Seventeen super-volunteers ran 5km and got busy with the brushes and rollers at Voluntary Action Lewisham. Heroes

Sub-zero temperatures, potential blizzards, icy winds, none of this could stop our intrepid team from turning up and doing good. Not only our regular, hardcore, tried-and-tested members, but two brand new runners came along too - if you can withstand all of the above challenges on your first group run, you're made of tough stuff! Welcome to Bradley and Merlin, the Lewisham Love is all yours (Bradley has really got the bug. He volunteered at parkrun the other Saturday, never having run before, saw the roster for this week was full, so ran and then joined us this evening for more running and volunteering!).

Hero we go!

I might have been stalling slightly, not wishing to leave the warmth of the Glass Mill foyer, but there was SO MUCH to celebrate this week! Well done to Nykolette, who ran a half-marathon yesterday, just like that, bagging herself a two minute personal best!! Well done also to Conroy and the rest of the GoodGym Race Team, who took part in the National Cross Country Championships in Parliament Hill - a really hard-going, 12km of hills and mud so hungry, it eats shoes! Tonight was special too, for Anita, who was quietly getting on with her 50th good deed! So quietly, that she hadn't even realised herself! Many of her runs have been to an older person, her coach, for a weekly chat, reducing isolation and making a difference in her community - well done Anita!

As it's the end of the month, we also got to celebrate our Heroes of February, some impressive running and lots and lots of good deeds (correct at time of going to press)!

• Cheers received: Conroy, 321
• Cheers given: Nykolette, 1677(!!)
• Distance run: Chris P, 268km
• Good deeds: Nykolette, 9 (closely followed by Emma and Stephen, with 8)

It's snow fun being cold!

Warm-up time and down came the snow! I have to admit to being a big kid when it snows, I can't help it. Winters in Wales were proper, with big, up-to-your-knees snowfalls and seriously steep sledging, so this little sprinkling filled me with hope for a Snow Day on Hilly Fields! A quick 'Everyone's It' and some dynamic stretching got our heart rates a little higher and we were ready for the off, with Nykolette back-marking to keep us together. As we arrived at VAL, we quickly found our spots of wall to focus on, with last week's painters heading back to finish off the tasks they had started, with the party in the loo in full swing and Conroy wielding the longest paint roller ever, to try and reach the highest point of the stairwell.

This week we expanded into two more rooms (this building is deceptively large, with lots of smaller rooms hidden away down a corridor!), with two teams freshening up some walls that had clearly been Blu-Tacked within an inch of their lives. As we got on with the task, there was a LOT of talk about half-marathons, with the long-awaited Big Half happening this Sunday (and Emma's Bath Half too!). Many of our runners (200+) are taking part and the rest of us will be en route, to cheer, cajole and carry if need be (is that allowed?). We also heard that Conroy will be visiting his coach for the first time tomorrow, we look forward to hearing about this next week.

With everyone scattered across the building, I jogged between spaces, taking photos and keeping everyone updated on time which, as always, went by in a flash. Before we knew it, we were wrapping everything up, grabbing a biscuit (thank you!) and gearing up to head back out into whatever The Weather had in store for us. We will clearly need to revisit the Mulberry Centre soon to finish the work, so good bye for now!

Lots of sharp intakes of breath, a few verbal shivers and we were off along Deptford High Street and all it had to offer on a cold Monday evening. At this point, Emma told me she'd been skiing yesterday, which made my wall-sit seem particularly evil (cackle)! Rounding off with some partner plank hand-tap whatnots, some stretching and a final 'Good luck!' to all our half-marathoners and we were done for the evening. Next week is still being finalised to allow for sore legs (I had scheduled in an 8k run, what was I thinking?!). Sign up here and don't forget we will be going for some food afterwards, to celebrate Medal Monday.

Peeling off layers and getting hot under the buff (it's a stretchy scarfy thing, OK?), an impressive 31 runners covered 5km and tackled a whole host of tasks at Voluntary Action Lewisham.

It never fails to amaze me how many people turn up on a grotty, grey, wet evening in February, all in the name of good! No first-timers tonight, but it was lovely to welcome Julia, who joined us for the first time at our starter session last week, also to say hi to Bliss, who has been away and to welcome back Kate, who used to come way back in the day, but has been busy becoming a parent! On another happy note, our very own mission man, Stephen, was showing off his lovely wings - a rather special new red t-shirt marking his 100 good deed milestone. A good sprinkling of Lewisham Love to you all.

Big Breakfast

Did you see us on the telly?! Yes, I know, we've been on the BBC before, we've done podcasts and we've featured in various articles, we're old hands at this media lark. This time we were filmed during our river wading session last Saturday, with the little feature being aired during yesterday's BBC Breakfast. It seems all our mums were up and ready, remote controls in hand, eager to see us in action. Meanwhile, many of our runners were out there smashing the miles, in preparation for the Big Half in two week's time (or the Bath Half in Emma's case). It was lovely to see some really great support amongst our runners, with Kim and Helen off out towards central London, Amber running a half-marathon - her furthest run yet, Conroy sharing a long run (and post-run drinks) with Frances and a few other GoodGym members and Juliet, who couldn't get to her planned race, deciding to tackle 20km just for fun. Amazing.

Here we go round the Mulberry Centre!

We were visiting another brand new task tonight, exciting times! This week our run took us over to New Cross and The Mulberry Centre, home to Voluntary Action Lewisham (and other organisations and groups). With Stephen back-marking, we headed out to Deptford, enjoying some Winter Olympics-style slalom, through the detritus of the market and shops - still packing up for the day - and were soon passing The Albany Theatre (where we will be going in a few weeks) and over to VAL. Here, we were met by Rachel, who told us about the various tasks and divided us into smaller groups (31 people remember, that's a lot of organising!). The jobs for tonight were:

• Moving some heavy furniture to the lower floor
• Painting the stairwell
• Painting the bright yellow toilet (great colour-match there Rosemary!)
• Re-potting some baby spider plants (possibly one of our most unusual tasks to date?!)
• Cleaning up the droplets of paint and scrapings from the wall
• Checking out another space for some future painting

With such a large group and limited space and supplies, there was a fair bit of to-ing and fro-ing, with new jobs being picked up once others were finished and some last-minute sponge-grabbing to ensure all of the paint was wiped away (excellent work here by Monika, who dealt well with those people who just couldn't put the their brushes and rollers down!). With just enough time to grab a biscuit (thanks Rachel!) and take a group photo, we gathered our belongings and headed back towards Glass Mill. Farewell to Vic, who lives nearby and had already run a half-marathon this morning, as you do and also did her 25th good deed this evening!

Glutiful!

I had planned a really tasty glute-focussed fitness session but, by the time we got back, it was stretch and go-home-to-eat time. We looked forward to our last group run for February next week (already?!), which means a celebration of our Heroes of February (still time to edge up the leaderboards!) and a return to VAL to finish off the painting and anything else that might need our attention. Keep up all the amazing running this week everyone and I'll see you at parkrun, or next Monday for more of the same good stuff :)