Tonight 31 runners ran around 3 km to paint, water, weed, dig, plant and celebrate!

It’s been 3 glorious good deed filled years since GoodGym Croydon launched and headed off to Croydon Arena in South Norwood. For this special day I decided to be a little bit less ambitious about the length of the run and head off to one of our favourite task venues – Park Hill Rec Community Garden. As it was our special birthday we asked Councillor Lousia Woodley, who had launched us 3 years ago, to come along and send us on our way. Councillor Oliver Lewis also joined us for the send off and headed up to the garden with us for some hard graft. It may have been the thought of the amazing cake that did it!

It was a beautiful sunny evening – just as it should be for a birthday – so after waving goodbye to Louisa we headed off to Park Hill to meet Catherine and Erica who had a list of jobs for us including mural painting, weeding, digging, planting and watering. I think they were a little surprised by the sheer numbers but quickly made use of the enthusiasm and work rate of 31 Goodgymers. Catherine, Erica and Josi had also kindly bought us some bedding plants for our section of the Peace Garden so we will be back to check how they are flourishing.

The time flew by and before we knew it the drinks, snacks and THE CAKE were brought out. Huge thanks go to Rachel for her amazing creation – looked too good to eat but we managed and didn’t leave a crumb. Some runners, not going to name them, even managed 2 slices! There should have been a fitness session however we decided to spend a bit more time in the garden and painting and cake eating and strangely enough nobody objected!

There have been some thefts recently at the Community Garden so earlier in the week we had a collection for some B&Q vouchers so the lovely Friends Group could replace the plants that were taken.

We also welcomed three new runners tonight, Oliver, Karen and Sara - hope you all enjoyed yourselves and see you back again soon.

To finish off our celebrations some of us headed off to the Porter and Sorter for a quick drink or burger and had a great time plotting our next races including the Dino Dash in June and also helping out GoodGym Bromley with the South Norwood takeover at the end of the month. There are also lots of GoodGymers heading off to the London 10K on the 27th of May so if you are going sign-up here and don't forget to wear your t-shirt. Conroy also told the group about the GoodGym Olympics coming up soon and the challenge of writing a Croydon anthem – let’s see what we can do!

Finally, a big thanks to Conroy for letting me take over tonight - I'll be asking for the 4th birthday run too if that's okay!

Next week’s run will be off to a the Peppermint Centre so don’t forget to sign up!

A warm evening. 2 community projects in need of a hand. A group of 29 lovely runners.

These elements combined beautifully last night for GoodGym Croydon's second birthday.

The runners

It was great to see some new faces last night! Liz, Marcelo, Dre, Chris R, Heather, Catherine, and Chris T all joined us for the first time, and got to join in with the GoodGym Croydon magic! It was also great to see a few runners back who have been part of the group's journey in the past, like Helena, and one of our pals from Lewisham and Bromley, Conroy, join us for a spot of GoodGym tourism!

The task

One group, led by Ellie and Juliet, ran 2km in total to help at Park Hill; helping get the Peace Garden ready for the Festival of Peace they're holding in June. This involved tackling weeds, moving plants, and generally getting the space a lot more ready for the festival. Another group, led by Helena, Amatare, Conroy and myself, ran around 4km in total to help our pals at the Addiscombe Railway Park do some bits in their community garden. Amongst other things we tidied around some apple trees, planted some lavender on a bank, and dug a MASSIVE hole that will eventually be turned into a pond. Both task holders were really happy with what the groups had done, a testament to what a big group of energetic runners can get done in a short time.

The social

Once we got back to the start point we stretched out and most of us headed over to Matthews Yard for a cracking birthday social. It was a cracking time, and great hearing people's different experiences running with the GoodGym community so far. There was even a beautiful group rendition of Happy Birthday To Us (I can only apologise for starting that off!). Kudos to Juliet, who has made our group all the things we love (inclusive, stimulating and fun) from our first run two years ago! Its been two great years so far, and great to see so many willing to get stuck in with our third year.

Here are a few dates for diaries, for those I chatted with about upcoming events:

• Every GoodGym Croydon group run starts at the same time and place, details about the next run will always be here

• GoodGym Southwark will be doing pacing at Burgess parkrun on Saturday if you'd like to join in with that - I'm doing my first pacing ever for 30 minutes!

• The GoodGym Olympics will be happening on the 30th June. Not as intimidating as it sounds, it's a big fun sports day in North London with GoodGym joining from all over; last year Croydon got a gold (three legged race), but it'd be great to have even more of us up there this year!