Eight runners got together for the second task at Grove Park Allotments of the weekend. After a super rainy session on Friday morning they were relieved that it was a beautiful day with the sun shining!

We made a start on de-weeding the paths in two seperate groups, ensuring to maintain socail distancing. Two runners started with watering the community and asylum seekers plots before joining us on the paths.

After an hour and a half of weeding and strimming and watering it was time for us to leave with a handful of fresh rhubarb each! Looking forward to a delicious crumble later!

Southwark News

• Next week Ian Gostling, GoodGym Lewisham alumnus and musical-theatre extraordinaire and NEW SOUTHWARK TRAINER will be joining us and leading part of the run. Come along and have a chat! Task and distance TBC. Find out more and sign up here.

• I still have Big Half community places left! Instead of £40 something the places are only a tenner. It's 1st March 2020 and you need to claim your place from me before the end of August. Email me lucyj@goodgym.org fo info

• 14th August is my very last run, I would love to see you there! We're running 6km overall to Bell House. Find out more and sign up here.

• Simon Fitzmaurice is leading a long run on 25th August. It starts in Greenwich and there's a 25km or a 10km option. Find out more and sign up here.

That's enough of the business

Last night we ran 3km overall to do watering, weeding and woodchip shifting at Grove Park Allotments.

The allotment space can be used by anyone and has plots specifically reserved for community groups like Refugees in Southwark and Primary Schools. It's currently a community group but it's applying for charitable status soon.

Shout out to Abigail who came on her first ever group run tonight! We hope to see you again soon :)

The space looks amazing at this time of year, with asparagus, artichokes, raspberries, plums, lavender and more blooming beautifully. We set to work in groups: one group weeding around the apiary (that's bees not apes), one watering specific plots and another shovelling the last of the woodchip to be spread in certain plots. In 40 minutes we'd moved all the wooddchip and spread it, thoroughly helped Gian Franco (the beekeeper) with his area and given plenty of plots a good drink! And we may have had a few cheeky raspberries and plums along the way...

A big thank you as always to Liz for having us over. They've got a pond in the works so it looks like we might have some mega digging tasks coming our way!

Great work team, see you next week!

Lucy J

Southwark News

• This Saturday come on down to South Norwood parkrun to help GoodGym Croydon provide pacing and then head on down to Beecroft Primary School in Lewisham to help build the sensory garden.

• We're doing a super job in the January Challenge - 127 good deeds done and 991kms run. Blimey!

• A big cheer for David Drury who is about to turn 100 (good deeds). That's a serious amount of good done in his local community. Well done David!

• Next week we're sorting and cleaning the toddler toys at Salvation Army in Camberwell. It's a a 6km run overall - sign up here.

That's enough of the business

Last night was outrageously chilly, but at least we missed the snow! 12 of us gathered at Old Spike Roastery to run the 3km round trip to Grove Park Allotments. Huge kudos to you all, it was blooming freezing!

The run there is very steep uphill, but it certainly warmed us up! We were greeted at the gates to the allotment by Liv who showed us what needed doing:

• Sorting tools in the shed

• Strimming

• Weeding the allotment paths

It was a chilly 30 minutes but we got loads done - the shed tools were beautifully organised, the smell of cut grass filled the air and two recyclable bags were filled with weeds.

'Who left that hoe on the ground?' - David Strimmer

We worked quickly and had time for a 4 minute intense circuit before we left. The stations were: squat jumps, star jumps, shuttle runs, burpees. We got a minute on each station which certainly got the blood going!

Hello and welcome to Civ who joined us for the first time last night!

We thanked Liz and headed off down the hill back to base. Great work team!

10 points for identifying the pun reference this week

See you next week.

To mix things up this evening, Southwark had a new leader, and lots of new faces too - welcome to the crew Catherine, Laura, Jag, Ralph, Sandra, and Matilda. Give them a cheer! We still met at the Old Spike Roastery and had a quick introduction to what GoodGym is all about (getting fit and doing good, in case you've forgotten). We then headed outside for a warm up and to find out what everyone's favourite ice cream flavour is, with rum and raisin proving surprisingly popular.

With a short run to the Allotments, but a lot of uphill, we took the run at a steady pace and stopped half way for some wall sits to push those legs even further for the evening. With some excellent directing from Helena we soon arrived at Grove Park Allotments and Liz wasn't too far behind to let us in and get us all started on a few different tasks. We had an organised bunch sorting out the big shed and ordering the tools, some got stuck into weeding the paths, others were watering, and one lucky GoodGymmer even got to strim some of the grass.

A little birdie told me that apparently sometimes when you come here the "bee man" comes along and gives you a bee hive lesson, and lets you try the honey - sounds like a dream and like we'll definitely all need to come back so we can experience this!

In what seemed like no time at all, the weeds were gone, the plants were watered and the shed was clutter-free, so we headed back down the hill for our final run. We didn't end it there though, once we were back to base, we did a quick abs blast with a core triathlon followed by a plank off. I have to say that Southwark have some of the sturdiest abs I've witnessed, and we ended up having 3 champions of the plank off as we couldn't wait any longer, with the social looming.

Thanks for having me Southwark! Lucy will be back next week, so don't fret, all things will be back to normal.

12 runners ran 2km to shift woodchip, move logs and water plots at Grove Park Allotments

Southwark News

• There are PLENTY of coaches waiting for pairing in the area. If you think you could spare 20 mins every week for a social visit to an isolated older person in Southwark, now is the time! If you've had a DBS check and you haven't heard anything for a while send me an email. It may have got stuck in the system... Let's get this show on the road!

• A big huge whoop to Nikki who joined us for her first ever group run last night! Click through and give her a big cheer!

• Over the weekend 80 odd GoodGymers descended upon Stratford-Upon-Avon for the Shindig. It was spectacular. We brought Red Thunder to parkrun, workshopped ideas about GoodGym's future and impact and much much more... and of course there was a quiz too! It was amazing to see runners from all over the country come together to discuss this thing we're all so passionate about. Read the report here and get excited about coming to join next year!

• Next week we're helping clear out the hall at Cossall Estate - they had a big flood and the council are funding its renovation so they need us to pull up the old flooring ready for the new flooring! There will be plenty of other jobs to get done too - sign up here.

• It's our very own Emma's birthday today. Joyeux Anniversaire Emma! She's always a delightfully smiley face to see each week so give her a cheer by clicking here.

Grove Park Allotments always gives us a sense of be-logging

Last night 12 of us gathered in the UNBELIEVABLE HEAT to run a leisurely 1km to our friends at Grove Park Allotment to do three big jobs:

• Moving a big pile of woodchip to spread in the new bee area, on the paths around the shed and wherever else it was needed!

• Moving chairs, tables and tarpaulin so the woodchip could be spread.

• Moving big logs inside the gate and arranging them in an area for children to enjoy - big cheer to Mikhail who got this done single handedly.

• Watering plots for some allotment users who are less able to do it themselves.

Un-bee-lievable scenes in the bee area...

We moved almost the entire pile of woodchip - this will be so useful everywhere in the allotment, it keeps the weeds down and when the rain comes (it will, I promise) it turns to mulch which is awesome for using on plants to retain water and keep them warm. We're always learning at GoodGym! The bee area is transformed - it used to be brambles and weeds and now it's a cleared, woodchipped area perfect for the bees. All thanks to many visits from GoodGym! Mikhail made a lovely picnic area for the kids to use (see photos) and we gave some gorgeous veg and plants a much needed watering. A big whoop for Kath who provided the photos tonight - just look at those sunflowers!

Solid work team, looking forward to next week.

Keep running happy, Lucy