21 runners ran 3 or 6km to paint Southwark Tigers clubhouse, tidy up at Cossall Estate and leaflet for Link Age Southwark

Southwark News

• On the weekend we helped man a water station at the British 10k. Read all about it here. There'll be an opportunity to volunteer at the Oxford Half in October - you get a free Virgin race place for your hard work!

• Community Missions are back! If you have suggestions of tasks a little bit out of our usual hit zone, give me a shout!

• Huge hello and welcome to Caroline, Sammy, Daniela and Owen who joined us for the first time last night.

That's enough of the business

Last night Southwark was MEGA. We helped three different organisations in one night - flyering for Southwark Link Age, painting Southwark Tigers' clubhouse and tidying up at Cossall Estate. Phewf!

We split into two groups - one running the 6k round trip to Tigers and one the 2km round trip to Cossall Estate.

• Long run group were well looked after by Helena and Girija - they got to work painting walls, scraping the floor of paint, painting the blackboard and finishing off skirting boards.

• Short run group led by Lucy and Beth watered plants, cleared a huge cupboard (we found a 'Now 2003' CD that's a keeper!) and started the big job of removing damaged flooring from the hall since the flood.

Michael at Tigers and Alan and Jaki at Cossall were blown away as usual by our speedy and efficient work. We finished the clubhouse, watered all of Grow Cossall's raised beds and cleared a huge cupboard (see photo). We also moved on lots of leaflets calling for volunteers for Link Age Southwark. A busy night... and it wasn't over just yet!

In perfect timing, both groups arrived back to base for 20.15 which means - you guessed it - 15 minutes for fitness fun! We went to a corner of the Rye for a session using the breath as a marker for how hard we're working when we're running.

• Easy: in through the nose, out through the nose

• Medium: in through the nose, out through the mouth

• Hard: in through the mouth out through the mouth

To find out more about how this works you'll have to come and run with us! After the run we went on our monthly social (third Wednesday off the month) to Peckham Levels for a well-deserved drink and food. Thank you to Girija for organising - looking forward to next month already :)

Next week we're gardening at Stuart Road Allotments - sign up here.

See you then!

Keep running happy, Lucy

Last night 12 runners ran 5.8km to sort food and baby clothes at Salvation Army

Southwark News

• STOP THE PRESS! OLYMPIC TORCH MAKING PARTY THIS SUNDAY!!!! We'll be eating takeaway and making a torch for the Olympics on Sunday evening. Bring creative ideas, glitter, glue, something red/orange for flames ANYTHING! It'll be ridiculous crafty fun. Let us know you're coming here.

• GoodGym Olympics on Saturday 30th June, come and cheer on your team. There's a bake off and plenty more fun!

• Community Mission to set up Blythe Hill Festival with the Lewisham gang on Sunday 1st July. IT'LL BE A CORKER.

• 15th July is the British 10k. Come and volunteer at the GoodGym water aid station. You get a free place to any Virgin sports race as a thank you!

• We're on Instagram! Follow us @goodgym_southwark.

Phew.... That's enough of the business

12 runners waded through the thick soupy humid air to get to Old Spike for 18.45 last night, ready to go on our weekly volunteering spree. After a few weeks off due to my sprained ankle I was back in action and hell was I excited to actually run with you all!

Girija and Sally took the reins for the route out, challenging us with a shorter but steeper route than anticipated. Big shout out to Allison who made it up the hill without stopping for the first time. All hail Allison, give her a cheer here. We made it all in one piece to meet Janet at the Salvation Army who set us to work on two different tasks:

• One group sorting and labelling foodbank items
• One group sorting donated baby clothes for the baby bank
• One group cleaning toddler cushions

We were reborn!

In 30 minutes not only did we finish everything, we actually had to go into the loft for more baby clothes to sort. We also put all the tables down that we'd used and packed them away. We even clean up after ourselves... the perfect guests!

Fun Fact! Spanish is the second spoken language in Southwark!

We sorted tons of baby clothes, reorganised the entire foodbank cupboard and cleaned all the toddler cushions. Excellent work team! We headed back a different way using the Southwark Sweep - where the runners at the back shout 'sweep' when the front runners are getting too far away and the front have to run all the way to the back of the line. A few peeled off home and the remaining goodgymers executed a brilliant sprint for home when we rounded the corner onto the Rye.

Next week we're going to the Giraffe House on Burgess Park to help build a planter for tomatoes. There will be lifting, shovelling and weeding. See you there!

Lucy J

Last night 13 runners ran 6km to weed at Bell House

Southwark News

• The next GoodGym RaceTeam race is East Farm Frolic run by the wonderful White Star Running. Distances are varied - 10km, half marathon, marathon and a 12 hour race you can take on with a team or solo. I'm running the 10km, we've got 37 signups already. Come and meet GoodGymers from around the country for some muddy, traily fun in Dorset. Sign up here.

• Soon GoodGym will be rolling out community missions - this means turning up to tasks that we can't usually reach on a weekend. We don't meet at Old Spike, but run there individually (or in groups). You don't have to have a DBS check for these. They're going to be an awesome way to reach places we can't get to on a Wednesday night. Let me know if you have ideas of particular places to go!

• A huge shout out to Stuart, Helen and Anna who joined us for the first time last night!

That's enough of the business

Last night we gathered at a rather stuffy Old Spike sniffling and eye-rubbing due to the insane hayfever. I'm convinced its mixed with some delightful pollution round these parts... After a headcount and a warm up we split into two groups:

• Team 'leg stretch' headed off at a stiff pace and included a lap of Dulwich Park taking them to 4.8km for their run out.
• Team 'we're going to get there on time' led by Girija ran directly there and got to work before the others arrived.

We came we saw we weeded

Sarah from Bell House set us to work weeding infront of the house. We spent a good 25 minutes tugging, digging and hauling out weeds (and some old chains!) and then popped inside to have a look at the exhibition being held. The choice to do that had nothing to do with the free wine...! Sarah and Chloe were absolutely thrilled with how much we got done and took a lovely team photo of us outside the house. It makes for a pretty hilarious photo!

We took the way home easy although everyone was absolutely flying down Barry Road (yes it is called that!) which is much more fun to run down than run up. As we reached the last set of lights we set up a game of chase the hare. Stuart volunteered to be the hare and I set him off at a speedy pace and three seconds later the whole group had the challenge of chasing him down to Old Spike. No one caught him this time... but there will be more rounds, just you wait!

Great job everyone, Sarah and Chloe were thrilled and I'm particularly looking forward to doing some stuff with them over winter.

See you next week! Lucy

This evening started with a merry celebration of Katie's 300th good deed and two year anniversary of being Lambeth trainer. Woo! Victoria and Tom dressed all in black and hid in the basketball court expertly decorating gingerbread people into GG runners with sparkly trainers. What more could I want? Thanks gang!

We had three lovely run options:

Group 1 went with Katie down Brixton Road to Kennington Park. The park is being judged on it's Green Flag status on Friday so we helped to tidy it up. One group got busy removing bind weed, another gave the hedges a close shave, some people went on a litter pick and more still did some excellent cleaning of signs all over the park. We did a top job and fingers crossed the park keeps its status as a nice place to be.

Groups 2 and 3 went to GP surgeries to support the GP Food Coop. This great group puts plants and veg in surgeries and hospitals in Lambeth for a nicer environment and also for patients and staff to get involved with.

Group 2 went with Issy up to Streatham. They covered 7.5km and transferred a big bag of soil out pf the surgery, past the security guard and into the garden! They were rewarded with delicious strawberries from task leader Elizabeth's allotment. Yum!

Group 3 went with Tom Hunter to West Norwood...maybe even just Norwood. It was far! 7 runners ran 10km to Crown Dale Surgery in Upper Norwood. Where we were met by Brenda (and Brenda’s excellent doggo Riley). She explained to us all the benefits of the GP Food Co-Op Scheme, in providing community spaces for people to learn about growing some tasty fresh fruit and veg.

We quickly shovelled some soil into the last empty plantar. Then made room for an intriguing sounding vine growing space along the side of the building.

After finally convincing Riley the dog to sit still long enough to be featured in our group photo, we were on our way home. Lovely Summer’s evening for it.

She was so happy! Said Tom Hunter

And with that it was back to base with everyone, some walking lunges, single leg deadlifts and stretches. Then home! Thanks for being great as always - here's to the next 300 runs!

20 runners ran 6km to weed at Bell House in Dulwich

Hump Day evening! You know what that means... it's GoodGym Southwark! Last night 20 of us gathered at Old Spike Roastery including FIVE (COUNT 'EM) FIVE FIRST TIMERS. Big cheers for Chloe, Caitlin, Frances, Heather and Marisa for coming along, hopefully the first of many good deeds! A big woop also for Bristol legend Debs Redmond who's furthered her GoodGym tourism by coming to see us!

A New Task EEk!

After a briefing and a warm up we set off for the 3k (basically a straight line) to Bell House in Dulwich. Bell House has had many incarnations in its lifetime and now it is an education centre that offers support outside the mainstream curriculum. The house is a centre for educational needs such as dyslexia support and it is entirely volunteer led. They have some great short films on their website about the work they do, have a look!

Weed don't need no education (except the amazing opportunities offered by Bell House)

We arrived at the gorgeous garden and were put to work - Sarah and Tim helped us with what were and were not weeds and we got to work. 20 people can get a lot done in as many minutes! We got really stuck in, enjoying the beautiful environment as we did so (and messing around with sticky willy). When time was up we had two very full wheelbarrows to show for ourselves (see photo). Sarah was thrilled! We thanked our task owners and headed back through gorgeous Dulwich park to base.

Every Saturday at 09.30 Bell House have a volunteer session. As Tim pointed out, it's perfectly timed for just after Dulwich parkrun... and there's coffee and croissants. What more could you ask for on a Saturday!

We got loads done and got a solid 6km run out of it. Great work team!

Looking forward to seeing you next week.

Keep running happy,

Lucy

Twelve awesome GoodGym-ers came down to help the Camden Society!

Lucy was away this week so I stepped in to lead the Southwark group. We had FIVE new runners tonight which was absolutely fantastic - welcome to Alex, George, Lucinda, Mark and Sam!

After a quick intro at Old Spike talking about the three ways in which we do good and get fit with GoodGym (group runs, missions and coach runs) we headed off for our journey to Bermondsey!

It was meant to be 4km but my watched clocked 4.5km! We all stayed together but kept up a decent pace and apart from some traffic light fun trying to get across the road in Peckham it was nice and uneventful.

Arriving at the Riverside centre in Bermondsey we let ourselves into the carpark and found the tools that had been left for us under one of the vans (see pic)!

We then tried to work out where we were supposed to be working... As the report title suggest we're still not sure we got it right but we worked on the area we could best access and hope that it is the right one! It was a fantastic effort from everybody, we cleared way more than I thought we would and despite not having all the right tools you all made it work and we cleared a huge area and filled up all the bin bags we had with detritus and weeds and rubbish!

After everything was done and a group photo taken we headed off with George and James leaving us to head home. The route home went slightly 'igglepiggle' but we rescued it and got back to Old Spike fine. A quick stretch down, a huge round of applause for Deepak on his last GoodGym run before moving to Mumbai (GoodGym India anyone?) and then we all headed off home (or to the pub!).

Thanks for having me, it is always so much fun covering Southwark and sign up here for next week's run!

Cheers, Pritesh