Good Gym Hunting

Loving the feel of a cool breeze through their hair, seven superstars covered 3km of running whilst spreading the word about GoodGym.

Thank you Bradley for this week's title pun and for lots of our lovely photos. Thank you also to Tim, who shared the photos of Team Red.*

No first-time runners this week, but how lovely to see Kat again! Back in freezing cold January, Kat came along and joined us on a starter session in the Secret Garden, I think she'll agree it's a bit nicer in balmy July!

We did things a little bit differently this week. With our planned task postponed until the end of the month, we were undeterred and decided to have a bit of fun spreading the word about this wonderful thing called GoodGym. To make an ordinary flyering task more interesting, I set the group a few challenges, by creating a local scavenger hunt. Dividing into Team Blue and Team Red, I handed out two stacks of 50 GoodGym cards and some instructions on what they had to try and achieve, with points being given for:

• Distributing/delivering all of the GG cards

• A group photo in front of a local landmark

• An interesting road name

• A photo of/with an animal (the cuter/more unusual, the better)

• Distance covered

Bonus points for litter-picking

Following the toss of a coin, with Team Blue getting to choose the Crystal Palace direction, our two teams split up and eagerly got going with their challenges. Meanwhile, I sauntered along some local streets, spreading the word about missions.

Forty-five minutes later, our teams converged on the recreation ground, where we shared evidence of our findings and compared distances. drumroll please

• Both teams gave out all of their cards, with both having chatted to people about what we do. Louise seems to have excelled here, by catching commuters as they came out of Crystal Place station - well done!

• There were some lovely landmark photos (though we all agreed Team Blue drew the lucky side, with many more landmarks to choose from). Well done Team Red though, with your photo outside the locally famous Penge Food Centre!

• I'm sorry to say the unusual road names were a little disappointing, but Team Red did well with Phoenix Road.

• Team Blue were hands down winners with their animal photos, Guy the Gorilla, the CP Dinos and a baby coot! I was quite chuffed with my bee and weird dog ornament, but they just don't compare.

• Distance covered was so close!! Check the photos to see that Team Blue just won this category, just!

• Both teams told me they had picked some litter - well done - but Team Blue had a great photo of the act.

So, it's a close one, but I think Team Blue were the winners by a tiny margin. Well done everyone, it was a lot of fun and you entered into it with childlike enthusiasm!

Give me five!

As if this wasn't enough, we then went on to do some great running drills, excellent dynamic stretches and the most challenging bit of running in a while, with a variation on a 'bleep test'. With Bradley as chief photographer, he and I looked on in awe at some very determined and strong running. After carrying out the drills, I could see people reminding themselves to drive their arms and pick up their knees, even when they started to flag! Smashing!

Next week

It's all too exciting! Next week is our Pengiversary! It will be one year since we started meeting here and doing good. To celebrate, we will return to Crystal Palace Park, where it all started, to work in the area around the Secret Garden. After our run, we will be having a picnic in the park, so bring something to share and join in the fun. We might also be celebrating a special milestone of one of our runners, so double the excitement, I can't wait!