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.