With a smile on their faces and joy in their feet 32 runners covered 5km and sorted and packed over 100 boxes at the Big Red Box.

Oli has done himself proud this week with our splendid title pun (and some more sprinkled throughout this report).

What a week! I can barely breathe with excitement! On Friday, I went to the Civic Suite with Nykolette and Emma (and Jacqueline, with her junior parkrun hat on), to celebrate our nomination for voluntary contribution in the borough. It was a lovely evening, meeting other groups, hearing about their amazing work and feeling all the energy that goes into volunteering in Lewisham.

On Saturday, a whole gang of us were up at Hilly Fields parkrun, volunteering, pacing fellow runners, taking on 5k and bringing donations for the Big Red Box. We also celebrated Vic's 100th parkrun (she celebrated by pacing, of course) and later realised that Jacqueline had completed her 200th good deed!

Meanwhile, down the road in Catford, we had Nykolette, Caireen and Helen helping the King's Christmas Trees to distribute their trees (remember we delivered flyers for them a few weeks ago?). Now, they didn't even realise, as they helped out, lifting, shifting, wrapping and handing over the trees, that Caireen and Helen were both completing their 100th good deed! They are both long-standing members of our Lewisham family, with Caireen having been with us right from day one. They have both been on exciting running journeys, helping their friends along the way and have become great friends to many of us - thank you both for your dedication over the past three years.

That's not all folks!

This has been a week of BIG celebration, with two of our regular runners also hitting a milestone. Congratulations to Lucy and Rebecca, both hitting 50 good deeds and soon to be seen wearing their lovely black t-shirts. Lucy joined us in our first year and Rebecca just over a year ago and both have thrown themselves wholeheartedly into this thing we call GoodGym. Thank you both for being such wonderful members of our group and I really look forward to running alongside you next year.

Joining us for the first time this week was Jo, welcome Jo! We also had some visitors, with David coming over from Lambeth and Beth joining us from Southwark (for her 670th good deed, yes, The Beth). Lewisham Love to you all x

Boxing clever

After a quick warm up, we ran as a huge group along Lee High Road, with our milestone queens, Lucy and Helen back-marking all the way. Arriving promptly at the Big Red Box, we were met by Alice and her team, who very quickly told us about their amazing work and showed us what needed tackling tonight. We had three teams:

• TEAM QUALITY CONTROL - Going through some packed boxes, making sure they contained everything on the list and restocking them if not correctly filled (cue head scratching and searching for random items).

• TEAM SORT - wading through the many bags of donations (which possibly came from Hilly Fields and Catford parkruns on Saturday!) and categorising them into type and placing them in the corresponding crates.

• TEAM MUSCLE - lifting, shifting and stacking full crates (check out the photos to see just how strong they were).

Pallet yourself go

As the crates were making their way inside to the storage area, I suggested to Alice that we might have a 'five minute challenge', which caused great excitement! Our box sorters continued their good work and the rest of the group assembled on the packing line, ready to pack and pass, seeing how many boxes we could fill in five minutes. With Tom at one end, passing empty boxes along the line, and Bradley at the other, on quality control and lid placement, the energy levels were high, with boxes were being filled at a phenomenal rate! With '45 seconds left!' being called, the last push was on and a quick count showed we had filled over ninety boxes in five minutes!! With the last few finished off, we did over 100. Amazing.

Packtically perfect

Saying our goodbyes and wishing the team well with the rest of the work before Christmas, we headed back to base (with a brief wall-sit en route, no Tom, you can't use the bus stop!). I had planned our Time Trial, but there wasn't enough time, maybe next week. Instead, we launched our December challenge, Christmas Log - a plank a day for the rest of the month (with photos posted on Twitter, aw, go on!). Next week we will be on a 5k round-trip to Crofton Books, where there will be a number of festive tasks to tackle (including lifting and shifting Christmas trees if you fancy it!). Please sign up here and join in.

Good luck to Oli in New York at the weekend, enjoy your 13.1 miles of sighseeing, we're not wishing we were there, really we're not!

Have a great week!

As the mist settled on Lewisham, 22 runners covered just over 5k and cleared, dug and weeded at St Hilda's Church.

We were missing a few of our regular runners tonight, which might have had something to do with all the racing that went on over the weekend. It's definitely race season, with representatives at the Yorkshire Marathon/Ten Miler (Emma), the Royal Parks Half-Marathon (Clare) and also at the cross country (Bradley and Conroy) - well done to everyone who raced, especially yesterday, when the conditions were horrendous! We also had runners representing us as pacers at Catford parkrun, and a group of us had the pleasure of unveiling the new drinking fountain in Ladywell Fields, with the Mayor of Lewisham, Damien Egan. I was also happy to share the news that we were successful in our bid for some funding to allow us to buy some portable lights, to help us work safely throughout the winter - a very big thank you to Jacqueline, who represented us at the Lewisham Central Ward Assembly. So, quite a wide variety of things going on!

Another big week for new faces (how will I remember all these new names?!), with Lewisham Love going to Rosie, Joe, Ana and Cameron.

Weed better get a move on!

Today's warm-up involved a bit of heads, shoulders, knees and toes (knees and toes) and then we were off towards Crofton Park. We have worked previously with Crofton Garden, alongside the railway station platform and this week we were visiting St Hilda's Church with their assistance (and tools!). We were met by Kay, who showed us to our area for the evening. We quickly split into two groups, one working on the path to the right of the entrance, weeding, digging over and then digging-in compost. Along the other edge were the rest of the group, weeding, pulling up, cutting back and clearing away fallen leaves.

Feeling inspiered

As we work, we also like to chat and this week Emma was causing us all to contemplate our dinner, as she talked about pies (really, I was so disappointed not to be eating pie for my dinner). Another distraction came in the form of an amphibious visitor, when Helen uncovered a lovely frog! We all pondered why he/she was here, with there being no obvious water source, but settled on the assumption that little Kermie was hanging out near a drain, enjoying the shady cover of the shrubs. Pretty soon we were gathering up sacks (lots of them!), putting away gloves and tools and trying to find a good enough light source for our group photo.

Running back through a misty/mizzly Ladywell, we arrived back at our start point with enough time for a quick fitness session. Everyone loves a bit of HiiT, right? Just one round tonight, with high-knees, jumping squats, burpees (collective groan) and mountain climbers. Oh yes. Great work from everyone and great work on the planks too ;)

Next week we are off to Hither Green, where we have two projects to work on, one at Springbank Community Garden and the other on the embankment of the train station. Bring gardening gloves and head-torches if you have them! Sign up here to join in.

Feeling the wind in their hair and the sun on their cheeks, a fabulous thirty ran between 3 and 4km to help paint the railings at St Mary's Church.

Thank you this week to top-punner Tom, who wowed us with his wordy skills for this evening's title pun.

After two weeks away from my Monday night fun, it was great to be back and with so much to celebrate!

• First up, we congratulated all those who took part in the I Move London Relay over the past month, both running and volunteering. Everyone involved will now be a World Record breaker and will have helped raise £45,000 for some great charities - well done!

• Next we gave a BIG round of applause to Conroy, who will be heading a little further south as of next week, to be the new trainer for GoodGym Croydon. We all wish you well Conroy and will no doubt be coming on tour to support you, and will always be here when you need us for some Lewisham Love.

• And finally...a HUGE well done and a very big cheer for Kim, who tonight completed her 100th good deed! Kim joined us two years ago and has gone from strength to strength with her running in that time, taking part in her first race at the Petts Wood 10k, catching the bug, then working up to her first half-marathon and is now training for the Venice Marathon in October, what a journey! Kim is a great friend to many in our group, being there for everyone and offering support on the run (and at the top of The Hill at Hilly Fields parkrun, with our own four-legged mascot, Molly, at her side). Well done Kim!

No first-timers this week, but I was very pleased to meet a few people who joined while I was away - hello and welcome!

Get me to the church on time!

Tonight we ventured towards Ladywell Fields, to visit a brand new task. St Mary's Church is the oldest building in the borough of Lewisham, with a church having been on this site since the 11th century, so quite a special place to spend our evening! If you haven't sauntered through the passageway alongside the church in a while, you might like to take a wander down here to enjoy the incredible changes that have taken place in the garden. Over the past couple of years, a team of volunteers have worked with the Ladywell Unit, which is part of the South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM), to create a beautiful Therapeutic Garden (I was lucky enough to enjoy some potatoes, picked fresh from here on a recent visit!). Our job this evening was to make a start on cleaning and painting the long stretch of railings that run alongside here.

We were met by Marion and fellow volunteer, Carmine, who had everything set out for us, ready to get stuck in. We were also met at the task by Lucy, who is very familiar with St Mary's, having been christened here, what a lovely connection! With such a large group, we had to divide the tasks and the equipment carefully, with some using wire brushes and sandpaper to get rid of old paint and rust (thank you to those of you who also brought brushes from home), whilst others were wiping down the surfaces, post-sanding, and another group set-to with the sticky black paint, transforming the railings and smartening up the entrance to the church.

As the time passed, I wandered around, making sure everyone was happy in their work and saw some interesting and varied approaches to the job. Stephen had a very focused technique, working hard to clear all traces of paint on one particular piece of railing, making it as smooth as possible. Matt was brushing with such great determination that he wore down the whole of one side of a brush and, alongside him, Nykolette and Helen were so anxious to reach the end of their stretch of metal, that I almost had to drag them away! Great work, everyone.

Our hard work was rewarded with some refreshments, thank you for looking after us Marion, we look forward to returning next week, to continue the painting!

Lucky (tri) dip

Our evening wasn't over yet! Running over to the park, we positioned ourselves by a handy little hill, ready to take on a quick lucky dip fitness session. Depending what you picked, you might be doing hill repeats or strength training, or a mixture of both (if you were really lucky!). I quickly realised that I had been ambitious about this session working with a group of thirty, so paired people up to reduce rest time (sorry!), you keep me on my toes, always finding ways to challenge my carefully planned sessions ;)

Give me just a little more time (trial)

You have Conroy to thank for this little moment of off-piste activity, as he requested a time trial (it's been a while). For those of you who don't know, we have a (roughly) monthly time trial, which involves running four laps of the area outside our start point, which is (very nearly) 1km. This is a Strava segment, which you can view here - there's a leader board and everything, which Kim is at the top of (I'm pretty sure she's come along in her own time to bagsy that smasher of a pace!). Maybe you could get yourself up there, why not have a go? After all that effort, it was nice to be able to celebrate Kim's 100th good deed with some sweet treats brought along by Amber, thanks Amber!

I look forward to seeing some of you up at Hilly Fields parkrun on Saturday, which is Pacer Week...and Conroy's 100th parkrun! If not, see you next Monday to tackle some more metal.

It’s been an eventful weekend for our members up and down the country so a big well done to them all, however time to get back home. Our Lewisham members clocked up some serious steps this weekend from parkrun, missions, races and volunteering at various events. Have you seen the marvelous photos of the GG Water stand, at the British 10K? Not only were they keeping the participants hydrated but they also gave the loudest cheers.

**Stop! Hang on a minute, as she’s always writing the run report she only gets mentioned in the credits but not this week! I’m sure you would all agree that our trainer Adele deserves some special cheers, she splashed away in the Thames taking on the Henley mile what a way to keep cool in this weekend’s hot temperature!

Hey all thanks for coming along to tonight’s group run welcome to our first timers Katrin, Andrew, Hannah and Sabina hope you enjoyed your time with us tonight and hoping to see you at our next run one of our favourite task.

It’s Monday evening and there is a group of people in the lobby of Glass Mill dressed in rep tops, everyone walks past looking a bit puzzled wondering what’s going on as there are a lot of chatter amongst the group, there are folks still arriving each been greeted with smiles and hello as the group gets bigger and bigger.

We huddled closely together as I ran through the tasks and the safety briefing along with our regular words about good gym before moving out to the area that was once grass for our head count and warm up. Domestics out the way we headed of running towards Deptford for our tasks. Yes, there were two again tonight, a group of five being led by Kim to the Samaritans and 15 being led by me to the Woodpecker Youth Centre. As we arrived at our point of separation Kim led her group off to their task and my group carried on to the Woodpecker youth club.

As we arrived at the woodpecker youth club we were met by Charlotte who had been looking out for us, she ran through what she wanted us to do and proceeded to unlock the gates around the premises to give us free reign. In one area of the grounds the blackberries were begging to run wild and capturing areas they were not allowed in. Other areas had overgrown plants that needed a trim and bushes growing between the bricks. We break out into small groups armed with brooms, hedge shears, bin bags, bill hook, scissors and various other tools to regain control of the grounds.

As we worked and chatted it was really nice to see our first timers getting stuck in Andrew got into a tight scrape with the with the bill hook as he cleared the bushed between the bricks. Hannah who had been using a broom that had been broken off the stick was not going to be defeated in her endeavors to sweep up the rubbish resorted to duct taping the broom together while Sabina and Katrin ensured the rubbish was bagged up.

Over by the overgrown plants Clare had made a big inroad into the pruning before enlisting the help of Malcolm as she realized she had pruned it like a bad fringe on one side and needed to get the other side which was a bit higher so in subbed Malcolm for his height. Over by the black berries Oli and co was adamant not to be beaten by the overgrown blackberry they had less chatter a more determined look on their faces as they raced against time to clear the area. I am pleased to say that despite a few cuts after the buzzer had been blown they were victorious.

Berries wheelie bin naughty

The area had been cleared of the overgrown berries but there were still enough berries left over for those who wanted to refuel on them after the battle had been won.

What about our friends over at the Samaritans? Well they had to tackle clematis plants that had decided to invade the neighbouring garden, cleared weeds from the paving stone, cut back the brambles from the raised beds. Then as a final swan song they put the clematis cuttings into the compost bin tidied up and had a photo session while waiting on us to rejoin for the run back to Glass Mill. For the return leg of our journey we ran back through Brookmill park where we in co-operated our fitness session into the run all the way back to the point where we had to leave the park/Waterlink way to get back on the main road. We arrived back at Glass Mill safely in tact did our cool down stretches and said our farewells.