22 fantastic runners ran 3km to fix punctures in airbeds at St Marks Church!

Another beautiful evening down in Greenwich last night! We had one new runner who joined us, welcome Adelaide to our wonderful running posse! It was also cause for celebration for the second week running. This time it was the marvelous Pieter who was celebrating his 50th good deed! Pieter has been running with us for less than a year and has already clocked up 50 good deeds which is truly amazing. He does group runs and missions week in week out, proving that once again consistency is most certainly key! It's been awesome having you in this group Pieter, keep up the fantastic work and here's to the next 50!

Due to an event happening in the university, we couldn't use our usual warm up spot so we settled with a light jog and headed straight to the church via the park. We were greeted by the lovely Tony who took us into the room full of airbeds! It was rather warm in the church and there was the option of some gardening outside to be done which I think was music to a few people's ears!

For everyone else, it was time to take mattresses into our own hands (see what I did there???)... we paired up, grabbed an airbed, plugged it in and started feeling around for little puffs of air. Then it was just a case of sanding it down to create a rough surface and sticking a bike tube patch over it!

There were lots of different techniques being adopted. It was far too loud in the room to listen for the punctures but the best method seemed to be to just rub the bed all over until the puncture was located!

I was genuinely quite surprised at how quickly it was all being done if I'm totally honest! Some groups were getting through them in no time at all! Sadly we didn't have time to do them all but we managed to get through about 25 of them which is AMAZING!!

About the night shelter

During the winter there is a night shelter for the homeless which is open every evening at different locations around the borough and on Thursday nights it is held at St Marks. All the beds that were in that room had been taken from all the different locations so it wasn't just St Marks you were helping, it was the other 6 locations too so that will be hugely appreciated! Over the next few days they will be redistributed and ready to be slept on next winter! NICE WORK!!!

We took a little photo outside and then headed off for a mini running lesson in the park!

Foot strike

We often don't really think about the way we run, we just run! Which is great but as we run more and build up more miles which I know a lot of you are, it is really important to be doing it in the safest and most efficient way possible. One of the easiest way to make improvements is by focusing some attention on how your foot lands on the ground. We want to be aiming for a mid-foot or FULL FOOT strike on the ground to maximise the amount of nerve endings stimulated on the foot to gain as much feedback from the ground beneath us. If we run on our toes for example and the ground is a bit rough underfoot, there is limited stability there which can very easily lead to all sorts of lower leg injuries. There is a video here with Shane Benzie who is a movement specialist and he explains it all in a far more articulate way than I did yesterday! So give that a watch if you're interested.

I am becoming a bit of a foot nerd recently so don't be surprised if there is more of this kind of stuff heading your way! But it is all for your own good of course!

Everyone had a go at running with this new knowledge in mind and I could see improvements straight away, especially with those of you who I know usually run right up on your toes.. and I'm one of them too so I appreciate how difficult it is to alter your gait just like that! But well done for giving it a go and bear it in mind for your future runs!

We jogged back to the uni, had a little stretch followed by some chocolatey Greenwich Goodies to celebrate Pieter's big milestone!

Great work last night everyone! Tony was absolutely delighted by all the work you did! Next week we have a new task over at Natalie's school! Hope you can join us!