It was hot, it was sticky, it was sultry, but still seventeen runner volunteers ran through Lewisham to work hard over at the Wildcat Wilderness, covering 7km and ticking off a number of helpful tasks.

We weren't surprised this week, to find that some of our runners had chosen shade over speed, with temperatures hitting thirty degrees, so even more hearty well dones to those who turned up to run! We were even treated to visitors and newcomers, Lewisham Love to Sian and Julia, who joined us on their first ever GoodGym group run - we hope you enjoyed our slightly sweaty company ;) I got a little confused in my briefing, bundling Vickie and Paul together as GoodGym Bristol, but only Paul had ventured all the way from the South West, with Vickie crossing the borough border from our neighbouring Greenwich, lovely to see you both! If you see a name highlighted in red, you can click through and give them a cheer, we all love a cheer (and check out how many good deeds Paul has done...wowsers!).

To warm up, yes, warm up, as if we weren't already hot enough, we played a quick game of 'Duck, duck, goose'. It seems simple enough, children play it for goodness sake, but we managed to make it slightly chaotic. No one got hurt though, so that's alright. We always enjoy our visits to the Wildcat Wilderness, so try to head off promptly and make the most of our limited time there. Our run took us over to Ladywell and through Ladywell Fields, which were particularly lovely on this sunny evening, the river looking ever so tempting as a mid-run cool down. Thank you to our party-at-the-back, Helen, Stephen and Caireen, who were back-markers, making sure nobody was left behind (or left out). When people come for the first time, they sometimes imagine we run off hard, with serious faces, but hopefully this image is dashed as soon as we set off at a chatty pace, the noise levels increasing as we go :)

We were soon greeted by Maria, who quickly delegated the various tasks, with some favouring wheel-barrowing, some preferring to slash weeds to create paths and some very eager to pick litter (just look at that photo, me! me! me!). We also had a bit of technical work going on this week, with Paul and Caireen working together to build some raised beds - Maria is very pleased to have all these lovely railway sleepers, cut and ready to assemble and soon to be filled with soil and plants. Whenever we visit, there is something new to see, a new path, new planting, beehives and, this time, new signs.

In the half hour we were at the wilderness, paths were cleared and widened, sacks of litter were collected (lots of broken glass appears over time), nettles and brambles were slashed, raised beds were fixed, wood was sawn into bench legs and sacks and sacks of soil were ferried between the road and the garden - team barrow definitely lucked out on the upper body workout this week! Time to say goodbye (until next time) and to pick up the pace back to Glass Mill. We decided to be bold and see if we could run through the new flats that have now been occupied on the site of the old Catford Dog Track (with chat about how they missed a trick, not naming the roads with a doggy theme...and where IS the wonderful old sign?). Yes, we could get through and we were treated to a nice grassy run towards the curly/spirally footbridge and home.

No time for a fitness session this week, but gee, that hot run was challenging enough! As we stretched, we made plans for this Friday's race in Greenwich Park - thank you Caireen for pointing out that there is also a beer festival that evening, result! As far as we know, there are still places in the 5 and 10k races, so please do join us. If you don't fancy racing, but still want to come, join me and some others in cheering our runners up the hill and for a little social afterwards.

Next week we will be off to a new task at SHP, just a short run from our start point - if you're not sure about the longer runs, then this one's for you and tell any friends who are keen to try out a GoodGym group run, it's a perfect intro to what we do on a Monday. If you like the look of what we got up to this week, we will return to the Wildcat Wilderness at the beginning of August, sign up here and look forward to something really special.