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!