This evening we ran around 4km to Howard School in South Croydon

Back to some lovely sunny weather and a pleasant run down to south Croydon to Howard School where Dom had found us a great task. We had a large group with lots of new runners this week so there was quite a bit of looping back to keep the group together so thank you to Rachel for leading so well at the front. Once we arrived at the school Dom was waiting for us with paint, brushes and our orders. There were two walls needing painting so we split into 2 groups of 12 and 6 and got to work. On the wall to be painted blue there were signs stuck on with glue so the painters had to have steady hands to paint round - it was amazing how much was done is just over 30 minutes. In another area a wall was painted black by the second group – I’m not too sure how they reached the top but another impressive job was completed safely and tidily. There was also some hula hooping going on in the background led ably by Jamie and accompanied by Jen - see @GGCroydon Twitter for a short video of them.

We have been to Howard School before and were looking forward to one of the playgrounds which had a track, climbing equipment and games painted onto the playground – lots of fun to be had here. They split into 6 teams of 3 and moved round 6 different “events” for two minutes each: track with imaginary hurdles that the runners leapt over gracefully, squats, balance work, suicide sprints, hopscotch (forwards and backwards) and the much loved tricep dips. Just getting ready for the next GoodGym Olympics! On the way out we stopped to have a seat at the Friendship Table where children looking for somebody to play with can sit and find a friend.

We had an amazing five new runners this week so welcome to Melissa, Ritesh, Priscilla, Emma and Sara - it was lovely to see so many new faces and hope to see you all back again soon.

Next Tuesday’s run will be heading towards Wandle Park to promote a sports event being held there in August.

Don’t forget to sign up to run, volunteer or cheer at South Norwood Parkrun on Saturday 15th of July. Remember you need to register with parkrun itself to get your barcode too.