It was a lovely sunny evening in SE10, and with our running coach, Sarah, literally on the other side of the world it was chance for all of us to top up on our tans.

Unfortunately not, diligent as she is, Sarah had left Vickie and myself strict instructions , and there was to be absolutely no lazing about. Sorry.

To start, we went round the circle and said our name, and the word we most overused. (For those that attended, how many can you count in this report?) Most interestingly Nina couldn't think of one word; she likes all words and uses them freely ;-)

As a warm-up game we played dishes and domes. On one foot, it's a good game to promote agility, balance and coordination, and on the other foot, it can seem a bit of a futile pursuit as you turn over a cone, and then immediately thereafter someone from the opposing team turns it back over. The game seemed to trigger an existential crisis for some people. Indeed, after the three minutes of the game had elapsed, it transpired it was a dead tie. 11 domes. 11 dishes. So, you really have to question what was the point? *(Note to self: to avoid a tie in future use an odd number of cones.) *

What if...there is a tie? Well, Rob and David faced off in cone sprint decider to win to their team's honour. A dramatic slide from David clinched the golden cone. Nice!!!

We decided to hug the river to get to our new task. We were going rogue as we were just stepping over the borough boundary into Lewisham, so wanted to keep a low profile, ignoring our bright red coloured tees.

Tonight's task took us to St Nicholas Church, Deptford Green. Despite the imposing skull and crossbones entrance we dared to entered. Also, it was quite light so there really was little to be afraid of.

Maureen, the church warden met us. WWS. Watering, weeding and sweeping were the order of the day. We broke up into groups. The weeders, on their hands and knees, worked nimbly and mindfully. Lee, pictured with a hose, is never happier than when in a garden, was heard whistling as he watered the plants. And Ophelia and Sara swept the ghosts away.

Good work everyone. The churchyard was looking on point.

Note: It is a beautiful churchyard, and well worth a visit.

Feeling adventurous still, we went under the foot tunnel to Island Gardens to do our fitness sessions. I boomed out my playlist of two songs: 1) James - Sit Down and 2) The Police - Roxanne. Suffice to say, it was a squat session!!! However, in the instrumental section people didn't seem to quite know what to do with themselves. There was a forced awkwardness, except for Rob who just danced the whole way through it. Magic.

At the end of the day, running wouldn't have its reward if you didn't stop every so often to take in the views. Boom times.

Happy running everyone,

Ben

11 awesome runners ran nearly 5km to clean up the streets of Greenwich!

Last night didn't quite go to plan but I think we definitely made the best of a bad situation! We were supposed to be shifting soil at More 2 Childcare but sadly Eve had forgotten, but these things happen and we are going back there anyway in a few weeks to build some benches anyway, so maybe the soil will still be there for us too!

We welcomed two new runners, Chris and Lewisham runner Bradley, hope you had a good first run with us guys!

After a quick warm up we set off round the uni to try and up the mileage a bit. We arrived at the childcare centre and it looked quite empty and dark... but we arrived early so I was still hopeful! We ran down by the river, enjoyed the nice views and even bumped into Bliss on the way! After a photo we headed back and sadly had to deliver the bad news to the crew that they won't be shoveling soil BUT we had 40 minutes of time to kill, that's LOADS of time to do something good!

It has been in the news a bit recently about this "new" thing called Plogging which basically stands for picking up litter while jogging. The trend started in Scandinavia but GoodGym has actually been doing it for years! So after a quick trip to the Co-op for some bin bags we set off on our plogging adventure! And then we bumped into another Greenwich GoodGymmer out on his run home from work... it was Brin!

So much rubbish!

I think we all very much underestimated how much litter there would be! My bag was getting weightier by the minute! We cleared the streets of glass bottles, flattened cans, bits of paper, cigarette boxes, bottle caps, drinks cups, even a whole bag of KFC?! It's crazy what people leave out, just knowing that someone else is going to have to deal with it. But we got some lovely comments from passers by which was nice :)

After 40 minutes, everyone had a decent amount in their bag and we called it a day. Fiona kept going for a little while longer, she was top litter picked last night! GREAT JOB!!!

We distributed into various bins and headed back to the uni for a quick little circuit! We did some sprints, some stair climbing and some planking. Two rounds, 45 seconds on each exercise and that combined with all the running and squatting we'd done picking up the rubbish got us pretty knackered! We finished off with a little stretch and we were done!

Great job last night everyone! Sorry again about the main task but thanks for getting stuck in anyway, hope you still had fun!