An uncannily appropriate seventeen skipped through Lewisham on our first group run of 2017, encouraging sad-looking shrubs out of the ground, teasing bulbs into soil, running around 3-4kms and driving hard and fast up a hill, all with big smiles and a constant hum of chatter. What a way to see in our good-doing, fitness-finding year!

With the temperature dipping frostily further and our start point closing early for the bank holiday, we hopped on the spot outside the entrance to Glass Mill, trying to keep warm while everyone gathered around. Tonight we were delighted to welcome not one, not two but SEVEN new faces! How exciting! Very big GoodGym Lewisham welcomes to Joan, Danielle, Joanna, Amber, Lizzie, Steve and Penny, we hope you enjoyed how we do things here in SE13 and look forward to seeing you again soon.

This week's task was a slight change from what we had planned (check out the task that has now moved to January 30th, sign up, it'll be ace!), with our job for the evening being to sort out the flower beds around the entrance to our start point. We see these every week as we head out for our warm-up and often comment on how sad the brown 'evergreens' look. How great to have the opportunity to do something about these fading yews! Thanks to Anne-Marie from Lewisham Gardens and local Labour Councillor, Stella Jeffrey, for arranging this task and for turning up with trowels, forks, hundreds of bulbs and some sweet treats (I found these on our return, so will bring them along next week to share!).

Our usual format of warming up then running to the task was shifted slightly tonight, with a quick game to help us get to know each other's names, then straight to business. Anne-Marie introduced the task, explaining the right way to place a bulb in the ground (having once planted hundreds of bulbs upside-down myself, I appreciated this detail. Ahem) and everyone found a spot to work on and started tugging at the dead bushes. It was an instant transformation, with the lovely trees suddenly standing out and the space feeling open and fresh. Shrubs were moved to the side, ready to be collected and composted and piles of bulbs were scooped up and pushed into the soft soil. This all happened very quickly and allowed us time to shift to the front of the building and focus on a bed next to the bus stop.

There are a few of these areas, with a bench and flower bed, with the ones further along looking lush and full of shrubs and grasses. Sadly, some of the people standing at this bus stop occasionally choose to stand on the flower bed and the plants suffer. We hope those people who looked on from the bus stop and the passing buses (we had a few friendly waves!), might keep an eye on the shoots as they emerge and give them a chance to blossom. A couple walked by as everyone worked, pausing and taking photos. In Italian, they managed to communicate that they were visiting their son and loved what we were doing, before waving a friendly 'ciao'! It's fun taking a task to a very public spot, giving passers-by something to think about on their journey home.

The box of bulbs emptied and the flower bed was full, time to say goodbye to Anne-Marie and Stella, until next time. We gathered now on the grass and played a quick game of shin-tag to warm back up, followed by some drills to gear our bodies up to run. A chatty pace to Ladywell Fields, where the talk subsided as a hill was tackled. Here we looked hard at how we were using our arms - that backward drive lifts our knees, encouraging good form, especially on the ascent. Each time we reminded ourselves to stay high in our hips, to keep our heads lifted, to reduce the time our feet were on the ground...light steps. On every repeat I could see an improvement, until everyone was out of breath and steaming in the low light.

Awesome work!

After one last repeat, which continued up and over, with a lap to recover or push hard, we gathered to return to our start point to stretch out, catch up on next week's task and some news about starter sessions and also our anniversary run, which will be on January 16th. This was a brilliant start to 2017, such enthusiasm on a cold, dark night! Have a great running week and I hope to see some of you at Hilly Fields parkrun this Saturday for the GoodGym pacer and volunteer day.