I'll rust leaf this here...

Feeling full of the joys of spring, 33 runners took on 7km of running, cleared rubbish, scrap metal and brambles and levelled the ground at the Wildcat Wilderness.

What a night!

I was already feeling slightly delirious after being exposed to a bit of sunshine, after what feels like forever; it's been a tough old winter. I didn't think it would be possible to top this and the fact that the evenings are getting lighter, then in strolled our very own World Record Breaker, Sean! We haven't seen Sean since last November, when he headed off around the world, his 50 t-shirt tucked under his arm. Updates have been in the form of far-flung parkruns viewed on Strava, so to see him here, wearing the black tee, was a real treat. Welcome back Gingerbread Man!

We also welcomed a visitor from the slightly less distant GoodGym Wansworth - hello Jordan - and an absolute first-timer, Matt, Lewisham Love to you both.

Under starter's orders

It's been an amazing week for missions, with many runners heading out to help an older person in their home, fixing up overgrown gardens, hanging curtains, changing lightbulbs, that kind of thing. It was also a pretty racy weekend, well done to:

• Nykolette at the Colchester Half-Marathon (alongside lots of other GoodGym runners)...thank you also for back-marking this week.

• Sarah at the new Landmarks Half-Marathon (lovely medal!)

• Juliet at a tough 15km race, where she made the podium as third lady, impressive running!

As if all this wasn't enough, we were also celebrating Amber's 50th good deed. Amber has been with us for just over a year and, in that time, she has built up her running, taking on 10k races, half-marathons and is now just four weeks away from her first marathon, in London. At the moment she comes in on a Monday, telling us about her latest 'longest run ever', with her training going really well (whilst also being a Personal Trainer, leading numerous classes each week, she's a machine!). Well done Amber.

To the task!

We might have been a little giddy to be running over to one of our favourite organisations, Wildcat Wilderness, so we whipped ourselves up just a tiny bit more with some warm-up fun, before running through Ladywell Fields and Catford. We were greeted by Maria, who quickly told any newcomers about the wonderful work that goes on here, with a little nod to Vic, who comes along outside our own sessions and, just this weekend, uncovered a tree that she has been bashing her way towards for a while. To mark this, she will be honoured with a path named after her. Really!

Shed-loads of experience!

Once everyone had been briefed on the various tasks, had grabbed gloves and any tools they might need, the different teams set-to before the light started to fall. We had a number of areas being worked on:

• A large team worked steadily along the path between the WIlderness and the entrance, filling wheelbarrows with rubbish, carrying rusted metal and passing this on to Stephen and Chris, who were in charge of putting everything in the skip.

• Another team worked along the edges of this path, to clear away all the dumped waste, using a handy shopping trolley (there's always a shopping trolley) as transport.

• Inside the garden area, another group worked thoughtfully to lift the shed base, so they could continue levelling the surface, ready for the brand new shed to go up (a lot of 'to me, to you' went on here).

• Deep inside the wilderness were Sean and Rosemary, weed-bashers in hand, clearing yet more brambles to create new paths to link the different areas (it took me quite some time to find them!).

When our time was up and everyone stood back to survey the results of their efforts, it was clear that all our energy had make quite a difference. Particularly impressive was the pile of metal that had now disappeared, having filled a substantial area when we arrived, excellent work!

We will return to the Wilderness soon and, now we have light, there will be many opportunities to explore in the coming months. Our run back to Glass Mill was a chatty one, I'm pretty sure people must be drawn to look out of their windows to see what all the noise is about, sorry! As we stretched, we talked about our next run, on Easter Monday (yes, we do run on Bank Holidays!), when we will pop over to Goldsmiths Community Centre - sign up here to join in (there may be treats). Post-run, a few of us enjoyed a pizza-social at the newly-opened Mamma Dough in Ladywell, rounding off the evening with a rousing 'Happy Birthday' to Lucy.

Before I see you next, don't forget to enjoy your hot cross buns, find all the eggs and share the love :)