27 brave runners headed out the rain last night for a selection of plant-based good. 🌱

We started off welcoming Cat, Jo and Chris for coming on their first ever GG run 👏 and congratulated Samantha for winning our SPOTM! With 13 good deeds this month and 100km+ ran to make those good deeds happen, she's absolutely smashing it. A killer haul of not one but TWO laser tag mugs, a purple piggy bank, a single packet of hot chocolate mix and of course a shower cap.

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Nicky took a small but powerful group off to Styles Gardens:

After a 1k run and a quick photo shoot in the playground (all in aid of the nationwide 1k GG Olympics race), we met Karen at Styles Gardens. With the assistance of a tree-climbing tabby cat, we got to work. After 40 minutes, we'd cleared a huge pile of branches/ivy/brambles and litter-picked a lot of rubbish. Karen was delighted with our progress and especially glad that a few residents were interested in what we were doing and how they could get involved. Unfortunately, having dodged the rain until then, the heavens decided to open for a VERY wet (but mercifully short) jog back to Papa's. 💦

Putting the style back in Styles - Karen from Styles Gardens.

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Getting to the root of it.

Everyone else split in 2 to go to Larkhall Park - George and Lucy leading a longer 3k run and the rest of us taking the direct route.

In a bit of a bind.

At Larkhall, we met Carl who told us the weeds had been growing like crazy this year. We had two patches to get to work on - One with A LOT of bindweed, twisting itself round every single plant it could find - even the weeds. The other patch was filled with small weeds and Chris, Jon and Frances were pondering the age old question;

What counts as a weed?

We decided it was down to looks, which is a bit shallow I guess. 🤷‍♂️

Rooty Pageant

At the end we took a quick snap with our piles of weeds all laid out, Carl said thanks and we blitzed some sprint relays before heading back to base.

TOP WORK EVERYONE 🎈

Next week we've got another couple of tasks: Spreading woodchip at Moorlands Gardens and helping out at Hillside Gardens Park. Sign up here.

30 hot little runners headed 5.4km in the evening sun to rendezvous with a helicopter and a man called Adrian at Agnes Riley community gardens for a variety of gardening tasks.

> GET TO THE CHOPPER!!! 🚁🚁🚁

John was in for Mark this week, and the evening started with some cheers for Paul for surpassing 50 good deeds and to Sarah, Charlotte and Bethan for coming on their first run! CHEERS FOR ALL PLZ! 🙌🙌🙌

Then, despite a few protestations of:

Doesn't GoodGym cancel a run when it's this hot? I've got a bead on!

(hint: no) we split into two groups: a 'quite slow please, I am hot enough already' group led by Lucy, and a 'maybe if we go slightly faster, the breeze will cool us down??' group led by John - and headed UP THE HILL (fml) to Agnes Riley Gardens. Update: breeze tactic only semi-successful.

And what did we find there? Well, for one, a BRIGHT RED HELICOPTER. The power, the majesty, the heroism of the London Air Ambulance crew - all of these were appreciated, but only slightly, compared to shouts of:

OOH THAT'S QUITE A NICE BREEZE ACTUALLY

Turns out that the 1,400hp of the MD902 Explorer Twin Engine Helicopters is much more effective than a Poundland handheld personal fan at wafting cooling currents over 29 sweaty gardeners, and it was tools down for a minute to enjoy the spectacle, majesty, and slight breeze of the chopper's takeoff. 💨💨💨

And also, and more importantly, we found Adrian of the community gardens, who wasted no time in organising 29 eager pairs of hands into crack teams dealing with hoeing, weeding, chopping back hedges (CHOPPING, CHOPPERS, GET IT??), dead-heading and watering. In the warm orange evening light, things were looking pretty tasty as we left, if we may say so ourselves. Adrian was pleased.

Thanks guys! - Adrian

Then it was back down the hill (that's better) with Nicky leading one group this time, and a return to Papa's to enjoy that moment when you stop running in the heat and realise JUST HOW SWEATY YOU ARE. Where's that breezy chopper when you need it?

25 incredible people joined me in Lambeth as we helped Agnes Riley Gardens and Portico Gallery and ran 6 and 8km!

In the news this week: * We celebrated Victoria reaching 200 good deeds - amazing achievement! * We welcomed Lisa and David on their first GoodGym run * Nicky told us about the parkrun and community mission this Saturday * Entry for GG Olympics is open - enter here and all the details here

On to the night at hand.... Victoria led us in a fantastic warm up, nice to see "shoo-ing the chickens" again, always good to stretch those hamstrings!

Jim and Nicky took a group of eight over to Portico to help with move some gazebo weights, here's the report from Jim:

"Eight plucky GGers took the scenic long route to Portico. The scenic route also got everyone rather wet, but declining the offers of tea from lovely John we decided to keep warm by doing good instead. The task at hand was to sort the weights for the gazebos which are used for West Norwood’s feast festival. With some splendid sorting and some heavy duty lifting we got the task done on time and were back at Papas in time to dry off."

Great job everyone!

Victoria and I took everyone else off to Agnes Riley Gardens where we met Adrian and helped with a number of tasks:

• Digging and levelling a plot
• Weeding and trimming the vegetable plots
• Trimming long grass from around fruit trees

As we got to work the heavens opened which for a while was cooling refreshment but then we just got a bit wet! In any case spirits were high and we worked hard making a huge difference. You certainly did a good job as Adrian was very keen for us to return!

With a group photo done we then headed back to base, stretched off and then it was time for home. Don’t forget to sign up for next week here, you’ve still got me and we are all going to help at Hillside Gardens and more importantly its Lambeth pub week and we’ll be heading to the Duke of Ed for a bevvy or two!

Thanks for having me and join me again next week,
Pritesh

We kicked off by welcoming our new runners - Rose, Alice, Alistair, Struan and Crissy - Nice to have you along!

And then it was time for the SPOTM with possibly the best(worst) SPOTM ever?! This month's winner was the recipient of:

• a bookmark
• 2 luggage tags
• a couple of sachets of deep heat/freeze
• 2 t-shirts made from recycled cotton and plastic bottles

and the pièce de résistance (donated by the wonderful Katie Welford);

• A SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH OF JOANNA LUMLEY

And the worthy winner, who smashed her 10k target by 7 and a half minutes, and recently did her 50th good deed was Aislin!!! Give her a massive cheer! 👏 👏 👏

Absolutely Fabulous.

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George lead a group on an 11k run, to complete the final stage of an epic task for the Lambeth GP Food Co Op. We started a few weeks ago by emptying soil from some huge planters in Stockwell. Then they got transported to Crown Dale surgery where we moved them into position last week. And then this week it was all about filling them back up with soil.

With encouragement/entertainment from a couple of local lads, the team aced it, getting the job done, smoothing out the soil and headed back in time for a quick stretch.

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The rest of us ran 4k to help Justin at Ruskin Park Community Garden. They've been doing a load of work lately to get the space looking tidy and producing lots of fruit and veg.

We were mostly in the fruit cage, using all manner of tools to de-weed and remove grass. It was pretty cosy so some of the team cut a big chunk of bramble back, which will eventually make room for more vegetable plots.

When all the excess greenery was on the compost heap, we headed back via a quick hills session. Squeezing a couple of hill reps into your run is an awesome way to improve your running form and give your cardiovascular system a boost.

We focussed on - keeping the body straight with your head up, bringing knees up higher than they normally would and using your arms and driving them back and well as forwards.

After a few reps, when everyone was sufficiently worn out, we made the run back with limited enthusiasm for red traffic light squats and lunges...

Top work everyone! 👊

Next week we're helping out at Papa's Park with some weeding and painting. Of course we'll be fitting in some 1k loops, some circuits and we'll even be delivering some posters for Age UK's Food2U project. Sign up here!