As Storm Eleanor whipped around us, eleven intrepid adventurers ran to Living Well and sorted through a mountain of donated food.

That's right, our first run of 2018 was into the eye of the storm. Clare kindly gave us a weather report as we gathered in the garden of the Bridge House, 'Rain and, at 7pm, dangerous winds'. This meteorological maelstrom didn't put off three new runners though, so a very big and warm welcome to Anna, Emily and Harriet!

A big thank you to Emma for this week's title pun, I'm sure you'll agree it's a cracker to open 2018 on!

We were keen to get going, so I quickly mentioned our starter session this coming Saturday. A chance for regulars to enjoy a daylight task at a more relaxed time of day and also for those who are not sure what it's all about to have a taste of all things GoodGym. We will be meeting by the information centre in Crystal Palace Park at 10.30am, so you could even run parkrun beforehand if you want to! I also talked about the GoodGym-wide attempt to reach 5,000 good deeds this January and to smash 50,000km. Do you think we can? Make sure you have linked Strava to your GoodGym profile to make all your runs count.

To the task!

A quick warm-up and we were off! Everywhere felt very quiet, the Christmas lights were still twinkling, but the odd abandoned Christmas tree could be seen here and there. Quite soon we rounded the corner and ran the last few hundred meters to our task at Holy Trinity Church. We were met by Rowena and Jane, who showed us the long tables, which had been laid out to take the strain of the numerous bags and boxes to come. Heading back out into the wind, we saw just how full the container was, with a recent influx of donations. On our last visit, we had a few more runners, so found a human chain to be the most useful way of transporting the items between container and table. We tried this, but it didn't seem to work this time, with people deciding a grab-and-run technique might be what was needed. A few rounds of this and it was evident that the human chain is most definitely the way to go.

It's amazing how quickly the table fills up, with shouts of 'The table's full!' being heard before long, this was met with a return call of 'Sort!' And sort we did! It was a treat to come in from the cold and match items to their corresponding crate and, every-so-often, an item didn't fit any category, so joined the 'odds and sods' at the end of the row. Time flew by and so did the bags, with the first table now empty and the crates all full.

The task bore fruit!

As a post-task treat, we were all given a lovely big orange to restore our Vitamin C levels and help us fight the cold, we held these aloft and gathered for our group photo, proudly admiring our handiwork. Well done everyone! Rowena and Jane told us about the many people they had helped over the Christmas period and we heard about some of the challenges faced by the volunteers here. If you are keen to donate items of food, it might be good to get in touch to see what's most needed, there can be a shortage of certain items, with coffee, long-life milk and toilet roll being some of the items that often get overlooked.

Stepping outside, we saw that the storm was brewing, with the wind whipping up and the rain coming down. We had enough time for a very quick fitness session, but I decided my planned game with cones (or Game of Cones?) wasn't going to work tonight! We warmed up with a game of 'everyone's it', some 'shoulder' tag and then a vortex game, where random people were called in to do jumping jacks, squats and so on. Using the handy church wall, we did some quick New Year push-ups and tricep dips, with a wall-sit as a treat to finish off. Such strong women, all of you!

Well done everyone on pushing up the last hill towards home, for stretching in the rain and for not mocking me as I had to walk due to a coughing fit. I hope to be fighting fit next week, when we will be heading out again, same time, same place, to do more of the good stuff.