What a glorious day for a run! The sun was out, the birds were singing, and it seemed like everyone’s mood was lifted. With a spring in our step, we were eager to get started. There was much chatter about Friday night's Festival of Running, when Battersea park will be alive with colourful lights and energetic runners. If you haven’t heard of it yet, be sure to check it out! It's a fun mix of light running and vibes and ggers even get free entry when they sign up to help out - more about that later.

Unfortunately our planned task got cancelled last minute. No problem though, we were not going to let all that positive GoodGym energy go to waste! We quickly pivoted, and instead of refilling planters we started last session, we were to go the Ecogarden to give the whole place a good clean up. The idea is that this urban space is being converted to increase biodiversity and to create more places of well being in the city. So its no good having loads of trash strewn around among dirty benches. Enter Goodgym!

A big shout-out to Sevgi who joined us for her very first GoodGym session today. Welcome to the crew! We hope you enjoyed it and will be back for many more fun-filled missions. Also, huge kudos to Richard, who's just about to hit his 50th Good Deed! Richard has been doing so much good, net time you see him he'll be in a black GG tshirt, so give him a cheer! A special shout out goes to Anna for back-marking today, making sure we all I kept everyone going and no one got left behind in a busy tourist area.

Today's task involved heading over to the Grounded Eco Garden, a place we've helped out at before. For those who haven’t been before, it's a community garden focusing on eco-friendly practices, and it's the perfect spot to get your hands dirty and make a positive impact on the environment. We’d been there before, helping get it ready for the community, and today was all about cleaning up the surrounding area.

With the magnificent Tower Bridge as our backdrop, we met up with Alicia and got to work collecting rubbish. At first glance there wasn't loads, but when we really started to look we found an impressive haul, including a surprising number of bottles cig butts (which take 60 years to biodegrade!), and, most curiously, an old car key. If anyone has lost a car key lately... well, now you know where it went!

As we ran, we discussed all sorts of random facts inspired by our surroundings. Did you know that every Wetherspoons pub has its own unique carpet pattern? Yup, it's true! And apparently, there are over 900 Wetherspoons pubs across the UK, each with its own distinctly designed carpet. Who knew there could be so many different patterns?

There was more chat about the Friday Night Lights Festival of Running (where GoodGym volunteers get free entry!) - here’s the link for more info on how to get involved - there's a morning and an afternoon session to join in with. It's a great opportunity to get your run in while enjoying festival vibes.

Lastly, don’t forget about our Monday run in Wandsworth, which will feature our monthly pub quiz after the run. All are welcome, whether you're a regular or a newbie! It's always a blast, and we can’t wait to see you there.

Thanks to everyone for being such an amazing crew today despite he last minute change, and we hope to see you out there next time for the next stage of the transformation of Tower Bridge community garden!

Richard and Sam met up with Simon to tackle the bindweed that had overtaken the Kitchen Garden.

The hour and a half was concentrated on the area by the fence on either side as Simon believed the mother/source was around this area. We managed to get a wheelbarrow and black bin filled with these pesky bindweed ivy.

More to do next Saturday!

It's been awhile since we did a group run to Thorlands Gardens and although, we have our Saturday sessions there, Simon was looking forward to a bigger group to come and complete loads of tasks.

Sam opened up Old Spike Peckham as Maria, Lindy, Alex, David, Daryl, Nelly, Isaac and Paulin all gathered to catch up with one another as a few had been away for the summer.

As 18:45 arrived, Sam promptly went through his usual GG intro speech and his ice-breaker question for tonight was to do with the Olympics as the Opening Ceremony is just two days away! However, Isaac said it's Cambridge Folk festival on the Friday too, so we added a question about your favourite folk artist on top of the sport you are looking forward to see at the Olympics.

There's just too many sports to choose from, but the classics like track and field events plus new sports like Breaking and Climbing also got mentioned. Yet, we all agreed the fact you can switch and watch any sport and get invested in it, is the highlight.

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Need someone who's OCD

After a quick warm-up in the alleyway, Sam led the group out through the backstreets of Peckham and up Chadwick Road (the hill) and down towards Denmark Hill station and King's College hospital. Maria backed mark to ensure no one got left behind. Upon arriving at Thorlands Gardens, the group met up with Simon as well as Benjamin and Richard, who both cycled to the task.

Simon had already gathered the tools we needed, so we proceed to the "Kitchen Garden" to put down the tools and split the group into two:

• Benjamin, Daryl, and Nelly took the wheelbarrows to do the woodchip run.
• The rest concentrated around the division between the "Kitchen Garden" and the "Wild Garden" to tackle the bindweed that had grown back after months of neglect as we have been concentrating on the "Wild Garden" development.

We needed to be thorough as if we pulled out a bindweed and left even a small part of its root, it would come back with a vengeance! Even in the 40 minutes, we were there we couldn't justify putting down cardboard and woodchip as the area had not been completely over turned to eradicate the bindweed.

We did the best we could knowing that we will be back. After putting back the tools, we said goodbye to Simon, Lindy, Benjamin and Richard before running off back to Old Spike.

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out last night! We are back to our regular monthly sessions at Thorlands Gardens, which Simon is always appreciative for. Thank you to Maria for backmarking the runs to / from Thorlands Garden and to everyone for getting stuck in.