Fast and Furryous in Catford

On a windy and rainy evening, sixteen determined runners took to the streets of Lewisham to cover 6km, tackle brambles, ivy and weeds at Lewisham Unitarians and continue building our local community.

Thank you to Caroline for this week's super, feline-friendly title pun :)

As it's the beginning of the new month, we looked back at our heroes for May. Some areas will always see the same names popping up, but it was great to see some new names rising up the leader board this time. Well done to all of you!

• Distance Covered: Sarah, Ian, Conroy and Kim all seem to have spent a lot of time on their feet in May!

• Good Deeds: Jacqueline and Kim were neck and neck with six good deeds each!

• Cheering (and being cheered): Conroy (he cheered his friends 944 times, we're not sure how he also fits in the running, cheering in the move maybe?!).

• Special Award for May, for Determination To Smash Those Hills: Monica (who has been taking on Hilly Fields parkrun, even though she can't (yet) work out why anyone would want to run up and down hills).

We also celebrated our racers, with Sean completing his first 10 mile race in Richmond Park, Amber and Nykolette enjoying their first Hilly Fields parkrun and I forgot to mention Chris, who was very proudly sporting his Edinburgh Marathon t-shirt, having run a PB race there last weekend!

Catford Cat!

As we chatted about all of these wonderful achievements, in the warmth of the Glass Mill foyer, the wind and rain was swirling around outside. We're a tough bunch though and just a quick warm-up was needed to ease us into the joy of rainy running. This week our group run took us out to Catford and to a new task. We haven't run this way before, so we took pleasure in being able to pause at our much-loved local landmark, the Catford Cat. Just a little bit further on and we were at our task point.

The Lewisham Unitarians meet here every Sunday at 11am, with various activities (such as yoga, a book group and a drumming circle) happening in the space during the week. We popped around the back to the garden, where we were met by Susan, a member of the group. Susan is a professional gardener, so was able to give us instruction on what we should and shouldn't pull up (we still think a GoodGym Guide to Weeds is a great idea...) and had already been busy pruning an overhanging tree. Time for everyone to put on gardening gloves and break up the branches, ready to add to the expanding pile near the wall.

Chris, Caroline and Sean found a space at the side of the building, that had become overgrown with Ivy and set-to tugging this tenacious plant away from the walls and clearing the space, uncovering a passageway that had probably been unusable for some time! Another wall was also relieved of its Ivy growth by Stephen, Emma and Caireen and all around, teams worked together to rake, gather, contain and deposit the garden waste - it's quite an upper-body workout carrying one of those heavy sacks, so good work!

Enjoying the challenge of a weighted lift, Helen and Lucy moved two heavy armchairs, then set about trying to pull up all the little Sycamore seedlings that had scattered and taken root throughout the garden.

Before we left, Susan thanked everyone for their hard work and commented that she had wondered how and if our visit would work, but I think she was pleasantly surprised by what can be achieved by a group of enthusiastic GoodGym volunteers :) The garden will be the focus of attention in the coming months, with a special party being thrown to celebrate 150 years of Lewisham Unitarians - watch this space for more news.

With our back-marker Steve making sure no one was left behind, we took a slightly different route back, skirting the running track and enjoying some quiet away from the main road, though Ladywell Fields. This gave us a chance to push a little harder with some chain running and to pause and hear about some great feedback from last week's task - our task owners were very impressed by how professional the painting was :)

Still 'enjoying' the rain, we stretched outside our start point and talked excitedly about this Saturday's GoodGym Olympic Games (we have high hopes for our flag sweeping the board), where we will represent Lewisham in various events and generally have a great time catching up and meeting people from other areas. The events are now closed, but everyone is welcome to come along and support and to rehydrate afterwards at the GoodGym Monthly Social. We also mentioned an upcoming race, on June 23rd in Greenwich Park, a chance to take on 5 or 10k and to enjoy a refreshing drink down in Greenwich afterwards.

Next Monday we will be heading to the very special Seniors, where we will aim to finish off the various jobs we started last time. This is a huge space and I would like to try and get as many runners as possible to join us on the 8k run and to really get this task in the bag - please tell your friends to sign up and help us reach this goal. It will also be a special week, with Kim embarking on her 50th good deed, 50! Let's celebrate with some hills ;)