21 runners ran 3 or 6km to paint Southwark Tigers clubhouse, tidy up at Cossall Estate and leaflet for Link Age Southwark

Southwark News

• On the weekend we helped man a water station at the British 10k. Read all about it here. There'll be an opportunity to volunteer at the Oxford Half in October - you get a free Virgin race place for your hard work!

• Community Missions are back! If you have suggestions of tasks a little bit out of our usual hit zone, give me a shout!

• Huge hello and welcome to Caroline, Sammy, Daniela and Owen who joined us for the first time last night.

That's enough of the business

Last night Southwark was MEGA. We helped three different organisations in one night - flyering for Southwark Link Age, painting Southwark Tigers' clubhouse and tidying up at Cossall Estate. Phewf!

We split into two groups - one running the 6k round trip to Tigers and one the 2km round trip to Cossall Estate.

• Long run group were well looked after by Helena and Girija - they got to work painting walls, scraping the floor of paint, painting the blackboard and finishing off skirting boards.

• Short run group led by Lucy and Beth watered plants, cleared a huge cupboard (we found a 'Now 2003' CD that's a keeper!) and started the big job of removing damaged flooring from the hall since the flood.

Michael at Tigers and Alan and Jaki at Cossall were blown away as usual by our speedy and efficient work. We finished the clubhouse, watered all of Grow Cossall's raised beds and cleared a huge cupboard (see photo). We also moved on lots of leaflets calling for volunteers for Link Age Southwark. A busy night... and it wasn't over just yet!

In perfect timing, both groups arrived back to base for 20.15 which means - you guessed it - 15 minutes for fitness fun! We went to a corner of the Rye for a session using the breath as a marker for how hard we're working when we're running.

• Easy: in through the nose, out through the nose

• Medium: in through the nose, out through the mouth

• Hard: in through the mouth out through the mouth

To find out more about how this works you'll have to come and run with us! After the run we went on our monthly social (third Wednesday off the month) to Peckham Levels for a well-deserved drink and food. Thank you to Girija for organising - looking forward to next month already :)

Next week we're gardening at Stuart Road Allotments - sign up here.

See you then!

Keep running happy, Lucy