Good morning all! And yes, what a fantastic morning it is. You’ve, I have no doubts, woken up with a vigour for life that you haven’t felt since last Wednesday, and you’ve, I am certain, sprinted down the road with glee and complete abandon. You even left your umbrella at home didn’t you.

Gosh! That’s what an evening of good deeding and running around in the dark does best; puts you on the right foot, sets you up fine, pulls your mouth to the corners of your cheeks, and makes you cry out with all your respiratory might: ‘I LOVE GOODGYM GREENWICH!’

Well, it does that to me, and I pity my neighbours. But, we have incredibly important things to discuss in today’s run report, so I’m going to cut to it faster than a GoodGym Greenwich runner can run the 100m whilst simultaneously building a birdhouse from scratch.

That actually takes quite a long time, it’s admittedly a difficult task. Let me grab an Irn Bru whilst we wait.

Irn Bru! Scotland! The Flyers Scotsman! Yes indeed fellow Greenwich locals, last night we flyered for the wonderful ‘Big Bike Ride’ which is taking place on the 6th of October in aid of the fantastic Greenwich and Bexley Community Hospice.

But, before we get to that, let me set the scene. It was a beautiful evening, the Sun was setting, and the rain clouds were fit to burst, straining against the impulse. It was strangely reminiscent of a Glaswegian summer’s evening. And yesterday we welcomed one new runner to the group, welcome Amar! I hope you had a fantastic first run with us! And also, we congratulated Minh on his recent run at the Oslo Marathon, well done mate!

Following our introductions, we dropped our stuff off and our brilliant run leader, Sarah, led a quick warm-up before splitting us into two separate groups and distributing the leaflets. Needless to say, a natural aura of competition permeated the naval college green, each group eyed up the other, teasing out the weaknesses; the first group back would win the prize.

I can’t speak for the other group, but my group dashed about the streets of Greenwich with a leafleting frenzy that any passing-by post office worker would have admired. In no time at all, we were out of leaflets and heading back to the naval colleges, certain of the victory which was surely ours…

Alas, it was not to be. The other group had clearly cheated and stopped off at the local flats; a cheap but clever move. But, all was not lost, we were again split into two separate groups and Sarah announced a relay; each group member was to run a lap of the college Quadrangle. The race started and it was neck and neck throughout. The college lights held us entranced as each GoodGym Greenwich runner stormed around. Even a nearby evening party stopped serving champagne and scoffing vol-au-vents; the atmosphere was tense. On the final lap, Linda snatched victory for team 1, with Minh following closely for team 2. A genuine pleasure to watch you all run so beautifully last night everyone!

And with a quick stretch, we were finished and off to spread our smiles and quaff some aged Scotch. Hope to see you all next week!

Let’s start off with Lewisham news (partly in case you didn’t hear me over whatever was going on in Glassmill), there was so much of it, we had:

• GoodGym’s 10th Birthday Party at City Hall which was a wonderful evening of different areas being all together alongside community groups that we support - there may have been a few tears during the speeches.
• Hilly Fields Parkrun 7th birthday, the course was ran in reverse and to celebrate making it round the wrong way, there was cake at the end!
• Marsha Phoenix Relay at Hilly Fields which was raising money for a fantastic local cause, well done Tom/Oli/Jacqueline for taking part and Molly for being the best cheerer!
• Vic also came first at a Parkrun in Italy and had her own personal marshal - WELL DONE!

We started the evening with a quick photo outside Glassmill with the absolutely huge GoodGym flag, that done and a quick selfie so I didn’t miss out, it was time for Amber to run through a quick warm up as we needed to head off promptly to maximise the time we’d have at the task.

We arrived at Dalmain Primary School and split into two groups, the bigger group/people with head torches tackling the wildlife garden across the road and a smaller group cutting back the bushes in a wildlife garden in the main playground to make it easier for the children to walk along the path.

Everyone got stuck into the task and after a bit of running back and forth between the two groups, I went to check on the tyres we’d painted in the summer and they are still looking wonderful.

The group in the main playground also removed some weeds around the edges whilst I went to round up the other group, only to find they’d found an assortment of random objects: a pickaxe, a lightbulb, a babygrow and then the usual litter (there was probably more to add to that list).

Whilst the cuttings where being taken over to compost pile in the wildlife garden, it was up to me to run around the playground like a superhero with the flag.

Back to being run leader and we all got in position for a group photo except the light kept going off and then my phone wasn’t ready, after about 5 attempts we got it! Time for the downhill back to Glassmill and a stretch (thanks Amber).

Next week we are off to Chelwood Nursery and there's various community missions happening this weekend:

• Wildcat Wilderness Chilli Festival on Saturday (and you get lunch for all your hard work)
• Manor Gardens on Sunday

Well done running up those hills this evening, everyone did great!