This evening we ran around 5km to deliver charity collection bags for the British Heart Foundation

Chilly, chilly, chilly is the only way to describe tonight but yet 10 intrepid and well-wrapped up Croydon runners still braved the temperatures and met up at Solution Health and Fitness for tonight’s task. It was difficult to leave the building and head off into the night but we off we went for a short jog and warm-up before splitting into five groups to deliver the charity collection bags. Taking care to avoid dogs, “No Junk Mail” households and well sprung letter boxes we delivered around 500 bags in super quick time and all met back up again.

As we hadn’t run very far we went for a run and then headed to the subway where we used the stairs for some training. The first couple of rounds were easy - jog up the stairs, sprint along the pavement and then a gentle run down the ramp to the stairs again. It got harder after that though…… squatting jumps, two steps at a time and the version that tested coordination and concentration – a combination of squats and two steps at a time. Good for the legs and gluts and keeping warm too!

Next Tuesday evening’s run will see us heading for a longer run of 6 to 7km to a community allotment where we will be helping build a raised bed. to Birdhurst Community Gardens.

This evening we ran around 4km to dig turf, weed, plant and litter pick in a local park

After promising an indoor task this week I had to break the bad news the evening before that the warm indoor task was cancelled and replaced by an outdoor task. The Croydon bunch are hardy runners though as we still had 22 amazing runners turn up for some running and hard physical labour

So after the group photo we headed off to White Horse Park via Tescos for our warm-up. Tonight the speedier runners were led by Ellie and Andy who did a fantastic job with their looping too and we all arrived safely. Charles was our task master for the evening and he explained the tasks we could help him with. The Friends of White Horse Park are planting round the sides of a large circular raised bed so he demonstrated how to dig the turf out neatly round the edges – he did make it look very simple – turns out it’s quite tricky! Others did some weeding and planting and the reset went rubbish hunting around the garden area. When we arrived it actually looked really clean but then we found the “beer can bush” - only 5 feet from a bin but an entire rubbish sack was filled!

By the time we finished it was bitterly cold so we headed off for a warm-up slow jog then to a quiet street where we practiced the art of accelerating -always useful for that last minute sprint to outpace your friends! There were some impressive increases in pace especially once the arms started driving back with real power. On the way back Ellie and Andy’s group headed off for a slightly longer run so we all managed to finish around the same time and cool-down as a group.

While we were stretching they were reminded of an extra session this Sunday – meet at Heathfield Gardens at 10.45am to help build a garden for the bees. We will do the task first and then go for a run in the woods if it’s not too muddy or locally if it is. It’s a great chance to do a deed in the daylight and also to bring along a friend or family member who might be worried about the whole running thing but would like to give GoodGym a try.

Don’t forget to log your runs during the week so we can stay at the top as all your runs count towards our total. If you set it up yet then go onto your account, go to profile, settings and finally Strava/Runkeeper and follow the instructions there.

Next Tuesday evening’s run will see us heading to Lloyd Park

This evening we ran around 5km to move coffee grounds from a mushroom farm to a community garden

25 runners tonight!!! Fantastic to see some of the new runners from last week back as well six new runners so a big GoodGym Croydon welcome to Helen, Sarah, Tim, Claire, Iljeet and Kerry - look forward to seeing you all again soon.

We started with our customary group photo – needing to huddle together nowadays as my camera doesn’t have a wide enough lens to take in the whole group. Then off we headed for a warm-up in the nearby car park where we had to dodge a surprising number of workers heading home just as we got started – no collisions luckily. We headed in one large group, ably led by Ellie, Amatare and Andy and back marked by Sally and Rob down towards Reeves Corner to the Reuse Centre where mushrooms are grown and furniture made from pallets. Andrew met us at the corner and explained a little bit about what goes on in this well-hidden plot and then got us to work loading up the van with many many bags of coffee grounds which were heading to Wandle Park Community Garden to help fertilise the earth there. So with 25 runners in a chain(gang) formation we made very light work of moving the coffee and as soon as we’d finished we headed down to the park to help unload. Slight glitch with the key to the park gate not working and with discretion being the better part of valour we decided not to try and climb the fence so carefully threw the bags over for Andrew to sort in the morning.

Lots of time for a fun fitness session in the relative dry of the underpass. Amarate kept the group warm and moving while a few of us laid out the circuit – hopscotch, squats, hill sprints, lunges, chest presses and many more “fun” activities were done for 2 minutes each. We worked on strength, balance, speed, coordination and having fun which they were all very good at.

With burning muscles we finally headed back to Solutions gym for our stretches and a chat about next week’s task and also the GoodGym January Challenge – hope we are still leading at the end of this week. Don’t forget to log your runs during the week so we can stay at the top as all your runs count towards our total.

I just had a quick flick back through some old run reports and apart from our very first run tonight was the largest run ever – Well done everybody.

Our next run is on Tuesday 16th of January - an indoor task!