What a wonderful feeling to have 8 GoodGymers show up for our group run last night as the drizzly rain came down as we arrived at Thorlands Community Gardens.

It all started out at Old Spike as 6 out of the 8 GoodGymers met there at 18:45 as Javier Andres (manager of Old Spike) asked if we could all show up later as he needed more time to clean the cafe. Sam had brought along with him, green ribbons to mark World Mental Health Day (which was on Tuesday). Gemma, Maria, Clare, Elena and Daryl all showed up as they were keen to run the 3k from Old Spike to Thorlands.

The warm-up was done in the alleyway as the group had to run the backstreets of Peckham to get to Thorlands plus it's getting darker to have the warm-up on the Green.

After the warm-up, Sam's ice-breaker for tonight was either: Yesterday was World Mental Health Day, what tips do you have to keep a healthy mind? or the second question was: It's World Homeless Week, what are you doing to help the homeless?

Most of us answered that exercise helps with having a healthy mind, there was the odd journaling, swimming in the cold rain and having a solo dance daily. For the second question, most of us don't have any change as we once used to, but from time to time, we buy something in the shops for those begging outside the supermarket. Also, a few of us volunteer for GROAD, which has a rough sleeper project.

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Mind you, it was just a drizzle of saw dust

Off we went through the backstreets of Peckham and running the 2.8k to Thorlands Gardens via Grove Vale Hill. Since there were six of us, we stayed compacted with Sam leading the way and Maria backmarking.

At Thorlands, we met Isaac and Lindy who said they would meet us at the task. Sam went off to find the hidden keys as tonight, Simon couldn't be with us as he had a committee meeting. Yet, once opening Thorlands' Walled Garden we found that Simon had prepared the trolley and wheelbarrow with tools that we needed, so we could go straight into our task in the Forest Garden.

Originally, we had 15 GoodGymers signed up, so Sam would have split the team in 3 and concentrate on 3 tasks. However, only half the numbers came, so one task had to be deducted. Sam decided to concentrate on getting the edging of the new(-ish) garden bed in the Forest garden done as well as getting more woodchip from the woodchip depo. Daryl, Clare and Gemma took on this second task as they managed to bring over 10 barrows (5 trips) worth of woodchip over to the Forest Garden.

Meanwhile, Elena, Lindy and Maria got started with digging the trench for the edging, but found it quite rocky, so we had to get the mattock to cut through the rocky soil. During this time, Isaac saw the logs that were transported over on Saturday to ensure they could fit into the trenches. Once the trench had been dug and the log sawed, we started to fit them in and put soil/woodchip mulch around the logs to ensure they weren't loose and fixed in place.

We called time at 20:00 as we still had to put back the tools in the Walled Garden and Sam had to drop off the keys before we ran back to Old Spike!

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out tonight! You took the risk of knowing it was going to rain and embrace that GoodGym happens in all-weathers (unless stated). The uphill run is always tough, but the more we do it, the better we will get at running uphills. Thank you for getting stuck in with the task at Thorlands as landscaping in the dim light is harder than during the daytime, but we did a brilliant job given the time we had.

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Thank You to Simon

GoodGym is all about getting fit and doing good! We praise the runners/cyclists/walkers who come to get fit and help out, but we often forget about our task owner. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Simon as although, he wasn't there in person, he had prepared the trolley and wheelbarrow with tools and hid the keys for us to find. We're back on Saturday and again, in the middle of November for our next group run.