Due to the World Cup semi-final match and Wimbledon tennis last night, only 7 runners turned up for the night's task to help Unique Roots at their Mayfield Road Allotment site. We set off as one large group immediately after the task briefing and customary photo shoot for Mayfield Road, a distance of over 3.5km.

On arrival at the site we were met by Pam of Unique Roots and her lovely daughter who let us through the locked allotment gates. Our task for the night was to weed the beds of unwanted plants, plant some pepper and bedding plants. We were provided tools after which the group set to work. The tasks were completed within forty minutes to the satisfaction of Pam and the group helped water the newly planted plants as well as the raised beds before saying goodbye.

We ran back again as one large group looping back regularly to pick up those at the back and ensure no one was left behind. We arrived safely at our Solution Fitness base where we did our warm downs sessions.

Next week we are back at Addiscombe Railway Park. We will be helping the Friends of Addiscombe Railway Park with some gardening tasks and also see how the work we did in June has helped them in their Community Garden.

We ran over 7km to fill a raised bed and plant bulbs for a community garden in Thornton Heath

A bit drizzly tonight but not enough to put off 8 brave runners meeting up and heading off on one of our longer runs towards Thornton Heath to help Pamela from Unique Roots in the Mayfield allotments. Off we headed in two groups with Amatare leading the advance party while I brought up the rear with my chattier group. Even at 7pm the streets were full of shoppers and commuters returning home so the beginning of the run was a bit stop start as we dodged and weaved around everybody.

There was a little confusion once we arrived at the venue as we couldn’t find Pamela but after a quick call we spotted her and she led us to our final destination – we definitely couldn’t have found it on our own. The path to the allotment was very muddy and to start we tried to walk on the drier bits of the path but I think we all gave up quite soon and accepted the inevitable muddy trainers.

Once we arrived at the allotment Pamela explained more about its purpose and how she is trying to bring gardening and growing to parts of the community who have never had the opportunity or space to garden. The allotments are owned and managed by Croydon Council and they very kindly fenced off her allotment to keep it more secure and safer for the school children who will be visiting and they also helped with the material for the raised beds. Pamela has big plans and knowing how determined she is I think she will achieve them.

So the task was to fill the largest raised bed with soil dug from another part of the allotment so we donned our gardening gloves and dug, moved and levelled what seemed like many tonnes of soil and then planted some bulbs – I forgot to ask what they were but we will find out when we return in a couple of months.

When it was time to head back Pamela took us by another route through bushes, along a well hidden path and finally out by Gonville School where we said our goodbyes and headed back shaking the mud off our trainers as we went. All in all a very satisfying tasks and enough calories burned to justify the consumption of pancakes later in the evening!

Next Tuesday evening’s run will see us heading to White Horse Road Park for a turf war with prizes for the team who dig the most turf.

This evening we ran over 5km to put right the litter and mess in the park

A (relatively) mild evening tonight – a relief after the snow for Sunday’s Starter session! 12 runners met up at Solution Health and Fitness and after the briefing and group photo kindly taken by a gym user, who has said she may come next week, we headed off for our warm-up and then onto Lloyd Park.

The group split into two after the warm-up with Amatare leading the speedier runners while I had a lovely time chatting with the rest. Once we arrived at the Parklife Café in Lloyd Park we chatted to Claire about the task which was a fairly straight forward litter pick in the car park, around the pavilion and the tram stop. Three intrepid runners even headed across the very dark park to the Children’s playground to see what they could find there. The find of the evening was near a recycling bin where a full set of Christmas lights had been dumped.

After we’d finished Claire and her daughter treated us to tea, coffee and the most fantastic homemade cakes – I know where the best Banoffee pie can be found now! I think we got slightly too comfortable in the café because all of a sudden it was after 8.15pm and we had 2.5km to run back fuelled/weighed down by cake. We made it back slightly later than normal but as it was due to cake nobody complained!

Special mention to Tim tonight who headed off with Amatare’s group although he was a little worried about how he would cope but he definitely did himself proud – well done.

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 Birdhurst Community Gardens where we will be helping prepare the ground for railway sleepers to be laid.

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!