It’s been an eventful weekend for our members up and down the country so a big well done to them all, however time to get back home. Our Lewisham members clocked up some serious steps this weekend from parkrun, missions, races and volunteering at various events. Have you seen the marvelous photos of the GG Water stand, at the British 10K? Not only were they keeping the participants hydrated but they also gave the loudest cheers.

**Stop! Hang on a minute, as she’s always writing the run report she only gets mentioned in the credits but not this week! I’m sure you would all agree that our trainer Adele deserves some special cheers, she splashed away in the Thames taking on the Henley mile what a way to keep cool in this weekend’s hot temperature!

Hey all thanks for coming along to tonight’s group run welcome to our first timers Katrin, Andrew, Hannah and Sabina hope you enjoyed your time with us tonight and hoping to see you at our next run one of our favourite task.

It’s Monday evening and there is a group of people in the lobby of Glass Mill dressed in rep tops, everyone walks past looking a bit puzzled wondering what’s going on as there are a lot of chatter amongst the group, there are folks still arriving each been greeted with smiles and hello as the group gets bigger and bigger.

We huddled closely together as I ran through the tasks and the safety briefing along with our regular words about good gym before moving out to the area that was once grass for our head count and warm up. Domestics out the way we headed of running towards Deptford for our tasks. Yes, there were two again tonight, a group of five being led by Kim to the Samaritans and 15 being led by me to the Woodpecker Youth Centre. As we arrived at our point of separation Kim led her group off to their task and my group carried on to the Woodpecker youth club.

As we arrived at the woodpecker youth club we were met by Charlotte who had been looking out for us, she ran through what she wanted us to do and proceeded to unlock the gates around the premises to give us free reign. In one area of the grounds the blackberries were begging to run wild and capturing areas they were not allowed in. Other areas had overgrown plants that needed a trim and bushes growing between the bricks. We break out into small groups armed with brooms, hedge shears, bin bags, bill hook, scissors and various other tools to regain control of the grounds.

As we worked and chatted it was really nice to see our first timers getting stuck in Andrew got into a tight scrape with the with the bill hook as he cleared the bushed between the bricks. Hannah who had been using a broom that had been broken off the stick was not going to be defeated in her endeavors to sweep up the rubbish resorted to duct taping the broom together while Sabina and Katrin ensured the rubbish was bagged up.

Over by the overgrown plants Clare had made a big inroad into the pruning before enlisting the help of Malcolm as she realized she had pruned it like a bad fringe on one side and needed to get the other side which was a bit higher so in subbed Malcolm for his height. Over by the black berries Oli and co was adamant not to be beaten by the overgrown blackberry they had less chatter a more determined look on their faces as they raced against time to clear the area. I am pleased to say that despite a few cuts after the buzzer had been blown they were victorious.

Berries wheelie bin naughty

The area had been cleared of the overgrown berries but there were still enough berries left over for those who wanted to refuel on them after the battle had been won.

What about our friends over at the Samaritans? Well they had to tackle clematis plants that had decided to invade the neighbouring garden, cleared weeds from the paving stone, cut back the brambles from the raised beds. Then as a final swan song they put the clematis cuttings into the compost bin tidied up and had a photo session while waiting on us to rejoin for the run back to Glass Mill. For the return leg of our journey we ran back through Brookmill park where we in co-operated our fitness session into the run all the way back to the point where we had to leave the park/Waterlink way to get back on the main road. We arrived back at Glass Mill safely in tact did our cool down stretches and said our farewells.