This evening we ran around 4km to dig turf, weed, plant and litter pick in a local park

After promising an indoor task this week I had to break the bad news the evening before that the warm indoor task was cancelled and replaced by an outdoor task. The Croydon bunch are hardy runners though as we still had 22 amazing runners turn up for some running and hard physical labour

So after the group photo we headed off to White Horse Park via Tescos for our warm-up. Tonight the speedier runners were led by Ellie and Andy who did a fantastic job with their looping too and we all arrived safely. Charles was our task master for the evening and he explained the tasks we could help him with. The Friends of White Horse Park are planting round the sides of a large circular raised bed so he demonstrated how to dig the turf out neatly round the edges – he did make it look very simple – turns out it’s quite tricky! Others did some weeding and planting and the reset went rubbish hunting around the garden area. When we arrived it actually looked really clean but then we found the “beer can bush” - only 5 feet from a bin but an entire rubbish sack was filled!

By the time we finished it was bitterly cold so we headed off for a warm-up slow jog then to a quiet street where we practiced the art of accelerating -always useful for that last minute sprint to outpace your friends! There were some impressive increases in pace especially once the arms started driving back with real power. On the way back Ellie and Andy’s group headed off for a slightly longer run so we all managed to finish around the same time and cool-down as a group.

While we were stretching they were reminded of an extra session this Sunday – meet at Heathfield Gardens at 10.45am to help build a garden for the bees. We will do the task first and then go for a run in the woods if it’s not too muddy or locally if it is. It’s a great chance to do a deed in the daylight and also to bring along a friend or family member who might be worried about the whole running thing but would like to give GoodGym a try.

Don’t forget to log your runs during the week so we can stay at the top as all your runs count towards our total. If you set it up yet then go onto your account, go to profile, settings and finally Strava/Runkeeper and follow the instructions there.

Next Tuesday evening’s run will see us heading to Lloyd Park

This evening we ran around 5km to move coffee grounds from a mushroom farm to a community garden

25 runners tonight!!! Fantastic to see some of the new runners from last week back as well six new runners so a big GoodGym Croydon welcome to Helen, Sarah, Tim, Claire, Iljeet and Kerry - look forward to seeing you all again soon.

We started with our customary group photo – needing to huddle together nowadays as my camera doesn’t have a wide enough lens to take in the whole group. Then off we headed for a warm-up in the nearby car park where we had to dodge a surprising number of workers heading home just as we got started – no collisions luckily. We headed in one large group, ably led by Ellie, Amatare and Andy and back marked by Sally and Rob down towards Reeves Corner to the Reuse Centre where mushrooms are grown and furniture made from pallets. Andrew met us at the corner and explained a little bit about what goes on in this well-hidden plot and then got us to work loading up the van with many many bags of coffee grounds which were heading to Wandle Park Community Garden to help fertilise the earth there. So with 25 runners in a chain(gang) formation we made very light work of moving the coffee and as soon as we’d finished we headed down to the park to help unload. Slight glitch with the key to the park gate not working and with discretion being the better part of valour we decided not to try and climb the fence so carefully threw the bags over for Andrew to sort in the morning.

Lots of time for a fun fitness session in the relative dry of the underpass. Amarate kept the group warm and moving while a few of us laid out the circuit – hopscotch, squats, hill sprints, lunges, chest presses and many more “fun” activities were done for 2 minutes each. We worked on strength, balance, speed, coordination and having fun which they were all very good at.

With burning muscles we finally headed back to Solutions gym for our stretches and a chat about next week’s task and also the GoodGym January Challenge – hope we are still leading at the end of this week. Don’t forget to log your runs during the week so we can stay at the top as all your runs count towards our total.

I just had a quick flick back through some old run reports and apart from our very first run tonight was the largest run ever – Well done everybody.

Our next run is on Tuesday 16th of January - an indoor task!

This evening we ran around 3km to help clear up the litter from last year

At the weekend I was beginning to doubt the wisdom of a run on the 2nd of January especially as only 6 runners had signed up however………… the amazing GoodGym Croydon runners did not let the side down and on the night we had 17 intrepid runners turn up even although rain was forecast – well done everybody!

Off we headed for a warm-up in the nearby carpark and then headed less than 1km to the beginning of our task. Litter picks and bags in hand we split into 4 groups and started to clear the litter from the raised beds along Addiscombe Road where quite a few commuters returning home asked us what we were doing and thanked us too – think they may have been glad they were heading home to a warm house though as none offered to help!

With such a large and efficient group the task was finished early so we headed up to Parkhill where I’d planned a hill training session however with so much extra unexpected time on our hands there was time for a loop of the school (750m) even before the hill sprints. The aim of the loop was to finish as strongly as they started and not to collapse out of breath by the first corner. Everybody seemed to manage really well and still had enough energy for 3 hill sprints. We concentrated on form over speed and in particular using the arms to drive up the hill. There was even some imaginary Pringle action but that did seem to put some runners off – maybe they were hungry. Just as we were coming to the end of the fitness session the rain came down and we headed back to base where we lined the entrance hall and did our stretches inside for a change.

There were 6 new runners to GoodGym Croydon today so welcome to Tracey, Kate C, Reena, Ingrid, Kate P and Erin and we hope to see you back soon.

GoodGym has gone a bit “Facebook” and if you login and look at your profiles you wil see Your GoodGym year in review and see all the runs, good deeds and cheers you had over the last 12 months. Speaking of Facebook when I went on our open page GoodGym Croydon Runners there was a Your year in review post which is worth watching.

Our next run is on Tuesday 9th of January - the full details will be posted soon but it does involve coffee grinds, a van and muscle power!