Today we ran between 3 and 4 km to the Park Hill Rec to plant geraniums for the Friends of Park Hill

Josi, who we met on our last visit, remembered how excited we got about planting so had managed to source around 500 geraniums from the Royal Horticultural Society re-use scheme and we managed to plant and deadhead over 120 of them in two plots in the Walled Gardens. We were also able to admire “our plants” from the previous visit.

After working hard for around 40 minutes we cleared up and had a 5 minute discussion on the plans to have cycle paths in some of the parks in Croydon which resulted in some healthy debate. Here is the link to the consultation plans for anybody who wants to know more.

Fun fitness time followed with a mix of speed and upper body work. Working in pairs we followed a circuit style workout which included sprints, skipping, triceps dips, planks etc and two which were universally despised: bear crawls and crab walks. Just remember that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!

After we’d completed some upper body stretches we headed back to base but had to take a slight detour as the park gates were locked an hour before we expected. We hummed and hawed about climbing the fence but in the end it wasn’t worth the risk of being impaled so we found another exit and still made it back in good time.

We also had two new members today Tash and Beverley - so a big welcome to them and hope to see you both in your red t-shirts very soon. Jennifer is taking part in a team 24 hour race at the weekend so we wish you luck and hope to see you on Tuesday if you’ve recovered.

Next week we’ll be heading back down to the Salvation Army for some more gardening and off to Wandle Park for our fitness session. Here’s the link to join up.

Finally, don’t forget our first social this week at the Oval Tavern on Friday 12th of August at 7pm. Dom has booked the table and it’s under his name. Hope to see you there.