At the start of Volunteer Week, a fabulous thirty runners took to the streets of Lewisham to cover 7km and help out at the Wildcat Wilderness.

Yes thirty! Blimey! Very many old-timers, some returners and three brand-new-to-Lewisham newcomers. All our Lewisham Love this week goes to Rianna, Jonathan and Kris, welcome to the family :)

We've had yet another amazing weekend of volunteering and racing (it doesn't stop on a Monday evening!). It was lovely to welcome Malcolm back, after his fantastic first ever marathon up in Edinburgh last weekend (and he's not ruling out doing another in the future!). Well done also to Nykolette, who motivated herself to join us having run what looked like an incredibly challenging half-marathon with the GoodGym Race Team, up at the Lakeland Trails event. A belated congratulations to all of our runners who took part in the Vitality 10k last Monday (which was SUPER hot), but were unable to join us post-race, hi-fives to Clare and Chris. We also had runners out in force at Hilly Fields parkrun on Saturday, running, volunteering and pacing, (REPRESENTING!) great work everyone.

As I mentioned, it's Volunteer Week this week and time for our annual HUGE run from City Hall. Some of tonight's runners had already been out doing good as part of this event, so rolled up full of tales of building boxes for the Poppy Appeal, labelling bags for a project that works with education around drug use/misuse and some were even chasing pigs down on the farm (all in a day's volunteering for our wonderful members)! Well done everyone.

Over to Catford

Tonight's task was to one of our favourite local organisations, Wildcat Wilderness. We do enjoy visiting Maria, who always has an array of tasks for us to get our teeth into. This week was no different, with our work being focussed mainly on the garden area, with an additional crack team of weed-bashers making sure the path remains accessible, as everything comes into full bloom and threatens to take over. Over in the garden Maria showed us two massive pieces of tarpaulin, which had been sitting on the ground for quite some time. To move something as big and heavy as this takes a large group of people, full of energy and strength and with an enthusiasm to get things done...let me think...

With a lot of 'to me, to you' going on and a few shouts of 'Everyone grab an edge/corner!', there was a shuffle here, a shuffle there and a great big heave-ho before the wet, muddy and frankly whiffy sheet was lifted, shifted and folded enough to transport into the polytunnel. Here the task was to lay it out, covering the weeds, to suppress their growth. You can see from the photos that great care was taken to get this right, with not a weed left exposed. Taking a second to breathe, it was back outside to repeat this exercise, but this time to cover the area next to the tunnel. As Maria said, it wasn't the most glamorous task but, even when splattered with mud, our runners still manage to smile and make it look fun.

Weed better get on with it

While all this was going on, we had another team cracking on with the clearing, weeding and watering, with bindweed being unwound, brambles being tugged and all manner of rogue greenery being shifted from around the plants. In the cabin (it's far too nice to call it a shed), Conroy, Amber, Bradley and Kim were busy making clipboards, which were of course being recycled out of some old roofing material, ready for the forest school groups to use during their bug hunts. Just look at the variety of jobs we do on our group runs!

Before we packed up and left, some of our group ran over to check out the new outdoor kitchen, that we prepared the ground for over a few sessions; it's looking amazing. As we said our goodbyes, Maria reminded us all about our Summer Social coming up on Thursday June 21st. This will be an informal gathering at the Wilderness (thank you Maria!), where we will each bring food to share (and any drinks you might like). We won't be running or carrying out a task, just getting together for a chat over food around a campfire. Sign up here and join us.

Planktastic!

Running back through Ladywell Fields, we reached our start point feeling well worked out, but I really wanted to squeeze in a fun game (well, my idea of fun anyway). In a line, everyone got into a plank position and ran relays along the row. Marta asked if I had been talking to Sarah, the trainer for Greenwich, who apparently had them doing the same thing there! Nope, we must just think along the same (evil) lines :) Well done everyone, it was particularly tough with such a big group!

As we stretched, we talked about next week's task over at Seniors, another longer run (with epic views), sign up here and join us. We wish strong legs, hearts, arms and grit to all of our runners heading off to Endure 24 at the weekend, eat up all your carrots kids, you'll need them for those night-time runs!

See you soon x

Feeling high on life, 25 runners ran happily through Lewisham, covering 7km and tackling a number of fun tasks at the Wildcat WIlderness.

I'm just going to have a little lie down...

YESTERDAY WAS EPIC!! London was well and truly awash with joy, as tens of thousands of incredible athletes tackled the 26.2 miles of party-central, London Marathon (it was like 2012 all over again). We had a team on the Hilly Fields parkrun baggage trucks in Greenwich Park, helping the Red Start runners by looking after their belongings and giving a last-minute pep-talk, hug, shake, whatever was needed most. We had people cheering around the course, in Deptford, Canary Wharf, Embankment and, most exciting of all, we had runners taking on their first marathon. Representing GoodGym Lewisham were Ali, Andy and Amber (all the As!). Everyone did amazingly, especially when you consider that they had trained in snow and bitter winds, only to find that race day gave them blazing sunshine and 24-degree temperatures. Throughout the day we had updates from Amber in particular, who kept us informed of her progress, giving us the chance to will her on, send her encouragement and remind her of all the hard work she had put into this. We hadn't expected her to turn up this evening then, in her finisher's t-shirt and wearing her lovely medal! Well done Amber, what an achievement!

Stuff!

This wasn't all we were celebrating today. Here at GoodGym, we like to mark our milestones, with 50 good deeds leading to a special black t-shirt and 100 good deeds giving you wings (a red t-shirt with wings on the back). This week we were really pleased to congratulate Emma on this achievement. We met Emma first of all when she came to the monthly social, when it was held in Lewisham, telling us all about how she was running with GG Westminster. By the end of the evening we had convinced her that she needed to join us in SE13. She has continued being a tourist, visiting a few other areas and can often be seen rushing off to a mission to help an older person in their home. My favourite thing about Emma, aside from her incredible enthusiasm to get stuck in, is her awesome laugh, which can be heard from one side of the Wildcat Wilderness to the other :)

What a week to join us for the first time! We had two brand new runners, Kirsty and Patricia and, joining us after having visited GoodGym Greenwich, was Beth - welcome, all of you, here's some Lewisham Love...x

Into the Wild!

Our task this week was over at the (wonderful) Wildcat Wilderness so, after a quick warm up, off we went, towards Ladywell Fields (with expert back-marking by Amber, Conroy and Rosemary) and through the bramble-lined paths, where we met Maria. It's lovely to be back here in the evening light, enjoying the most beautiful sunset as we worked. Since we first started coming here, the wilderness has grown and there are now a number of spaces that need our attention (this means a wider area to cover when gathering everyone up and taking photos!). Across the space, our volunteers tackled:

• weed-bashing (of course, top, number one favourite activity here!), creating new or wider paths

• lopping, cutting back thicker brambles or branches

• gathering, carefully picking up the discarded brambles and transferring them where needed

• turning the soil, putting it into a wheelbarrow and using this to fill a trench (which Maria pointed out must have been the tracks of a vehicle at some point many years ago!)

• picking, uncovering, lifting and removing stubborn and deep bramble roots (evil things!)

• levelling, creating the perfect space for the new polytunnel

• uncovering, pulling up and moving rusted metal, including a very large and heavy tank

• watering, an especially relaxing and restorative task for our marathon runner

All of a sudden it was eight o'clock and we hadn't even started putting the tools away! This is definitely somewhere to come and while away an afternoon or evening (which you can do, on one of the regular volunteer days), but we didn't have the luxury of time, so quickly returned our equipment and gathered for a group photo, whilst hearing about all the amazing plans Maria has for the space. We look forward very much to returning again in two weeks time, ahead of the installation of the outdoor kitchen, sign up!

Our return run was brisk (I'm sorry if we were a little late arriving back!), with the sky darkening slowly and talk turning to what was for dinner (there is always a collective tummy rumble at this point). We also talked, of course, about races and marathons, with the next big marathon being Malcolm's run in Edinburgh in five weeks time. Don't forget, if you fancy trying something a bit shorter or even a bit sillier, we have the GoodGym Olympic Games coming up in June and we really should start planning and working out what we're good at (egg and spoon anyone?). Details are here, sign up and represent!

Next week we will be off to Crofton Books, always a fun task and a nice 5k round trip (with views). Join us, we'd love to see you!