Welcome to our first time runners Marie, Robyn, Tasha, Alice, Mia and Mairead - great to have you join us!

It was another amazing weekend of all things running with loads of GoodGymers taking part in marathons and other races in places like Valencia, Lisbon, Bruges, Yorkshire, Amsterdam and the Great South Run. Well done if you did any of those, and to Frances who got a new 10k PB at a race in Battersea Park!

Talking of congratulations, it was Oliver's 's 50th good deed last night - give him a cheer! He's been a machine, doing up to a record four good deeds a day, so a huge well done on reaching that milestone.

• Next week we have our special Halloween run, where we have a task helping out a community garden in a cemetery, a spooky fitness session and a social afterwards. Sign up here for the post run social!

After all that good news we headed outside to do a warm up before running to our task. After some high knees, fast feet and jumping jacks, we talked about our favourite pizza toppings and the big Pineapple V Non Pineapple debate. Thankfully no proroguing was needed as non-Hawaiian won out, and the prize for best topping goes to Bruno with salsiccia e friarielli. Who's hungry?

Our job last night was at Belleville school, the first bilingual state school. Jonathan, who manages the grounds, had big plans for one of the areas near the back of the school, but there was lots to do. So after an extended run around the common we arrived to find Jonathan waiting with wheelbarrows, bags and tools.

His plans are to build planters for the children to help them learn about growing fruit and veg, but the area he had in mind is covered with tarmac. Jonathan had spent the day cutting out big holes, and our job was to completely clear the area of the slabs that had come up, the lining, weeds and all the other stuff that was in the way.

After half an hour of heavy lifting and shifting, moss scraping, cutting back,moving fence and, some impressive tactical manoeuvring the space was looking ready for planting and will be a brilliant learning area for the kids. So after a quick photo and wave goodbye we jogged up to Clapham Common to do out fitness session. This week it was circuits, with one group do a run which worked as our timer. With burpees, planks, squats and clock lunges, this was an effective all over workout. Nice one, team.

After a nice brisk run back, we finished off the night with stretches and cake. Don't forget our special Halloween run next week, where, although not essential, dressing up will be positively encouraged! Until then, happy running everyone.

40 runners hit the road last night for all manner of gardening jobs and some litter picking at the delightful Kennington Park.

First off we welcomed new runners into the fold - cheers for coming along Lucy, Anna, Hannah and Louisa!!

And then we had some congratulations to give:
Steven has now smashed his 50th good deed and Michael is on a massive 100 good deeds!! They had the honour(???) of wearing the cape of goodwill and the wings of glory for their incredible contribution to the community.

Nice one guys!

And then we had to say goodbye 😢 Long-time Lambeth runner and ultra reliable taskforce member Lucy is back off to bonnie Scotland. She’d done 123 good deeds before last night, and has a group run streak of 39 months (3 years, 3 months and 3 days actually) which is just nuts. She will be so missed but we know when GG Edinburgh kicks off, she’ll be there!

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Then we ran. Steve lead a 4k route and the rest of us had a direct 2.5k run. We were met by Rita and Mariette who instructed us with some pretty specific jobs.

Just a little bit off the top, please.

✂️ Snipping lavender

🌳 Trimming the big (yew) bushes

🚮 Litter pick off on the fringes

🌱 Up-ROOT-ing some ‘tree of hair-ven’ saplings

🌺 Getting the Wisteria out of one’s eyes

CHIP CHOP

We split into small groups to tackle each task and got to work.

There was some super even snipping from Lucy, Phoebe & Hannah and Freddie was hot on their tail, sweeping up the split ends.

Team litter pick was on fire: Tim found some old Country music CDs, Phil was picking up every cigarette butt he could possibly find and Magda, Frances & Marina collected 2 massive bags of rubbish between them.

After half an hour and a very important headcount, we left.

Shears m’dears!

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And what a treat we had to look forward to from our Bake Off Sweet-stakes!

A perfectly moist orange and almond cake from Phoebe, a spectacularly colourful angel cake from Steve and an expertly executed antigravity cake from Samantha. 🍊👼🍎

YUM 👅

See you next week for a brand new task - painting and gardening at Loughborough Community Centre - and BISCUITS! Sign up here.

Last night Lambeth got done not one, not two, but THREE TASKS! And all in the heat - woah. 😅

We were 33 strong including superheroes Sophie, Bethany, Lauren and Rachel who joined us for the first time 👏👏 And our SPOTM winner was none other than the fabulous Phil Woodall, who smashed out 50k at the Bath Two Tunnels a couple of weeks ago. He’s also done 82 good deeds and is on a 20 month group run streak! A University of Surrey sports bottle, garlic crusher, blue piggy bank and toy car that we found in a trolley at Myatt’s Field well deserved.

The three tasks:

1️⃣ Sticking around at PAPA’s Park to paint the bench and do some weeding.

2️⃣ Spreading mulch, chucking out wood and making netting structures at the ‘Children’s Garden’ with Urban Growth.

3️⃣ Flyering for the awesome Brixton People’s Kitchen near Oval

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Beth was on paint organising duty with those who didn’t fancy a run - Some ace press ups and tricep dips from Steve though (see pics). Lucy (sadly departing next week - but we’re having a CEILIDH) left her mark on the bench - don’t worry, we covered it up - and Rebecca and Steve got to work on the weeding. In less than an hour the painting was done and the only remaining challenge was to stop the kids in the park from jumping on it…

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Most of us ran to the Tulse Hill estate to meet Flora and Orsetta from Urban Growth. Lauren, Steven and Issy were on the barrow run, filling up with mulch and delivering it to the path. Everyone else was split between weeding the path (pre-mulching) and moving some old planter wood & creating structures from canes for netting to go over.

It was all done in no time! We finished with a final stamping of the mulch (lol - see gifs) and headed back to base at a seriously good pace.

Awesome stuff.

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And as for Team 3, Nicky gave us this rundown:

10 runners braved the heat to run beyond Oval to deliver some flyers for the Brixton People's Kitchen. We split into three teams and had a list of roads each to cover. After about 20 minutes, with leaflets delivered to a good few flats (and to some people on the street who requested them!), we ran back to Papa's.

And they even did (the) Lambeth Walk!

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Good work team!

See you next week for a trip to Kennington Gardens - Sign up here! and also THE FIRST BAKES OF THE LAMBETH SWEET-STAKES. 🧁🥖🥮