mucking in

Tonight's run was an unusually filthy.  We didn't give away the specifics until we were gathered outside York Hall, secretly we new that tonight's mission was to tackle what is extremely likely to be the largest indigenous farm-created compost pile in all of East London.We were lead tonight by the Simon Cole, long term Good Gym runner and boss of the most unusual, regionally-specific and exciting tour company Hackney Tours, who kept us all together and in good spirits.   After a thorough talk about the general perils of the night and the dangers of running we headed out into the drizzly darkness feeling pretty brave.  A slight detour at a community centre meant we arrived slightly late for our date at Stepney City farm, a place we visited for  the first time in January and which have since showered us with offers of  donkey running and were keen to have us again.Annie the volunteer manager was sleeping over at the farm to practice her goat birthing skills, she hadn't tried it before but was keen to give it a go even if it kept her up all night (kids these days...), so she was ready and waiting to let us in and show us to our pitch forks.Annie (left) briefed us on the technicalities of compost airing,  everybody was utterly thrilled to see the huge pile of semi-composted manure that awaited us. This thrilled-ness was generally expressed by everyone looking a bit concerned by the sheer size of it.It was not long until we were ankle deep in the stuff. Compost is quite heavy stuff and gives you a pretty good workout. Especially with such East London record-breaking quantities of it.It was a truly spectacular sight to see a team of runners throwing the mixture of manure and straw into the air. As we got deeper into the stuff it started to release a lot of steam.It also gave off a lot of heat, it was like being in some kind of unusual smelling sauna.  All good gyms should have one.In 30mins we had aired moved approximately 2.7 tons of manure. Something it would have taken one person more than a day to complete.  It was tough work, using many of muscles not used in running.The run home was uneventful but handy for getting the muck off the feet.As a result of this run, we're  going to add a bit into the faqs that warns against wearing one's most prized/snazzy running gear.