On our first properly cold night of the season, a hardy 26 souls stomped their way around Lewisham, trotting out 5km and sorting through donated clothing and shoes at GRACE.

Thank you to Jacqueline for this week's delightful title pun, surely another contender for the International Pun of the Month?

This week saw us welcome one first-timer and one visitor from a faraway place. Lewisham Love goes to Ben, joining us for his first ever group run (he's seen us at parkrun) and to Simon, who likes to tour around different areas, sharing his energy across borders.

Marathon Man

We were all very pleased to welcome back our own wanderer, Stephen, who proudly wore his Dublin Marathon medal and top, having taken a whole 21 minutes off his previous marathon time last weekend! We were also celebrating a first coach run - well done Nykolette and a first mission - well done Helen! As I pointed out, these two have been a part of our lives here for ages now, so it's never too late to try another element of what we do!

After we had shared our names, we had a moment of real beauty in our warm-up, I was quite speechless at just how lovely it was. A little game, to see how well we can work together and how well we can communicate proved that yes, our little SE13 family is on the same wavelength, moving silently together, using all of our senses to adjust our speed and negotiate a space. Ah. Feeling that little bit more together, we ran pretty much the same route as last week, although this time the traffic lights were in our favour (seriously, everything seemed to be in sync tonight!).

Full of GRACE

On arrival at GRACE, we were met by Claire and her team of helpers, all ready to guide us through a mega sorting session. They have clearly been very hard at work since our last visit, with the shop space being transformed and what is now a fully functioning retail area looking stylish, with tall shelving and clothing racks, heaving with quality items. Here, a team gathered clothing to be put onto hangers, labelled with a fancy and quite complicated-looking pricing gun (well done James!) and put into the correct section of the shop.

In another area, we had bags of blankets being passed along and sorted, sacks of shoes were being paired (or not!) and put into the correct size order and, upstairs, we had a team moving bigger items, such as buggies and playpens, making the baby room ready for another group that also uses the space. As always, the noise levels were high, with lots of chatter and laughter echoing around the place. An occasional shout of 'Ten (five...four...three...) minutes to go!' kept everyone on their toes and we were very quickly grabbing the last few shoes or dresses and making sure we achieved everything we could in the time we had.

See that group photo? Now that was cosy!

Our run back culminated in a few quick planks (yes, I know it's no longer #planktober, but we can't neglect our middles just because it's November, can we?!). There's a lot happening in our little world right now, so plenty to talk about as we stretched. Next week's task is still being confirmed (living on the edge, I tell you!), but sign up anyway (and join me on that edge)! This Thursday is the monthly GoodGym Social, just at the other end of the DLR line, in Stratford - you can 'be the driver' on the way! Find out all about it and sign up here. We have now finalised the details of our own Christmas Social, so why not join us for a non-running get-together, where you get to wear your nice clothes?

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