With train strikes on, Sam left work slightly early to ensure he could welcome in everyone. Newbie, Jitka, arrived before anyone else and had a chat about GoodGym with Sam. Steadily, Nathan and Maria arrived as Jitka clocked that we were going to run 3k tonight. Since she's a hiker, it was decided that she would need to leave slightly earlier than us to make it to Thorlands in time. Sam gave her the directions and off she went as Isaac, Daryl and Gemma just came in at 18:45 on the dot!

After Sam's quick speech, they agreed as a team to skip the warm up as a few people had run over and were still "warm".

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Radio silence

Off we went through the backstreets of Peckham as Sam lead the way for the beginning part before we went off the team took lead and Sam dropped back to run with Maria. We ran up Grove Hill and down towards Denmark Hill station and King's. Thorlands Gardens is tucked away at the back on Denmark Road.

Surprisingly, newbie Jitka with a seven to ten minute ahead start made it to Thorlands first and she met Andy, Lindy, Mikhail and Sander there. Unfortunately, there was no Simon. Sam thought he might be late (though, he is usually not as he likes to prepare the tools), so he proceeded to ask the ice-breaker question:

What is the best Christmas market you have been to? or What is your Christmas tipple of choice?

There was two votes for Edinburgh for the Christmas market, but we got mentions from Manchester and Winchester in the UK whereas Brussels, Munich, Prague and Tallinn got a mention in for Europe. For a Christmas tipple, people love bubbly, but also beer, Baileys, (not a) hot toddy and whatever is going/on the table at 10AM...

By the time we made the rounds and Sam calling Simon multiple times plus leaving a few messages, he decided to call it as it was getting cold for those who had run over. Yet, not before the one and only group photo from the night. Job done for Mikhail!

It was a shame not to have the activity as we had prepared everything on Saturday to get stuck in for tonight, but these things happen. Those who met the team at Thorlands filtered off whilst those who ran from Old Spike ran back arriving before 20:00 to hit the pub.

Note: Simon messaged back to say a massive sorry as he had overslept after not feeling great earlier in the day.

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out tonight! It didn't go to plan, but there's always a first for everything and Simon does send his apologies! We still got in a 6k run in and managed to catch up on our week and find out all about our favourite Christmas markets.