While some Croydon runners take part in the Lloyd Park parkrun regularly, there was a good turnout this week; a couple of regulars, someone new to GoodGym and parkrun, a couple of PBs and a double 50th celebration for one runner!

Lloyd Parkrun regulars Jordi and Matthew both ran amazingly. Rachel made her 50th parkrun (ahead of her 50th good deed a couple of hours later!) and got a new PB. Andy joined us for a first parkrun (after his first group run with us on Tuesday), and was absolutely brilliant. We were also joined by Stephanie, who also joined us for a group run for the first time on Tuesday, who did a sterling job! Also along today after a starter session last week, was Samantha. We look forward to seeing you guys at our Tuesday group runs, where we can put some work into getting even better times next time!

Juliet and I weren't racing today; Juliet was at the start/finish point as she's writing the parkrun report for the week, and due to a bit of recent overexertion I decided to try marshalling for the first time. I would like to think I channelled the Race Team's penchant for super enthusiastic cheering; given that I was at the top of Lloyd Park's notorious hill, I hope it worked!

After the race, a few of us popped for some coffee and brunch before heading off. With 4 of us heading to a fantastic mission a couple of hours later, and a Croydon GoodGym Olympics flag session, it was a brilliant, exhausting, and productive day!

This afternoon we helped prepare an area for bee friendly plants

This Bank Holiday afternoon we met at Heathfield House and Gardens to help our buzzy busy friends. Bees are under threat globally and today we were doing our bit locally by helping weed and dig over a large flowerbed so bee friendly plants could be grown there later in the year by the Heathfield Ecology Centre. It was a hot and humid day but we got down to business and weeded, pulled and cleared the weeds up – hopefully no plants were collateral damage! While we were working an outdoor play was being set up as part of the Open Day all about the lives of insects – it was a bit drzzly by the time it started but as it was a Bank Holiday and we all know they usually mean rain then most of the audience had umbrellas with them!

After we’d finished we had a short but scenic run through the local woods – a bit of a change from the pavements we normally pound on Tuesdays evenings. We even had a bit of excitement when I misdirected Helena and we ended up in a stable yard with a dog bounding towards us – apparently he had no teeth so we would have been safe enough!

The Starter sessions are to introduce new runners to GoodGym and give them a chance to see what we do and also to tell them about Coach run and Missions. So we were happy to welcome Sam and Alex to the GoodGym crew where they were able to chat to the regular runners – it was great to meet you all and hope to see you again soon. Welcome also to Helena who’d popped in on her trip home from Brighton and to Paul all the way from Bristol.

This Tuesday’s run we will be helping a local community group, East Croydon Community Organisation clear some unruly ivy and some other stubborn weeds to help them with their longer term plans to improve the local environment by replanting the overgrown beds