20 lovely runners ran 5km to help out at the amazing MEfA Montessori!

Well it was FREEEEEZING this evening but a whopping 20 Greenwich folk made it out for their weekly good deed! Nice one!!!

We had one new runner this evening, the lovely Claire who is just coming back to running after a knee operation last year and did absolutely brilliantly - well done Claire! Hope you enjoyed the first session! And we also welcomed Chloe who came along to the starter session on Saturday :)

After a little warm up running around in all sorts of directions we headed off! The Montessori is located up in Westcombe Park which involves a litttttle bit of a hill but as I always say, what goes up must come down!

We arrived at the Montessori and were greeted by the loveliest of ladies, the amazing Wendy! You can tell she is an education professional as she has the most calm and perfect manner! Love her!

Anyway, enough about my love for Wendy.... so we split into groups. A few people headed outside to tackle the pesky ivy. A small bathroom needed painting so a few people squuuuuueeeeeeezed in there. Whilst the bulk of the group organised and sorted a whole load of books!

After just half an hour, the books had all been sorted, put into piles and ticked off Mr Rogers's list! Meanwhile the twins were getting more paint on themselves than on the walls.... wouldn't want to be doing your washing at the weekend guys! Hope the paint comes out alright... although it definitely has the proper GoodGym look about it now!

The gardeners outside were also just about done, except Dom was just wrestling with one thick bit of tree trunk... don't worry we will come back for it another time! They brought through 4 bin liners jam packed full of ivy and other garden waste so you can definitely be proud of that!!

Light up hat!

We all gathered outside for a group photo and this is where we discovered THE most amazing invention probably ever??? Andy's amazing cap with a built in head torch!!!! Whack one of those on your birthday list guys and girls! Mind blown!!!

Sadly we didn't have time for a fitness session but you've all worked pretty hard these last few weeks so thought you deserved a little recovery week! You're welcome :) We headed back to the uni, had a little stretch and parted ways!

Well done tonight everyone! Great work on the task, and well done for getting so stuck in. If you want to find out any more information on the Montessori then have a look here. As I said I'm not here next week but Vickie is taking over so I'm sure you'll be in for a treat! See you in a few weeks!

Clad in hats, gloves, and some rather natty new headtorches, a group of 10 intrepid runners did not let the bitter cold put them off last night.

We started off the night talking about the amazing Mission Possible this weekend, where teams of three will be taking on a mass volunteering effort, spreading good all over the city! Good luck everyone, see you in the pub afterwards...

Braving the cold, we stepped outside and dived straight into our warm ups whilst discussing who we would ask round for dinner. Charlie Brooker, Stephen Hawking, David Beckham and Alan Shearer were all lucky enough to score an invite.

The night's task was at the Waterman's Centre, and independent charity which aims to bring art to the local community. It was just under a 2.5k run, and we set off briskly. 20 speedy minutes later we were there, ready to get stuck in.

We were handed shears, bin liners and brooms, and tasked with the job of clearing leaves and cutting back the branches in the car park. It was quite a labour intensive job, which was good, because we needed to keep warm. Half an hour later and several bin bags later we were done. Or were we?

No, we were not. There was the small matter of hill sprints to do. Now, after talking about the possibility of hill sprints for several weeks, if not months, we had to take what we could get. The small incline in the carpark would have to do. In pairs we tackled five reps, keeping our chests high and taking care to pump our arms but to keep them at a 90 degree angle behind our body. You all looked like superstar athletes.

The run back was smattered with some lovely conditioning exercises, just to keep things exciting, and we stopped just short of the Town Hall to do our final bit of fitness. In two teams we assumed plank position, passing the golden satsuma along the line. When the satsuma got the end, somebody shouted 'burpee', and the whole team had to do said burpee, increasing by one each time. Team Jo, Michelle, Jeremy and Andy won the challenge and as their prize, took home the two fought-over satsumas. Lucky them.

During our stretches we realised we have only two runs left THIS YEAR. Let's make the most of them, starting with our penultimate one next week. Stay warm until then :)