14 of us gathered in Solutions lobby including first timer Emma and visitors Louise (GG Lewisham) and Arran (GG Richmond). Back for seconds was also Sarah nice to see the GoodGym magic worked and we've now hooked her.

Just one of those days

This week’s task was all set, we had a new organisation to help and from speaking to the group they were all looking forward to it too. It’s run talk week and being asked to sound proof a room for a local youth club sounded like sounded great. Not to suppress or stop them from having their voices heard but to encourage their creativity and help them express themselves through their music. Sadly due to an emergency the task had to be cancelled.

In between meetings I was sending texts, emails and making phone calls to try and arrange a replacement task, while planning an extended fitness session.

To the rescue

Luckily for them Amatare had some work to be done at Birdhurst community garden.

There was a variety of things to be done: * Watering the plants * Taking down the hanging baskets and removing the dead plants while preserving the inner casing to be used next year. * Leaves to be swept up and bagged

We even met a member of the Birdhurst community who was on his way home from work, he thanked us for what we had done and promised to come and join us one day when he finishes work early, Amatare have been trying to get him to come along.

Wishing on a star

Task completed we had time for a bit of star gazing, Karim showing off a app on his phone that once point at the stars in the sky identified the different constellations. We were all impressed check out the photos to see us all gazing at his phone

Whats on this weekend?

XC (Cross Country) this weekend men and women from GoodGym Race team will be taking part in the Met League XC 2018/2019: Claybury interested? To take part you have to be a member of the race, however supporters are welcomed no membership required. After the races we'll head off to a nearby pub for some well earned refueling.

Good luck to Karim on Sunday.

Things to do!

Below is a link to the BIG GoodGym wide whatsApp group here you can find out what members across the country are getting up to. https://chat.whatsapp.com/6mh9VwRdubE7k2jELCBiB3

We also have our own GoodGym Croydon Strava group, join here

In case you have no seen or know about this, I am participating in the RunuptoChristmas are you interested in joing GGCroydon's team? Sign up we'll decide what our target distance is and together we will be helping a worthy cause.

#RunAndTalk, and that we did!

Next weeks group run is a go sign up here!

Rising to the challenge of winning our group in the January Challenge 18 wonderful GoodGym Croydon runners met this evening at Solutions for Health & Fitness to dig trenches to help lay some railway sleepers.

It was a bit chilly so we headed off for a quick warm-up then split into two groups with *Ellie and Amatare *leading the first group swiftly to the task while I enjoyed a chat and catch-up with the second group - well we didn't chat too much on the final hill though. Once we arrived at Birdhurst Community Garden we were told more about the task and got straight to work. It sounded pretty straightforward - dig a trench 4 inches wide and around 2 inches deep - that was before we encountered, rocks, roots and juicy worms! Still by the time we'd finished we'd made great headway and had even managed to lay some of the sleepers.

After we’d finished we headed off to a nearby street for some relay races where I kindly made sure none of those waiting for their turn got cold by making them do many variations of squats - they just loved the burn!

Welcome tonight to Jess who was brought along by Holly. She said she'd never run before and did fantastically well.

As it was the last Tuesday of the month we headed off to BoxPark for our social and bumped into one of our regular runners Rob and spent our time waxing lyrical to his friend about the wonders of GoodGym. A new recruit possibly?

This evening we ran around 4km to help the prepare the Birdhurst Community Garden for winter

13 (lucky for some) of us left Solutions after a fairly pathetic attempt at a posed group photo – we need to do better next week guys! A quick warm-up outside the Fairfield Halls narrowly avoiding a broken wine bottle and cut feet and then we split into two groups to head off to Birdhurst Community Gardens. The slightly swifter group were ably led by our newly qualified Run Leader Amatare and the rest of us ran and chatted until we reached our destination although the chatting stopped when we tackled the final hill or mounds of inspiration as we have renamed them!

Amatare and his neighbor got us organised quickly into hanging basket recyclers and leaf clearers. We worked so efficiently that we had at least 15 minutes to spare so we decided to tackle the vegetation around the side of the gardens where they are hoping to grow some wild flowers next spring. I didn’t even have enough time to take a ”before” photo when the work was almost finished – such a hard working group!

One new runner came along tonight so welcome to Samantha, she was worried about running as it was her first time but we all agreed at the end of the run she’s got no reason to worry – ran all the way there and back and looked very comfortable. Well done and looking forward to seeing you again soon.

A bit of the ever so funny Fartlek running and some drills on stairs were completed by one group and the others took a slightly longer route back to get some more distance in their legs. During the cool-down we had a chat about it being World Mental Health Day and the work that is going on to end the stigma attached to mental health. This press release majes great reading and don;t forget to share and rewtweet the message if you can. @ThriveLDN and the hashtag is #OKLDN

Next week we are heading to Waddon Youth Centre to cut back their bushes and do some general tidying up while we are there. This is a slightly longer run but nothing we haven’t managed before

#OKLDN