growing equipment, a couple of substantial flat-screen televisions, and a shelving unit.

After 45 minutes of plucking we gathered up all of the bags and bigger bits. We left them in a pile by the side of the road where Karen had arranged for them to be picked up by the council. Before we left we took the opportunity to get a group photo of ourselves looking happy with our haul.

When we arrived back at the showroom there was one final special surprise for the volunteers... the 'Sally up' challenge, this time utilizing it for squats. The premise of the challenge is to perform the downward action of the exercise every time the song says 'bring Sally down' and the upward action only when 'bring Sally up' is sang. This results in lots of reps and varying lengths of time holding stress positions. Everyone loves it!

After this we stretched off all the key muscle groups used throughout the evening's exertions and parted ways.

Great to welcome 2 new GG SHF group runners last night:

Ged who is also the Grants man for GGHQ!

Lucy who joined us from GG YORK!

It was BALTIC last night, but we didn't let that stop us and get straight on route down to Burngreave/Pitsmoor area to meet Karen Malone who got us equipped with bags and pickers and we got stuck straight into it.

It was great to also be joined again by celebrity Croquette professional Eugene who had a rare evening off childcare and was able to join us. Great to see you again Eugene!

We had thank you's from locals and managed to fill our bags up in no time, including a lot of cans that will be weighed in and any monies put towards new equipment for Pitsmoor Pickers to do more good in the future!

By the time we had done our loop , fingers were getting very chilly so we headed back to base with some going on to The Rutland Arms for food and drinks and others opting to head home for warm showers and heating!

Until next time, happy running!