What do Catwoman, several south London Zombies, a giant spider, Pikachu, a banana in his pyjamas, some vampires and bats, plus a whole host of the undead have in common?

They all met in Wandsworth last night for a mammoth run where GoodGym became BadGym for one night only….

Scream if you want to go faster

It was a huge turnout with no less than 36 runners ready to take to the streets, and we had a number of excellent new faces. Hello to Amanuel, Anna, Leanne, Maddy, Rebekah, Eva, and Molina and a huge welcome. It was also lovely to see our ace Greenwich visitors Steve, Alex and Christian. Come again soon, and we will definitely be visiting your home ground!

Before we hit the road looking like the cast of Thriller, we had a special Halloween themed CoRUNdrum to think about while we ran. Jack O’lanterns traditionally used to be carved out of which fruit or vegetable before we started using pumpkins?

Be-corpse we’re (Wands) Worth it

With Catwoman and Spiderwoman backmarking, we limped, groaned, shuffled and dragged our undead selves down to our Halloween themed task at St Paul’s Churchyard and its neighbouring community garden. With a few stops along the way to do some horrible high knees and jumping Jack o’lanterns we were there in no time, ready to move a pile of wood from the garden into the churchyard ready for the annual bonfire at the weekend. There was also plenty to do in the decomposing compost bins, plus dead leaves to rake and logs to stake, I mean, stack. With the task done it was a sprint to the common to play some fiendish running games. We turned a few heads as we went, and even earned a salute from a mini-Trump with accurately sized hands.

Team spirits

First off was Zombie Tag, with Maddy, Emma then Ben and Trish all sprinting hard to tag as many victims as they could. Then it was Team John (who is the mysterious John?) versus Team Rocket in a terrifyingly competitive game of capture the flag. Pikachu made a valiantly fluorescent bid for the prize, with The Banana following in his yellowy footsteps, but it was a photo finish by Jack from Team John and Amanuel from Team Rocket.

We finished with an epic relay. It was Team Rocket V Team Lame Rocket V Team John V Team John Paul (names need a bit of work, guys) and it was a fight to the death. OK, not to the death, but to the finish line. Well done to Team John who cleared up with a resounding win, but congratulations to you all for some spooktacular sprinting.

It was dead fun

Back to our starting point we ran with a frantic game of Beat the Reaper (thank you Lambeth for this great idea!). Grim Reapers Jack and David gave the group a 2:45 head start, before trying to chase us down in a race back to the Battersea Arts Centre. Nothing like a bit of fear to get those legs pumping. Well done to those speedy reapers for managing to hunt down about half the group.

Then it was a well-earned social with prizes back at the bar to raise our spirits. We took a vote on our GoodGym tree, with plum, cherry and pineapple all making the shortlist and Pineapple emerging as the final choice. Photos of the tree itself and its accompanying signboard coming soon. It was Ben that cleverly solved the CoRunDrum by knowing that turnips used to be carved before we all started using pumpkins for our jack o’lanterns. Good knowledge!

We all munched on Catwoman’s delicious homemade snacks (thanks Sally!) while we took our second vote of the night to decide best costume. Congratulations to Spiderwoman (the lovely and usually two-legged Hannah) and to the freakin’ scary blonde clown-faced zombie Amanuel – who deserves a mention for basically sweeping the board for wins last night. He also went on later to show us how it’s done on the racing track with a resounding victory. Was it the wig that did it, or sheer talent? We’ll find out next week! Meanwhile Kylee and Ana proved that fast on the athletics track does not necessarily translate to fast on the racing track….

A big hat tip goes to Matthew who rose to the challenge, and proved his commitment to GoodGym by having never missed a group run since the Wandsworth group was established. Brilliant, keep it up Matthew!

Thanks for a frightfully fun night team Wandsworth – same again next week (minus the fake blood). You can sign up here:

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/long-ish-run-to-granard-primary-school