21 awesome runners braved FREEZING temps to help at the Salvation Army in Deptford!

Another chilly evening in the borough but thankfully no snow! We tried to warm ourselves up by talking about the nations favourite comfort food, good ol' PIE!!! Sweet and savoury, we love them all, well except for Elle, pie hater.

It was lovely to have the one and only Mridula back running with us after a brief hiatus! Welcome back!!!!!

We had a quick little jog warm up, followed by a few partner activities of high knees, leg swings and shin tag and then we were on our way! We headed along the river, past the Ahoy centre, around Twinkle Park (which looks like it's worth a trip in the daytime!) and then moments later arrived at The Salvation Army.

A lovely fellow named Munetsi was there to meet us and explained the task at hand. The main one being a mass leaf clearing job. Plus there was a tree to be pruned and some windows to be cleaned. He had prepped all the tools and equipment for us and with zero hesitation everyone got to work! Grab and go!!

The garden was absolutely COVERED in leaves. You could barely see the ground when we started but within minutes, the GoodGym magic was spreading and bags were being filled at the speed of light, helped along a little bit by Gareth's top leaf-blowing skills! NICE!

Time was whizzing by but the pile of bags was growing by the minute! After half an hour we had filled 30 bags of leaves!! Amazing!! Now kids can play in the garden and are less likely to slip over, and the grass and plants have a chance to breathe and grow! Plus it just looks a lot nicer doesn't it :)

We transported the bags to the shed, tidied everything up, brought the tools back in, (ignored the mess we made on the carpet) and bade farewell to Munetsi!

Since we extended the run slightly on the way there, we took the shortcut on the way back and called it a night!!!!

Big Half Water Station Volunteering If anyone is not running The Big Half but wants to still get involved, you can volunteer at one of the water stations with GoodGym! https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/big-half-water-station-crew?fbclid=IwAR01gQ55WjkI9snQ2BGxynqQps4lW9HcqMvF8Td_7ryRQNp5oF5h891V4IA if you fancy it, it will be a GREAT day!! Then you can join the runners afterwards for our post race social... location TBC!!

Great job tonight everyone! It was amazing how much you got done. It would have taken Munetsi a whole weekend to do all that himself and will really give the place the kickstart it needs. You should be really proud! Well done and see you next week!

Running under a sky filled with sparkle, 21 eager athletes covered between 5 and 7km and delivered many flyers for King's Christmas Trees.

Our top class title pun this evening comes from Emma, who shared it on the the run out, now that's worthy of a cheer! You will also see some beautifully crafted wordery amongst this report, from regular punner, Oli.

Talking of cheers, I started the evening with a little round-up of the Heroes of October. I haven't done this for a while, so thought it might be nice to celebrate some achievements, but none of the October heroes were here tonight! Maybe give them a cheer for all their cheering (Clare - 617), being cheered (Vic - 247), distance covered (Vic again - 166km!) and good-deed-doing (Nykolette - 10). I also mentioned our Christmas social, which is happening on December 12th, at the Catford Constitutional Club. Please sign up here if you are coming, so we know how many to book for. Yum.

We had two absolute first-timers joining us tonight, a big welcome and all our Lewisham Love to Emily and Jonny, we hope you enjoyed your GoodGym debut.

Flyer-works display

I handed over at this point to Simon, who is from the King's Christmas Trees project, so he could tell us all about the fantastic work that they have been doing now for ten years. We heard how the sale of the trees funds the weekly feast for a whole year, providing hot food at a drop-in, with 4500 three-course-meals being provided last year for rough sleepers and vulnerable people in the local area. Our task this evening was to help to spread the word about this project, delivering flyers in the Telegraph Hill area.

Letters entertain you

After a brief warm-up, with Ian's team just about winning the game of over and under, we gathered together, flyers in hand, with Amber acting as back-marker, making sure nobody got left behind as we ran along Lewisham Way towards New Cross. As we went, we regrouped at crossings, pausing to look, open-mouthed, at the fireworks popping all around us. We were soon at the foot of Jerningham Road, the start point for our flyering. Splitting into smaller groups, I assigned roads to everyone, along with a few little tasks to keep us focused:

• Taking a group photo by our road name

• Spotting an interesting item/door/name/garden ornament

• Carrying out a wall-sit for 30 seconds (or more!), with photographic evidence

• Coming up with a smashing pun for the run report

First past the post(box)

I ran up and over Jerningham Road, giving a little nod to the road I used to live on as a student, many years ago. At the top of Telegraph Hill, I could see far and wide, colourful stars filling the sky. It wasn't long before our first runners made it up the hill, with Team Pepys powering up (though 'powering up' is maybe not the term to describe their 'wall sit', ahem). As they still had a few flyers in hand, they decided to keep going for a few more minutes (I think there was a competitive edge between Oli and Tom...). More red t-shirts appeared, so I did a quick head-count and we gathered for a group photo (thank you all for contributing photos to this run report too).

It was interesting running back a different way, exploring some new roads and very nearly losing everyone as they scattered along Shardeloes Road, feeling the urge to continue flyering! Soon, we ran down and over towards Lewisham, sprinting back in to Glass Mill. Really great work from everyone, teamwork at its best, well done. Next week we will return to Beecroft Garden Primary School to work on the sensory garden, so expect a 5k run, a good physical task and possibly some Hilly Fields fitness session fun ;) Don't forget we have a community mission on Saturday as well, another chance to do good! Sign up here to help out at the bulb planting session in Hither Green.

See you soon!

22 awesome runners ran 3km to plant bulbs and help out at Royal Hill Community Garden!

Well that was a THRILLER of an evening eh guys and ghouls? We were creeping it real last night for our Halloween Special... our first ever GoodGym Greenwitch themed run! The first of many I think!

We had 1 new runner to Greenwich last night, the lovely Michaela who has jumped straight into GoodGym with 2 good deeds in one week! Awesome work!

The run began as it always does with a little warm up on the grass. The T-Rex aka Alex was feeling a bit deflated but soon perked up again after a little jog! We played a little game which Pulin aptly named the Human Centipede... I haven't seen the film but I don't think they run around connected via their hands anyway....!!!

We set off towards the garden terrifying everyone and everything in our path. We arrived and were greeted by the lovely Tony who, as always, was super organised with lights, tools, the lot. Half the group were to be planting bulbs, the other half clearing leaves. There was also the task of removing some little trees from the bed that the olive tree was in, to give it a bit more space. And finally a big hole was to be dug out for a new tree to be planted so Chan and Lee got straight onto that!

Our very own flower bed :)

Last week we dug out a new bed at the front of the garden, made a trench and put in a mini brick fence to surround the 3 Queen's trees which were donated to the garden. And this was where we were to plant all the bulbs too! So this is very much a GoodGym bed, taking centre stage! Our little baby. Unlike Pulin's balloon baby.

Whilst we were sweeping and digging... the garden had a few scary visitors including Matt's mini me... a little Mario! I think they were intrigued by the pick axe to see if we were digging up any graves.

After just 20 minutes, 99% of the leaves had been swept up and put on the compost, all the bulbs had been planted, the trees had been re-potted and the hole was sufficiently deep! It was time to head back for some more Halloween fun!!

Yummy mummies

The first game was more of a teambuilding/communication/trust exercise...! Pairing up, wrapping one person's face in mummy linen and then guiding them using only words to negotiate a series of obstacles! The ground was slippery, there were steps, there were blind folds... What could go wrong? If anyone was going to die though last night was the one night in the year that it would be acceptable!

It was a shaky start but everyone soon found their feet and learned to trust their partners! I couldn't see what was happening the other side of the boat but you all came around the other side very quickly! It was actually quite hilarious to watch. Pieter and Jonny came gliding into first place and everyone else not far behind... great job!!!

Riddle relay!

Part two was a little team relay. We split up, Ben was the question master of one team, myself with the other. Each team would have a riddle, once it was guessed correctly, a nominated team member would do a lap of the 250m quad before the next riddle was to be read. It was amazingly pretty much neck and neck with perhaps my team taking the edge slightly but injured Ben took one for his team and ran the last lap with Christian hot on his heels!!! In the end, in true GoodGym spirit, of course it was a TIE!!! Everyone is a winner :)

After all that excitement, it was time to stuff our faces with copious amounts of sugar and head to the pub for a spooky social!!!!

A few links I mentioned yesterday....

Facebook group - join to keep up to date with what people are up to in the group.

Christmas dinner event - let us know if you can make it by signing up here!

Strength and conditioning accountability buddy system - here is the link to Ben's spreadsheet which he mentioned yesterday. We can ALL benefit from doing more strength work alongside our running so get involved!

Community mission - we need more people for this community mission in a few weeks time, no need to be DBS checked for community missions!

Taskforce training - if you want to get more involved with GoodGym, I'd love you to be a part of the Greenwich task force. The training takes less than 30 minutes and you just need to have done 10 good deeds!

And that is all :)

Thanks so much for making such a blinding effort yesterday! Loved your outfits and your enthusiasm!! Hope you had a good evening... see you next week!