Dispelling all myths about today being 'Blue Monday', 25 happy runners covered 6.5km and gathered, carried and threw many Christmas trees (for recycling!).

Special thanks this week go to Tom for our treemendous title pun...and he wasn't even with us!

Every Monday in Lewisham is Red Monday, there's something about running with a group of other people, chatting (and laughing) as you go, that makes the world seem a much better place. This Monday was also Medal Monday, a Mega Medal Monday. In December, a group of us joined in the Run up to Christmas, a virtual challenge to motivate ourselves and each other to keep going during the party season. As a team, we collectively ran 1269.5km! Today, I received the medals in the post (along with some Christmassy chocolates!) and we gathered to celebrate our achievements as a team. Extra shout-outs to our 100 (and150km!)+ runners Vic, Chris, Sarah, Conroy and, with a total of 157km, our ultra-athlete, Jacqueline. Well done everyone, it was all about the team and we all did brilliantly, supporting and encouraging throughout!

Fantastree!

Amongst our team was Monica, who this week is celebrating her one-year anniversary with GoodGym. In this time, she has carried out an incredible 77 good deeds, with regular missions and weekly coach runs, great work Monica, it's lovely having you as part of GoodGym Lewisham.

Tonight, we welcomed Emmet over to Lewisham for the first time. He has previously run with our friends at GoodGym Croydon, so we opened our Lewisham arms and hope he enjoyed our particular brand of goodness.

Did you see that rain earlier?! Yikes! I watched it through a skylight and hoped it wouldn't do that between 6.45 and 8.30pm and, of course, the GoodGym magic happened and we were tackling only blustery gales. The rain had made our warm-up spot a little slippery though, so we used our might (and balance) to remain upright through our hand-shake challenge, squat-high-fives and knee-lifts. Tonight's task was a little different, we weren't heading to a venue, but getting to know our local streets a little more intimately. Up at Hilly Fields there are a few recycling points for Christmas trees, but the streets are still littered with forgotten greenery (or dry, brown twigs in some cases). Our job was to seek out these trees and add them to the pile, yes, running with trees, along the street!

Fir goodness sake!

As we arrived at the junction of Marsala Road and Ellerdale Street, we split into two teams, one taking Marsala and the other heading up to Algernon Road, with all eyes peeled for those beautiful trees. Head torches trained on paths and gardens, we soon knew when a tree had been found, with whoops of joy echoing around the street! Regrouping in Ladywell, we saw happy faces emerging from the darkness, trees bouncing between them. Here, Lucy and Kim took a detour to pick up Lucy's parents' tree, very conveniently shorn of its branches for ease of carrying! Around we went, causing heads to turn, up and over Adelaide Avenue and to deposit our first lot of trees, seven in total!

Turkey twizzler

In our area we have lots of runners, many regulars at Hilly Fields parkrun. We also have a great community on Strava, each following the other's activities and marvelling at the occasional twizzle. 'What's this?' you ask, it's a twizzle, yes, a twizzle! When you see a series of adjacent, straight roads, go for it, run up and down them and enjoy the way they look on your Strava map :) So tonight we did our first bit of a twizzle, with trees (a trizzle?). Up and down we went, Phoebeth, Francemary, Arthurdon, Gordonbrock (aren't the names interesting, reportedly named after the children of the builder!). These roads were most fruitful, with many people now carrying all or part of a tree (or a wreath, does that count?).

Back now, towards Hilly Fields, with the odd whoop as another tree was hoisted out of a garden. With a ceremonial chucking onto the pile, we counted out loud, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen...but we had to get to twenty! On we went, with Jacqueline suddenly darting off like a whippet, remembering where she'd seen one earlier, then a last run to the park and a grand total of...twenty-two Christmas trees! Superb work everyone!

It's interesting how very light you feel when you run after carrying a tree! I'm not sure how much this helped us get up the hill though (apart from Emma, who flew up!). The view up here is amazing, especially at night, so we got our breath back whilst enjoying the lights. Back to base and a rather special treat. On Saturday, there is a crumble competition in Catford (really, we have it all round here) and our very own Stephen has entered. Knowing that we're always a bit peckish after a group run, he had made a selection of little crumbles for us to sample (I'm saying this in a very high-pitched voice because really, how lovely is that?!). The foyer of Glass Mill was now a-buzz with the sounds of 'Oooooh!' and 'Aaaaahhh' and a scene of utter contentment. If you want to fill yourself to the brim with sweet/fruity/crumbly deliciousness, the details are here and, of course, we wish Stephen all the best from his chief tasters.

Next week is our BIRTHDAY!!! We will be two! My, haven't we grown? We will visit one of our regular tasks, over at the wonderful Crofton Books and will celebrate together afterwards with some food and drink (we're still open to suggestions for a venue, but let's be quick!). Also, if you haven't already entered, have a look at the Big Half, we are lucky to have a massive team of GoodGym runners taking part and would love to welcome any first-timers to join us.

See you next week, it's going to be EPIC!

With maximum layerage, twenty runners took to the streets of Lewisham to cover 7km and wrap up Christmas at Seniors.

BIG thank you to Caireen for our rather lovely title pun this week. You know one of Caireen's puns won the International Pun of the Month last year, we have high hopes.

Welcome to GoodGym Lewisham!

All our Lewisham Love goes to Katy this week, for being our only first-timer. It was a pleasure though to welcome back a few runners who have been either busy working, travelling or just hibernating for a while, always lovely to invite people back! We also enjoyed celebrating the fact that Caireen, one of our longest running members, did her first ever mission at the weekend! See, you can pick them up at any point in your GoodGym 'career', no problem! It sounds like it was a lot of fun too, with a top team of friends to fend off the spiders. Did you know that we have a GoodGym-wide challenge happening this month? Well, we're doing brilliantly, with dozens of deeds and hundreds of kilometers already covered by Team Lewisham. We do need to catch up with those deed-doing machines in Bristol though, so make sure you link your Strava and GoodGym profiles and make every mile count!

Run for the hills!

Our warm-up had us running around in circles, working out our left from our right and then finding ourselves stuck in the mud. All good fun to warm up our bodies, ready to run. Our run this week was slightly longer than usual, with a total of 7km, thank you to Clare for being tonight's back-marker. We ran it mostly through Ladywell Fields and enjoyed a good hard push to reach the top of the hill, 'Just a bit more hill before we go downwards!' At Seniors, we were met by Cathy, who showed us the various jobs to get on with and a top team of de-decorators busied themselves, while the rest of the group ventured down into the extensive cellars. When I got down there, Stephen and Tom were disappearing into a sliver of space, carrying a heavy roll of carpet. In another area, Conroy was removing the baubles from a tree and others were exploring the warren of little rooms that would have, at some point in the past, been used by the servants. Cathy was telling us about their plans to research the history of the building and the surrounding area, with lots of connections already discovered amongst users of the space.

With our crack team of treemendous tinsel tacklers, the decorations were quickly packed away and a steady stream of people carried the boxes down into the cellar (cue more exploration, this space is fascinating!). Not wanting to stand around, others grabbed cloths and started cleaning sellotape off the windows until Cathy informed us that there was a box of chocolates in the entrance, 'Down tools!' We look forward very much to returning here soon, either to work inside the building, or in the spring when we can once again work in the amazing garden.

Sugar rush

Fuelled by Cadbury's, we drove hard upwards towards Blythe Hill and the stunning view of a sparkly London. Over and down to Ladywell Fields we went, arriving at Glass Mill with flushed cheeks and big smiles. In the foyer, we got down to some good core work, with a Core-athlon, working on all three disciplines of swimming, cycling and running ('But we've already done the running!'). Next week we will be covering as much of Lewisham as possible, sweeping up as many discarded Christmas trees as we can, expect local news stories of 'Lines of Christmas trees spotted flying along Adelaide Avenue!' Why not sign up? Don't forget also to bring your speedy legs for our Monthly Time Trial and to have a think about where we might go for our birthday social on January 22nd. See you soon!

FAST FOOD PART 1

14 Brave Brent bandits, ran miles, to sort through piles of food that was sent, for the community of Brent!!

Food donation sorting for the amazing Brent Food Bank.

Having spent the last few days sending out a shed load of 'don't leave me hanging' emails to my crew, I was delighted to be met at base camp by a team of 13!! This of course was an absolute miracle considering the icy weather, freezing cold snow and wintery conditions!! So thank you, thank you team of brave warriors!!! What an awesome turn out for GG Brent's last sesh of 2017!!

The tasks (plural) at hand this evening, for our last and final session of the year, were helping out the Brent Food Bank, with their enormous hoard of food donations for Christmas at not one but two locations!!

As there were a couple of sites to get to; the storage center and the base, we split into 2 and set off! I led the team heading for base camp - The vestry hall, for an evening of lifting, loading and sorting all kinds of food groups into orderly piles and racked onto the shelves. Supported by my amazing team - Pete, Mouse, Marie, Ellen, Isabelle and Beth!

Our journey of 1.4 Miles was a cold one, so to beat the icy bite of the winds, we made it rapid!! That's fast food, if ever you did see!

Looked after by Maxine and Nana on arrival we were set to work instantly! There was so much to get through, we were like a team of busy elves, beavering away in our nutritious workshop!

Halfway through, we were rewarded with mugs of hot tea, which gave us the added energy to keep up the good work, for an extended session of 60 Mins, as we didn't want to go until we'd made a hefty impact on the massive piles!!

After a full hour of Good-deeding and about 100 tins and packets of food galore stocked up onto shelves, we said our farewells and head back out into the night.

Facing the cold once more, the run was again, a swift affair, but we didn't care. Pleased with our effors, we couldn't have done better. For Brent's amazing bank of food, not a worthier cause could we choose!!

FAST FOOD PART 2 - By Tabitha Skinner

So our group had the task of running to Brent Food Bank's storage unit, where they keep the tons of donations they receive. It was a 2.4Mile route there and we were thrilled to get there in less than 30mins woop woop.

We met Michele on site, who took us to the storage unit and told us a bit about what the Brent Food Bank do for the community! But to read a bit more yourselves check out their website - https://brent.foodbank.org.uk

Amazing cause What we found out was that they have boxes of food donations ready for when people in need.... need them. They also do packs of toiletries and nappies and things for new mums when they go to hospital to have a baby, as well as feminine products for girls who can't afford them. If that wasn't enough, this amazing cause also put on and host cooking classes at their base, for the community to teach people how to eat healthily and well for less money.
Loads of good stuff!!

Weigh-hey So back to our task, which was to empty out their big yellow, storage unit and weigh EVERYTHING before putting it back! This is because they have to do a yearly audit of donations, so we were helping with that. It was a mammoth task which took longer than a usual GG amount of set time, however, as it was our last one for the tear, we were all happy to stay and do more for these amazing people.

Fast food.... literally We got to work quickly using human chains to take it all out, weigh the boxes, then put them back. Each box was easily 20kg so we definitely worked hard, and we had hundreds of them to sort, so that's easily a tonne of donations we lifted. David our very own Isabelle's hubby (she finally dragged him along!!), was at the end of the chain most the night so probably did the most work! What an intro!! Even though there was so much food, Michele said, if they didn't get any more it would only last until April so they are always looking for more donations all the time!!!

Nearly there The last few boxes were Christmas presents and decorations so they were the last ones in, ready to be taken out again this week, for creations of Christmas Cheer all over Brent homes. After our epic efforts, we all ran back to base in the cold, other than karen who ubered it - Don't blame you Kazzer!!!

Until next year!!!!! That's GG Brent over and out!

Eleven runners ran 6km to help Harlesden Town Gardens

On a dark November night, 8 runners met up at the Queensbury to set off on a 2 mile run over to Harlesden Town Gardens. We found runner Meg, and task leader Gabriel waiting for us with a welcoming bonfire already blazing steadily in the pit that GoodGym Brent runners had helped create in a previous task – great to see it being put to good use!

Dinesh and Dimple arrived shortly after the main group after having just missed us at the Queensbury, but luckily their navigation skills and nous led them to the heart of the action around the glowing fire.

We quickly formed a branch-busting bunch to saw up logs to keep the fire fuelled, and a marshmallow-skewering and toasting, sparkler-twizzling support group to keep them motivated. Claire had sadly underestimated the enthusiasm and marshmallow chomping capacity of GG Brent runners, and one pack of those fluffy sugar and gelatine clouds just wasn’t enough to go around, so Joe and Uthman saved the day by running to the corner shop to re-stock so we had enough to make smores (marshmallow and chocolate, sandwiched between two digestive biscuits, wrapped in foil and toasted in the fire, for the uninitiated!).

It’s great to see how the Town Gardens are evolving, and Gabriel told us about Friends of Harlesden Town Garden’s future plans to build a clubhouse there, here is the link if you’d like to cast a vote to support their funding bid:

https://www.avivacommunityfund.co.uk/voting/project/view/17-4315

It was so cosy round the fire that it was hard to leave, especially after all the sugary indulgence – but somehow we managed to tear ourselves away and get back to the Queensbury again, I don’t know about everyone else, but the hills felt a bit steeper on the way back…!?

You Guys were ace, thanks for coming, great to see your faces!