45 GG runners turned up tonight for a couple of mega gardening tasks.

At the start, we welcomed new runners Phoebe and Matt and congratulated Carol for reaching 50 good deeds, Elise for reaching 200 and Frances for reaching 250.

ABSOLUTELY SMASHING

Steve also awarded Tom Benson his own personalised bottle of beer for his utterly incredible organisation of the GoodGym Olympics!!

A team of 5 walkers (mostly whacked from some incredible racing at the Bath Two Tunnels) headed off whilst Tom gave the rest of us a good warm up.

We then split in two: 💥Most of us ran 2k to Brixton Windmill to do a load of weeding in the play area. 💥A smaller group took a 3k route to Agnes Riley Gardens to help fill up some planters.

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Brixton Windmill is London's last working Windmill don'tcha know! And it provides flour for Brixton Prison's bakery as well as The Old Post Office bakery in near Papa's Park (do check it out!). They provide regular tours of the Windmill to locals and are in the process of building a visitor centre to host school groups and more community events (they already host the Bread and Beer Festival in May 👅)

Our job this time was on the outside of the Windmill, pulling and scraping all the weeds out from around the play area equipment. We promptly got to work with 7 large hoe/scraper devices, a few small forks and a whole load of gardening gloves.

There were big weeds, small weeds, shallow weeds and far too many stubborn weeds. Commitment to the cause was strong however with some relentless deep root excavation. We filled up a MASSIVE bag of weeds and even brushed away the debris.

Bang tidy.

We then headed back down the hill (with obligatory stops for press ups, jump lunges and squats) and took on our Home Stretch Strava segment (well done Dharmesh - 12 seconds!).

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Here's the lowdown from Tom and the Agnes Riley Gang:

So a merry band of 15 of us took up the mission and headed to Agnes Riley Gardens to meet Adrian. The mission as far as we were aware involved planters, nothing more. So off we jogged lead up by George we all made it there safe and sound. Adrian greeted us with a plethora of tools, including forks, spades, hoes, wheelbarrow…..spades, it was a right box of tricks, Christmas had come early for team Lambeth. So the main operation was to move some planters onto a new patch of soil. However before we moved the planters we had to level the soil, as the patch was on a slope. So banded with our lovely tool set we got down to shovelling soil from the high point, loading up barrows taking it 5 meters to the low point empty it, and giving it a rake. We repeated this motion more times than I could count but the end effect was we had a level playing pitch it was quite a sight!

Whilst this was going on a band of three Lambeth members got going on tidying up the surrounding allotments, making them weed free - the place looked cracking.

Once the ground was level, it was operation move the planters into place. Now these bad boys looked quite heavy however thankfully they came apart in two sections, the legs and the body. This made life loads easier, and before we knew it we all 4 of them in place. Adrian was happy we all patted ourselves on the back for a job well done and then ran back to HQ.

Nice work Lambeth - also while I’m here just want to say a massive thanks for my present last night, loved it and will save it for a special occasion, its currently chilling as I type. Really made my day, you are a wonderful bunch and thanks for so many of you coming along and getting involved, it was mega. Nice one team.

Tom

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And off to the pub we went, for many beers & the bake-off draw!

Cheers GG Lambeth! 🍻

See how they run.

33 absolute heroes including 5 first-GG-run heroes (nice one Jessica, Ileena, Camilla, Hannah and Rob) scurried off in two directions; some in search of the Portico gallery in West Norwood and others ran to the Ruskin Park Community Garden near Loughborough Junction.

A LITTLE BACKGROUND INFORMATION: The Portico is a hub of activity with art exhibitions, yoga classes and crafts workshops on offer, as well as being a storage facility for the amazing West Norwood Feast. RPCG is a space for locals to grow their own produce and learn how to do so.

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George and Nicky lead the run to the Portico and had this to say:

We ran through Brockwell park and up to the Portico Gallery, where John, the West Norwood Feast gang, Methuselah the cat, and an Ibizan Hound (new addition) were waiting to greet us.

We quickly got to work and separated tables that were fine, from those that needed various repairs, so that they could then be made ready for next month’s Feast. Half an hour later, with all tables sorted and neatly stacked, and with the Feast volunteers delighted with our work, we ran back down the hill to Brixton for a stretch.

POW💥

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The rest of us were at Ruskin Park for a serious amount of weeding - some rooting out the little weeds in the fruit cage and others finding zen in the upheaval of massive amounts of our familiar foe, bindweed.

After a cool 25 minutes we’d blitzed the place and headed off to find some grass for a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors (abs workout version). Tim liked it but said it needed a GoodGym theme (that’s your homework, Tim).

We ran back, fitting in some long wall-sits and squats (with bonus calf-raises 🐮)at some stubborn traffic lights and finished off sprinting our Home Stretch Strava Segment. Congrats Pippa and John - you won! 🎉 (Join our GG Strava club if you haven’t already.)

Nice one everyone - smashed it. 👊

Hope to see y’all next week for a trip to Brixton Windmill/Agnes Riley Gardens (and the pub). Sign up here.

There was some top running and good doing last night at GoodGym Lambeth with 36(!) runners turning out to visit Moorlands and Hillside Gardens for some woodchip spreading and weeding.

Big cheers to Lucy, Becca, Shauna, Freddie, Charlotte, Mac and Rachel for joining the gang!

After a quick intro including a quiet reminder that LAMBETH WON THE GOODGYM OLYMPICS🔥🎈🍾🤩🎉🎉🎉, we set off.

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Freya lead a smaller group to Moorlands park to create 2 paths out of woodchip:

After a little detour which was definitely, according to Freyja, all part of the plan, the group found Karen and were set to work creating not one but two paths from woodchip. There was a huge pile of woodchip to be moved, but with Team spade, Team Wheelbarrow , Team Bucket and Michael and John trimming the grass we had it done in no time! 💪😎👍

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And a bigger bunch of us ran 4k up Brixton Hill to Hillside Gardens to weed around the sports courts.

Lambeth Council have decided to limit their use of chemical weed killers 👏 so they deployed the next best thing: GOODGYM WEED KILLERS 😈

These were some big weeds and BIG WEEDS means BIG ROOTS so we raided the tool shed for implements capable of deep ground penetration. The GoodGym machine is a ruthless beast and in 30 minutes a serious chunk of weeds were uprooted and barrowed into a big white bag. Freddie even scaled a wall to get at some of them 😬(see pics).

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Next week we've got two tasks again! If you fancy a longer run, we're flyering for the Brixton People's Kitchen and we'll have a shorter one to Ruskin Park Community Garden. Sign up here!