25 incredible people joined me in Lambeth as we helped Agnes Riley Gardens and Portico Gallery and ran 6 and 8km!

In the news this week: * We celebrated Victoria reaching 200 good deeds - amazing achievement! * We welcomed Lisa and David on their first GoodGym run * Nicky told us about the parkrun and community mission this Saturday * Entry for GG Olympics is open - enter here and all the details here

On to the night at hand.... Victoria led us in a fantastic warm up, nice to see "shoo-ing the chickens" again, always good to stretch those hamstrings!

Jim and Nicky took a group of eight over to Portico to help with move some gazebo weights, here's the report from Jim:

"Eight plucky GGers took the scenic long route to Portico. The scenic route also got everyone rather wet, but declining the offers of tea from lovely John we decided to keep warm by doing good instead. The task at hand was to sort the weights for the gazebos which are used for West Norwood’s feast festival. With some splendid sorting and some heavy duty lifting we got the task done on time and were back at Papas in time to dry off."

Great job everyone!

Victoria and I took everyone else off to Agnes Riley Gardens where we met Adrian and helped with a number of tasks:

• Digging and levelling a plot
• Weeding and trimming the vegetable plots
• Trimming long grass from around fruit trees

As we got to work the heavens opened which for a while was cooling refreshment but then we just got a bit wet! In any case spirits were high and we worked hard making a huge difference. You certainly did a good job as Adrian was very keen for us to return!

With a group photo done we then headed back to base, stretched off and then it was time for home. Don’t forget to sign up for next week here, you’ve still got me and we are all going to help at Hillside Gardens and more importantly its Lambeth pub week and we’ll be heading to the Duke of Ed for a bevvy or two!

Thanks for having me and join me again next week,
Pritesh

We kicked off by welcoming our new runners - Rose, Alice, Alistair, Struan and Crissy - Nice to have you along!

And then it was time for the SPOTM with possibly the best(worst) SPOTM ever?! This month's winner was the recipient of:

• a bookmark
• 2 luggage tags
• a couple of sachets of deep heat/freeze
• 2 t-shirts made from recycled cotton and plastic bottles

and the pièce de résistance (donated by the wonderful Katie Welford);

• A SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH OF JOANNA LUMLEY

And the worthy winner, who smashed her 10k target by 7 and a half minutes, and recently did her 50th good deed was Aislin!!! Give her a massive cheer! 👏 👏 👏

Absolutely Fabulous.

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George lead a group on an 11k run, to complete the final stage of an epic task for the Lambeth GP Food Co Op. We started a few weeks ago by emptying soil from some huge planters in Stockwell. Then they got transported to Crown Dale surgery where we moved them into position last week. And then this week it was all about filling them back up with soil.

With encouragement/entertainment from a couple of local lads, the team aced it, getting the job done, smoothing out the soil and headed back in time for a quick stretch.

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The rest of us ran 4k to help Justin at Ruskin Park Community Garden. They've been doing a load of work lately to get the space looking tidy and producing lots of fruit and veg.

We were mostly in the fruit cage, using all manner of tools to de-weed and remove grass. It was pretty cosy so some of the team cut a big chunk of bramble back, which will eventually make room for more vegetable plots.

When all the excess greenery was on the compost heap, we headed back via a quick hills session. Squeezing a couple of hill reps into your run is an awesome way to improve your running form and give your cardiovascular system a boost.

We focussed on - keeping the body straight with your head up, bringing knees up higher than they normally would and using your arms and driving them back and well as forwards.

After a few reps, when everyone was sufficiently worn out, we made the run back with limited enthusiasm for red traffic light squats and lunges...

Top work everyone! 👊

Next week we're helping out at Papa's Park with some weeding and painting. Of course we'll be fitting in some 1k loops, some circuits and we'll even be delivering some posters for Age UK's Food2U project. Sign up here!

It was a delightful evening for a delightful run, with 35 runners in pursuit of the Portico Gallery, a community arts space in West Norwood.

We had a quick intro, welcoming 7 new people to the gang. Nice one Alice, Rachael, Anthony, Hannah, Sarah, Emily and Martha!!! Give those guys a cheer.

SOFIA, SO GOOD.

Then Lavinia told us about the fantastic time that was had this past weekend in Bulgaria. There were some incredible finish times from GG Lambeth runners and a lot of fun was had!

Tom Benson gave us the lowdown on the GoodGym Olympics and the plan for a GG Anthem. 🥁

And we congratulated Will on his sterling effort of reaching 50 GOOD DEEDS. Awesome stuff.

We then hit the road, a tidy 4.5k uphill to The Portico. Tom Hunter lead the “keen” bunch and the rest of us took a more relaxed approach!

We arrived to meet John who gave us a couple of tasks:

👉 Cleaning the walls of the arts space with a “sugar soap” mixture.

👉 folding plastic bags to save space

Everyone got stuck in with some people commenting on how scrubbing the walls was very therapeutic!

Soap pleased to clean you.

Before we knew it, time was up and we had to begin the descent home.

SOAP SOLID CREW.

Well done everyone. Next week we’re at Myatt’s Field for another therapeutic task - removing bindweed!