Tonight 15 runners ran around 3 km to paint, water and socialise!

After a rainy respite at the weekend it was back to some sunny weather and a beautiful evening. 14 runners turned up at Solutions Gym tonight (and Matthew met us in the park). Tonight was my last run as Croydon Trainer and Conroy came along again to meet more of the lovely runners he will be leading from August onwards. I will be coming along to the runs though but you won’t be subjected to my pleas for puns and have to put up with some of the dreadful ones I’ve resorted to in desperation. We also welcomed two new runners tonight, Amanda and Linsday - hope you both enjoyed yourselves and see you back again soon.

Dom led the warm-up and the speedier runners up to Park Hill Rec while I backmarked and chatted at a slightly more relaxed pace. Once we got to the walled garden Josi and Catherine explained the tasks to be done. 10 runners opted for painting the mural in the shelter and the rest headed into the walled garden to water the Peace Garden, weed and root out the bindweed and Conroy climbed a tree to hang an ornament! I did have a fantastic fitness session in mind which involved hills and burpees but oddly enough the lure of painting and tea and biscuits meant we didn’t have enough time!

With it being the last Tuesday of the month it was of course our monthly social so we headed down to Matthews Yard for beer and burgers – although not everybody got a burger sadly as they closed the kitchen before we all ordered. Next time we will phone our orders before we head off. It was lovely to see Heather, Chris and Amatare at the social too and look forward to running with them again soon.

It's been a joy to be the GoodGym Trainer since it started in Croydon and I've met some wonderful runners, volunteers and other amazing people who are passionate about helping make their community a better place for us all and I'm looking forward to continuing running with you all and supporting Conroy in his new role.

South Norwood Parkrun are also looking for as many GoodGym volunteers as possible on Saturday 11th of August to help Julie, the Run Director, and Andy, her husband of 1 day, and the core team celebrate their wedding and 200th and 250th parkruns that morning. So if you can please sign up to their volunteer roster and help Julie and Andy celebrate in style.

Next week’s run will be off to a scout hut in south Croydon so better get practicing your dib dib dibbing and dob dob dobbing!

We ran 5km to dig, move earth, water and plant in Addiscombe Railway Park

A perfect night for running and doing good in Croydon and what a lovely bunch of people to spend the evening with. 15 of us headed of to Addiscombe Railway Park to help with a number of tasks in their community garden. After a warm-up near the Job Centre Amatare took the lead and led the group to the park with a few loop backs to keep the runners at the back - mainly me - together.

Once we arrived Richard and his team explained the tasks that needed doing. There were newly planted fruit trees to water and hopefully we managed to save one of the small sapling that was on it's last legs. Over in a corner of the garden some of the runners got straight down to planting and weeding and sitting on the bench as you'll see from the photos! During our last visit last month the runners had dug out a pond which has now been filled with water and plants and we were lucky enough to spot tadpoles and some tiny frogs too. The third task of the evening involved some serious earth moving to help create a wider path around the pond and to build up the sides so the slope wasn't as steep. The gents in the group really fancied this manly task so grabbed the equipment and got busy digging, shifting and reshaping the pond area. Us ladies were allowed to help at the end by stamping down the soil!

On the way back we headed to a quiet(ish) street where we split into tow teams for a relay race and some exercises to keep the waiting runners busy. The level of competitiveness was impressive and hopefully those signed up to the GoodGym Olympics will retain that spirit and get stuck in on the 30th of June. Those who don;t want to compete can still come along and cheer loudly and eat cake.

We had 3 lovely new runners tonight Ben, Hope and Sovia - it was lovely to have you there and hope to see you back soon.

Stretches were led by Andy today followed by a chat about upcoming events and all the runners all took some leaflets to post locally about the week long Festival of Peace starting this Saturday in Wandle Park and finishing on Saturday the 23rd in Park Hill Rec. There will be a yogathon at 11am so I'm hoping some of us can join in - t-shirt on of course!

GoodGym Olympics on the 30th of June– it was a great day last year so sign up and do Croydon proud

Peace Garden planting – Josi has kindly agreed to pick up some red and white flowers for our part of the Peace Garden so we will either be planting them (in a GoodGym logo) next Tuesday or at the weekend. If it's not on Tuesday I'll email and ask for some help.

Finally…. Next week we are off to Park Hill Rec & Park Hill school for a variety of tasks - so drag out your friends and family as we need numbers for this double task next week.