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

Pun credits go to Debs!!!

9 wonderful women and 1 heroic "He" (Enrique) ran through the breeze and the big freeze, took on the trees and left feeling rather pleased. Just your average evening for Goodgym Brent then! Pow Pow

It was all go go goooo this eve as the mighty Brent team hit the road, running 5k to and from Harlesden Community Gardens to help with some log lifting and compost shifting. YAY And what a good cause to give back to, these guys truly are an incredible hub for the community, offering local young people the chance to learn about organic, home grown foods and caring enough to provide an oasis sanctuary for all those that reside in the area. Terrific.

Demonstrating to us her fine leadership skills Debs took the lead at the front of the pack and even had the team working their butts off with double backs and squats to and from on route!!! We'll make a coach runner of her yet!

Speeding our way through the streets of Willesden there was no stopping this nifty crew, bobbing, weaving, leaping and streaking (just to confirm no indecency). In no more than 20mins we had arrived into the welcoming embrace of Gabriel, our Angel from the North (West) who wasted no time in pointing out the load of logs that needed shifting from A to B...... Hummmmmmm we thought and as we surveyed the mountain of trees was this guy barking mad could we finish this epic task in time..... Of course we can it's GG BRENT! POW POW

So it was Hey, Ho, it's off to work we go and go we did with gusto and grit forming an assembly line of helping hands all working in complete coordination with nobody at logger heads. HAAAAAAAA

As I personally took on the dangerous task of lighting the efforts with my massive torch.... Yes Dangerous - because I was being eaten alive by beasties in the bushes, the rest of the crew heaved and huffed their way through and even had time to finish off with a clean, sweep up and haul into the compost heap of leftovers for good measure.

Of course the time flew past in beautiful harmony as the team were cheered on by myself and Debs, singing a beautiful rendition of "Paint with all the colours of the wind" from Disney classic Pocahontis. Time's up.... Thank goodness they can stop singing now..... and it was goodbye from us, but not before we enjoyed a quick turn on the children play equipment with Sadhana knocking out her most impressive plank to date and Luscious NOT lusty Liz working the abs with pikes on the swings. Impressive.

Turning on our heels, we flew back off into the eve with fast pace and lots of grace, just for the thrill, up Huffington Hill and full steam ahead back to base camp.

What a fantastic night, I can honestly say I've never laughed so hard or had so much fun. But hey, that's Goodgym and the best gang of straight-up weirdos in town, my beloved Brent.

See you next time.

DO GOOD. FEEL GOOD. INSPIRE.