A fabulous fourteen covered around 3km of running and took on a great outdoor task at Crofton Park Station Gardens.

How do you spend your birthday morning? Some might have a lie-in, some might go out for a relaxing breakfast, not our Clare, no, she ran Hilly Fields parkrun and came along to our GoodGym Lewisham starter session! Happy birthday Clare, I hope it's been a good one.

Welcome!

It was lovely to welcome four absolute first-timers this morning, Lewisham Love goes to Kathryn, Ryan, Birchlyn and Samantha. We also welcomed a GoodGym tourist, Leanne, who normally runs up with our friends in Tower Hamlets.

I like starter sessions, they mean that we get to do things a little bit differently. We met outside Hilly Fields cafe, some already having run the 5k parkrun beforehand and we also had the chance to visit one of the lovely outdoor tasks that isn't possible in the dark of a Monday evening in January. So many new faces and new names to remember, so we played a quick game that involved paying attention. We also played a version of stuck-in-the-mud that involved squatting, squat-in-the-mud? I like it! During our intro, I mentioned coach running and missions, both of which involve visiting an older person, either for a weekly chat, or to help in their home, with a task that they can't manage themselves.

Can I dig it?

With Nykolette very kindly back-marking, we ran down the hill (weh-hey!) towards Crofton Park. We were met at the garden (you know the one, you can see it as you wait for your train) by Ben, who looks after the space and he quickly showed us our tools, gloves and other equipment and directed us to the various tasks to be tackled. We had a team on weeding and litter-picking, some great digging (or hoeing?) and some heavy-duty spade-wielding, to make way for some slabs and breeze blocks to make stepping stones towards the tool shed. Little pockets of chatter could be heard around the space, with bags quickly filling with leaves and weeds (I think I counted ten at the end) and, of course, we were soon admiring Jacqueline's inevitable treasure find, a tiny lightbulb!

As this was a Big Half starter session, there was, of course, a lot of talk about races and pushing yourself over longer distances. We have 200+ runners taking part in the Big Half, so it's going to be pretty amazing and, in the meantime, I'm in awe of all the long runs I'm seeing on Strava, with some of today's efforts including parkrun along the way! Once we had completed all our jobs at the garden, Ben thanked us and back we ran to Hilly Fields to work on our technique for this epic running challenge.

Hill start

For some reason people didn't seem to believe me when I said I had a little hill lined up for our fitness session. Granted, we did have to run up a big hill to get to it, but I wasn't lying was I? Something we often overlook is how we use our arms when running. It's all too easy when you're tired, or struggling towards the end of a run or race, to lean over, hunch your shoulders and cross your arms over your body. All that energy wasted, energy that could be used to propel you forward! We did a couple of little partner exercises to see how it should feel, then put this to the test by running up our little hill. Once we had the hang of this, we applied everything we had just learned to coming back down the hill. Same movements, still looking up, still driving our arms. Wow! The difference was incredible! Strong work from everyone.

One more uphill jog and we were ready to stretch. We talked a little about our next runs, with Monday evening being our regular session, we also have another starter session in a few weeks, this time complete with waders! Thank you all for making my Saturday morning so enjoyable :)

As the wind whipped up, 14 fantastic faces smiled their way through Penge, to cover around 3km and paint the walls at Melvin Hall.

This week we welcomed a brand new GoodGym runner, Anna, who is friends with Bea (we like it when people bring their friends along!). We also said hello to Lauren, who has been along to a starter session in Lewisham, but was joining us here for the first time, welcome! Lauren is one of our 200+ runners who are taking part in the Big Half in March and we are now happy to offer places to our runners in boroughs outside the race route. There was lots of talk about this last night, with Stuart being on the verge of signing up and Stephen already diving in head first! If you do fancy trying this new race (with top cheering from me!), then sign up here and get training!

This week we were returning to Melvin Hall to continue our, as David said, Forth Bridge-like painting challenge. This means a short run down the road, so a quick warm-up and off we went. En route we were briefly joined by a small boy (appropriately dressed in red!), who skipped along with us for a moment, until his mum hollered for him to come back! Thank you to David for being our back-marker this week, keeping us together as a group. We were met by Councillor Kathy, who showed us where to find the equipment and everyone got stuck straight in. After a rather challenging start last week, with the emulsion bubbling on the surface of what looked like gloss, our intrepid team rolled on another coat, with the finish looking much better. The various pockets of activity were:

• the corridor and stairs (and then into another corridor, not wanting to stop!)
• finishing that pesky peach area, getting into the nooks and crannies in the top corners
• creating a sauna effect by cramming five people into one small office space off the hall

As I circulated, taking photos, wiping up any drips and generally getting paint all over myself, I heard snippets of conversation, with Bitcoin, liquidity, half-marathons and volunteering being covered. One treasure, offered up by Tim as he and Ian cursed that peach paint, was that the French equivalent of 'A bad workman blames his tools' is 'A good workman has good tools', something for us to keep in mind when we visit tasks! Someone who clearly follows this already is Ian, who brought along his paint stirrer from home! After weeks of looking for something long and stirry, giving the paint tubs a jiggle and resorting to using unmixed paint (oh, the horror!), we could now perform our task with the utmost professionalism, thank you Ian.

Rollers, brushes and trays washed up, we had a moment to work out who was singing the version of 'Tragedy' blaring out of my mini speaker and, yes, it was Steps. Classy.

Running back towards our start point, we continued up to Crystal Palace Park (yes, I heard those groans), where we enjoyed some hill repeats. We are surrounded by (splendid) hills here, so it's best to just go with it and embrace them. This particular hill acts as the start for Crystal Palace parkrun, so good to practice if you're a regular! Keeping our torsos tall, driving our arms and lifting our knees, the hill was embraced fully, with three strong repeats, jogging down to recover. Watching from behind, I could see great arm-drive and great determination. Good work.

As we stretched, we talked about this Sunday's 5 or 10k race in Crystal Palace Park; there are still places at the moment, so go for it and good luck to Stuart, who is taking on the 10k! Ian told us about another racing goal that is far enough away to build towards with confidence, the Beckenham Half-Marathon is in September and very local, so let's make it one of our GoodGym races shall we? Next week we will meet again at 6.45, to do some more good, sign up now and put it in your diary!