Tonight we ran between around 4km in total to tidy up Wandle Park after a glorious sunny bank holday

After explaining our last minute change of task and venue 13 GoodGym Croydon runners headed off to Wandle Park to meet with Andrew Dickinson to get our orders. It was a beautiful night as we ran through central Croydon in our matching red t-shirts and enjoying the last sunshine of the day. We were met by Andrew who has a supply of litter picks and bags and he explained which areas seemed to be strewn with the most litter. Splitting into pairs the runners headed to the footbridge, children's play area, skatebaord park and around the Wandle River. To be honest it was sad to see so much litter just left by people who had obviously had a lovely day out in the sun on Monday and then just dumped everything around the park - if you can bring your food and disposable BBQs to the park then you can carry them home - rant over!! We collected well over 25 bags of rubbish in around 40 minutes so great work by all.

A few of the runners who have been to the park before had a pretty good idea what we would be doing for the fitness session and they were right - a timed lap round the park - it's 0.5 miles. Amatare kindly offered to help me time keep and your results will be sent through ASAP. There was a real battle for first between Jonathan and Andy and some impressive times and effort by everybody given they'd just finished the task and it was very hot too. After catching our breath we headed back towards Solutions for our coll-down and thenks go to Amatare and Andy for leading the group and Ellie for keeping everybody together in the middle. w

It was great to meet two new runners tonight Stephie and Sally who were still smiling by the end so hope to see you both again.

Next week it's our second birthday so I've arranged two tasks and a social down in Matthews Yard afterwards. I'd love us to beat the numbers we had on our first ever run so bring a friend, nag your neighbours........ I've just had a look at the sign ups for next week and I'm so excited to see the names of 3 runners who were running with us from the beginning.

You can sign up here - look forward to seeing you next week,

12 Runners ran just under 4km to help a local nursery school spread wood chippings

The evening was bright and warm when the group set off for the night's group run from GoodGym Croydon HQ - Solutions Fitness. We had our mandatory warm up session in front of Rennaissance House after which Ellie proceeded with a group of front runners while I led the rest of the evening runners. Running through East Croydon station was challenging giving the sea of people at the time and the group took extra care to avoid running into people. We received lots of stares from perplexed commuters as we snaked our way through the human traffic around the station.

We arrived at Tunstall Nursery School where we met Jane, the deputy headteacher and a jumbo bag filled with wood chippings and another tonne bag of coarse sharp sand. The first task for the night was to spread the chippings on a large raised bed about 10m away and Jane provided us with wheelbarrows, trolleys, baskets and shovels. The group got down to work with some runners filling the wheelbarrows and containers with wood chippings while another team worked as transporters moving the loaded wood chippings through a paved gokarting like path to the raised bed. At the raised bed three runners worked to lift the wheelbarrows and containers onto the raised bed and spread the wood chipping evenly. The runners regularly swapped roles until the task was completed.

Due to the enormous amount of wood chippings we were unable to embark on the second task of filling the sandpit with sand as all the time was spent on filling the raised bed with wood chippings. However a team of runners led by Sally helped move some used tyres from the front of the school to the playground at the rear of the school.

Task completed and with some runners looking forward to the social we departed the school. Our fitness session was a time trial with the runners running the loop between Addiscombe Court Road and Tunstall Road. After which we proceeded to HQ for mandatory stretches and onward to Boxpark where we had a splendid time.

Next Tuesday evening’s run we will be returning to Park Hill Recreation Ground https://www.croydon.gov.uk/leisure/parksandopenspaces/parksatoz/park-hill-recreation-ground tonight to help the Friends of Park Hill http://parkhillpark.org.uk. This is a beautiful park in the centre of Croydon and has a community garden inside the walled garden. Josi has a selection of tasks for us all which will all contribute to preparing the park for the Festival of Peace in the summer.

We ran around 7km to sweep leaves and eat toffees in a community garden in Thornton Heath Rec

Nippy and a bit breezy tonight but good running weather all the same. Thirteen brave runners headed out tonight on a longer run than expected after a last minute change to the task but nobody was daunted and there were the normal smiles all round. So we headed off to our warm-up spot outside Tesco's where we received many 'admiring' glances as we high kneed, butt kicked and side stepped - although there was almost a pile up when I didn't explain well enough what I meant by change direction! Luckily they are all nimble and avoided each other! Once we were all warmed up we split into in two groups with Amatare and Ellie leading the first group and I followed closely behind with my chattier group.

Once we arrived at Thornton Heath Rec Atul explained that he's changed the task slightly as he was worried that there wasn't enough good lighting for us to dig a trench in the dark with pick axes - probably a good decision - so we cleared 3 huge bags of fallen leaves in record time spurred on by the two boxes of toffees brought by Atul. Next week however there will be better lighting and we will get to (carefully) wield the picks in small groups.

A big GoodGym Croydon welcome to two new runners Roy and Annegret who got stuck right in to the task and the run so hope to see you both back soon and also welcome back to Jen who has come back faster than ever after injury.

As I mentioned, next Tuesday we will be heading back to Thornton Heath Rec and combining it with delivering leaflets and collection bags for Croydon's Bring and Take event in March. And of course don't forget it's the last Tuesday of the month AND Croydon's 100th good deed since we started so a perfect excuse for a BoxPark social.

This evening we ran around 4km to dig turf, weed, plant and litter pick in a local park

After promising an indoor task this week I had to break the bad news the evening before that the warm indoor task was cancelled and replaced by an outdoor task. The Croydon bunch are hardy runners though as we still had 22 amazing runners turn up for some running and hard physical labour

So after the group photo we headed off to White Horse Park via Tescos for our warm-up. Tonight the speedier runners were led by Ellie and Andy who did a fantastic job with their looping too and we all arrived safely. Charles was our task master for the evening and he explained the tasks we could help him with. The Friends of White Horse Park are planting round the sides of a large circular raised bed so he demonstrated how to dig the turf out neatly round the edges – he did make it look very simple – turns out it’s quite tricky! Others did some weeding and planting and the reset went rubbish hunting around the garden area. When we arrived it actually looked really clean but then we found the “beer can bush” - only 5 feet from a bin but an entire rubbish sack was filled!

By the time we finished it was bitterly cold so we headed off for a warm-up slow jog then to a quiet street where we practiced the art of accelerating -always useful for that last minute sprint to outpace your friends! There were some impressive increases in pace especially once the arms started driving back with real power. On the way back Ellie and Andy’s group headed off for a slightly longer run so we all managed to finish around the same time and cool-down as a group.

While we were stretching they were reminded of an extra session this Sunday – meet at Heathfield Gardens at 10.45am to help build a garden for the bees. We will do the task first and then go for a run in the woods if it’s not too muddy or locally if it is. It’s a great chance to do a deed in the daylight and also to bring along a friend or family member who might be worried about the whole running thing but would like to give GoodGym a try.

Don’t forget to log your runs during the week so we can stay at the top as all your runs count towards our total. If you set it up yet then go onto your account, go to profile, settings and finally Strava/Runkeeper and follow the instructions there.

Next Tuesday evening’s run will see us heading to Lloyd Park