We ran around 3km to weed and litter pick for ECCO

A bit windy tonight so it was a good job we had an energetic task planned for the 16 runners tonight especially as the run itself wasn’t too long. Off we headed to Addiscombe Road via East Croydon station – for maximum GoodGym t-shirt exposure ably led by Amatare. We called in at Jerry’s to pick up the tools – shears, garden scissors, loppers, bags, brushes and a wheel barrow and then he led us to the @Boulevard@ which was in urgent need of a thorough weeding ald litter picking. The litter picks were brought down by Alex who was then persuaded by his mum to join in and help out – such a well brought up young man! We were also joined by a few of the ECCO gang who live locally and spend time helping make their community a prettier place for everybody.

We worked hard for almost an hour and managed to fill around 25 large bags with green waste and another 3 bags with rubbish which would all be collected the next morning by Veolia. We even got a few thank yous from commuters heading home for the evening.

After returning all the tools to Jerry we had the Pringle Challenge - strictly speaking it was the Walkers Stack Challenge but that really didn’t roll of the tongue as well. The story behind this drill is that a few of us spectating at the London Marathon noticed how people started tensing their shoulders and hands when they started getting tired and we discussed ways of reducing this. It got us to talking about the trick of pretending we were running with Pringles between our thumb and fore fingers with a gentle grip to avoid crushing them So tonight we used the actual crisps and not just our imaginations. There was a choice of Sour Cream and Chiles or Paprika to run with and the bonus of reducing the result of the times lap by 10 seconds for each crisp that returned unbroken. This was obviously far too easy as none were broken so next week it might have to be burpees while holding the crisps!

The was a big GoodGym welcome for two new runners, Emma and Louise - hope you enjoyed yourselves and hope to see you both again next week.

With it being the last Tuesday of the month it was time for our monthly social in BoxPark which was a bit louder than normal with the Liverpool game on very very loud – we were glad we were in the right colours though.

Next Tuesday evening’s run will see us heading to Park Hill Rec for another fun task with Josi.

This afternoon we helped prepare an area for bee friendly plants

This Bank Holiday afternoon we met at Heathfield House and Gardens to help our buzzy busy friends. Bees are under threat globally and today we were doing our bit locally by helping weed and dig over a large flowerbed so bee friendly plants could be grown there later in the year by the Heathfield Ecology Centre. It was a hot and humid day but we got down to business and weeded, pulled and cleared the weeds up – hopefully no plants were collateral damage! While we were working an outdoor play was being set up as part of the Open Day all about the lives of insects – it was a bit drzzly by the time it started but as it was a Bank Holiday and we all know they usually mean rain then most of the audience had umbrellas with them!

After we’d finished we had a short but scenic run through the local woods – a bit of a change from the pavements we normally pound on Tuesdays evenings. We even had a bit of excitement when I misdirected Helena and we ended up in a stable yard with a dog bounding towards us – apparently he had no teeth so we would have been safe enough!

The Starter sessions are to introduce new runners to GoodGym and give them a chance to see what we do and also to tell them about Coach run and Missions. So we were happy to welcome Sam and Alex to the GoodGym crew where they were able to chat to the regular runners – it was great to meet you all and hope to see you again soon. Welcome also to Helena who’d popped in on her trip home from Brighton and to Paul all the way from Bristol.

This Tuesday’s run we will be helping a local community group, East Croydon Community Organisation clear some unruly ivy and some other stubborn weeds to help them with their longer term plans to improve the local environment by replanting the overgrown beds