A fabulous fourteen covered around 3km of running and took on a great outdoor task at Crofton Park Station Gardens.

How do you spend your birthday morning? Some might have a lie-in, some might go out for a relaxing breakfast, not our Clare, no, she ran Hilly Fields parkrun and came along to our GoodGym Lewisham starter session! Happy birthday Clare, I hope it's been a good one.

Welcome!

It was lovely to welcome four absolute first-timers this morning, Lewisham Love goes to Kathryn, Ryan, Birchlyn and Samantha. We also welcomed a GoodGym tourist, Leanne, who normally runs up with our friends in Tower Hamlets.

I like starter sessions, they mean that we get to do things a little bit differently. We met outside Hilly Fields cafe, some already having run the 5k parkrun beforehand and we also had the chance to visit one of the lovely outdoor tasks that isn't possible in the dark of a Monday evening in January. So many new faces and new names to remember, so we played a quick game that involved paying attention. We also played a version of stuck-in-the-mud that involved squatting, squat-in-the-mud? I like it! During our intro, I mentioned coach running and missions, both of which involve visiting an older person, either for a weekly chat, or to help in their home, with a task that they can't manage themselves.

Can I dig it?

With Nykolette very kindly back-marking, we ran down the hill (weh-hey!) towards Crofton Park. We were met at the garden (you know the one, you can see it as you wait for your train) by Ben, who looks after the space and he quickly showed us our tools, gloves and other equipment and directed us to the various tasks to be tackled. We had a team on weeding and litter-picking, some great digging (or hoeing?) and some heavy-duty spade-wielding, to make way for some slabs and breeze blocks to make stepping stones towards the tool shed. Little pockets of chatter could be heard around the space, with bags quickly filling with leaves and weeds (I think I counted ten at the end) and, of course, we were soon admiring Jacqueline's inevitable treasure find, a tiny lightbulb!

As this was a Big Half starter session, there was, of course, a lot of talk about races and pushing yourself over longer distances. We have 200+ runners taking part in the Big Half, so it's going to be pretty amazing and, in the meantime, I'm in awe of all the long runs I'm seeing on Strava, with some of today's efforts including parkrun along the way! Once we had completed all our jobs at the garden, Ben thanked us and back we ran to Hilly Fields to work on our technique for this epic running challenge.

Hill start

For some reason people didn't seem to believe me when I said I had a little hill lined up for our fitness session. Granted, we did have to run up a big hill to get to it, but I wasn't lying was I? Something we often overlook is how we use our arms when running. It's all too easy when you're tired, or struggling towards the end of a run or race, to lean over, hunch your shoulders and cross your arms over your body. All that energy wasted, energy that could be used to propel you forward! We did a couple of little partner exercises to see how it should feel, then put this to the test by running up our little hill. Once we had the hang of this, we applied everything we had just learned to coming back down the hill. Same movements, still looking up, still driving our arms. Wow! The difference was incredible! Strong work from everyone.

One more uphill jog and we were ready to stretch. We talked a little about our next runs, with Monday evening being our regular session, we also have another starter session in a few weeks, this time complete with waders! Thank you all for making my Saturday morning so enjoyable :)