A super seven ran around 5km through the streets (and trails) of Penge to help attack some weeds at Cator Park.

It was a relaxed start to the evening, with a sit and a catch up on the benches in the garden, enjoying the home-grown strawberries that Tim (in his black 50 t-shirt, very nice!) had brought along to share. Our start point (a pub) doesn't make it easy to jump up and run, but jump we did, out onto the pavement, entertaining the traffic, as we do at about this time on a Tuesday.

No newcomers this week, but how lovely to welcome back Torie who, since we last saw her, has got married and been on her honeymoon! Congratulations Torie!

Let's take the scenic route

Now, our group run routes are usually very well researched and planned (I even wander down roads on Streetview sometimes, just to be clear), but I didn't think I needed to plan this one, feeling very sure that Cator Park was, in fact, on Cator Road. So sure was I that I even started veering off into what turned out to be the entrance to a school, when Tim piped up that the park was a little further on. Oops! Thanks to his extensive local knowledge and sense of direction, we enjoyed a scenic trail run, making our outward leg up to 3km. Great work everyone!

Crossing the park, we could see some people gathered around the shrubbery, pulling up weeds, so made our way over to join them. We were greeted by Millie, from the Friends of Cator and Alexandra Parks, who introduced us to everyone and showed us what they had planned. We were all a little distracted at this point, by the beautifully laid out new tools and the friendly dogs who were saying hello. We've never had a dog at a task before, so this was an added extra. We were to focus our attention on an area of shrubbery, some of which was hidden completely by some rambling hops, brambles and other random weeds. Gloves on, we set-to, very quickly revealing what was concealed underneath.

All tooled up

This kind of task quick quickly amasses a lot of 'off-cuts', which I noticed were spreading across the cycle path. What a treat then, to have some professional picker-uppers (modelled in the photos by Louise) to help shift things over and out of the way! It wasn't long before we had to down tools and gather for our group photo (not before we had all shown some love to the most adorable spaniel puppy who had made an appearance), admiring our handiwork along the way.

It feels great at this time of year, to be able to use the parks for our fitness session. The light evenings and dry grass making it all so much easier! We worked through a timed circuits session, adding extra exercises each time round, until everyone was worked to pretty much exhaustion (though amazingly, still with enough energy to manage some planks as well, smashing!).

Taking the more - ahem - direct route back, we rounded off with a quick stretch and a mention for next week's task, another brand new one, this time at the Crystal Palace Museum Garden and orchard, sign up here to join us. After all that hard work we had quite a thirst on, so headed back into the Bridge House for some food and drink, perfect.

See you next week x