What an action packed evening we had: special guests, a few tourists, extremely large tools AND the world's first competitive plankerpillar. Thanks as always to Oli for the superb punning, including the report title.

After months of cajoling, and in spite of Jacqueline's scare tactics about how far we were going to be running, we were very happy to welcome the Mayor of Lewisham Damien Egan to experience the delights of a group run with GoodGym this evening. A very warm welcome too to Laura who also joined us on her first ever group run this evening, it was great to have you! Not only that, but the one and only Adele tackled one of her longest walks yet to say hello to everyone and cheer us off to Hither Green - it was lovely to see you!

Rolling out the red (army) carpet

Not only that, but we had Matthew visit all the way from Liverpool, Morag and Stevie popped by from Wandsworth, and we welcomed Sarah from Camden.

After a brief warm up of clumping by numbers, we set off to Hither Green station, to crack on with the embankment clearing tasks that had been postponed from last week. With such a large group, we split into two teams on arrival. Team one comprised of our expert weed-bashers amongst the group, who tackled the brambles on one embankment under the tutelage of the Empress of Weed-Bashing no less (by which I mean Vic!).

Our second team took up shears and rakes to deal with the out-of-control meadow that we had previously planted on the other embankment (the weird weather having unfortunately foiled all our good work). Special mention has to go to Iitmari for wielding the largest gardening tool I've ever seen at a GoodGym task, and to Sophie for diligently ensuring everyone else's safety!

After some mayor-jor progress made by both teams, and a wonderfully big group shot under the station sign, we set off back to Glass Mill. Huge thanks to Darryl for his sterling job backmarking, and keeping such a big group together. Unfortunately we had run out of time for a themed time trial (for which I had a pun all planned out - "The Tortoise and the Mayor") so instead we squeezed in a quick world-first round of competitive plankerpillar!

Thanks again to our high-planking official for coming along!

Thanks to everyone for another fantastic Monday evening in Lewisham!