I believe in Angels, GoodGym provides Angels

Last night 14 of us congregated in the lobby of Solutions Gym, ready to set off on our run to St Augustines' Church. We welcomed Louisa to her first GoodGym session, Louisa is no stranger to running but following completion of the Richmond Park 10k she has decided to set her sights on doing shorter distances for the time being.

Following a week in Morocco Sarah had returned looking relaxed and rejuvinated from her time away, I could hear Mo filling her in on what she missed last week "the cookie".

Following our warm up we set off to South Croydon towards St Augustines, being one of our longer runs after the first km together we split the group into two Group one being led by me with Daniel and Ian back marking, group two led by Juliet with Nicola back marking.

When we arrive at the task Sue (task owner) had already started. She had with her job cards ranging light to heavy with a list of task for us to complete. Having got to the task first group 1 had first dibs at what task they wanted to do, they selected heavy/heavyish and moderate. Sue relayed what it was she wanted them to do and they set of to their various stations which Sue had already set up prior to our arrival.

On arrival of group 2, they too was given the option of the type of task they wanted to complete, their was a mixture of selections. Task of the night went to Juliet, Sheridan and Ros they had the task that there wasn't a job card for it was the really light option or so they think it was. They were tasked with stopping the dandy lions from spreading. They were asked to go around the church yard to collect the heads of the dandy lions, but leave the daisies and honeycombs. They all had a smile on their faces as they had the pick of the bunch. They quickly collected the head of the dandy lions behind the church and thought they had got them all until they wen to the front of the church and was given a pleasant surprise, there was a lot more in the front to collect.

Mo, Daniel, Sara moved the rubbish closer to the gate for the delivery of the skip (our task on 7th May), once they had completed that they then went to the compost heap to dig it over, remove roots and toys.

Ian, Ingrid, Louisa and Zara was tasked with transporting soil to a patch being prepared to be cultivated but also to sieve the soil to separate the stones and rubbles. They carried the soil over to the patch but with only one sieve, 4 person was too much for the task so Zara and Louisa break away and joined Mo, Daniel and Sara on the compost heap.

Nicola, Ellie and Karim carried leaves to two new compost heaps being built, for future use. At least when we visit next year we can say we were the architects behind the two new compost heaps.

With 5 minutes to go and me informing the group of the time Sue, exclaimed 5 minutes! My first thought was, what did we miss that we would be able to complete in 5 minutes but Sue quickly followed up her exclamation with "Good as I have run out of task for you to do". Having completed all our task listed on Sue's job cards we were treated to coconut pastries and fruit bread while we had a natter with Sue. She asked about other tasks we have been to and wanted to know what other treats we had received, on completion of our task.

Don't quote me on this but who knows come the 7th May we may be blessed with some wine!! It was never requested!!

On the run back we did a few out and back along with some squats, hill repeats and tricep dips. (all exercises except for hill repeats, out and back were completed when we had stopped to regroup) We are now back to completing our stretches outside so this week we were unable to do our abs session, and given the distance covered we did not have enough time for it. However next week our run will be a lot shorter 5 mins walk at the most but I did hear someone say "knowing Conroy he will take the long route to get at least a mile" I can't say they are wrong on that but I do know we will have time for an extended fitness session.

Thank you Nicola for back marking and well done Sheridan on your longest run todate, you survived!!

Next week we are visiting our friends over at ECCO, sign up here its within walking distance.

Upcoming events

• Community mission delivering leaflets about St Christopher's fun walk on 19 May 2019 sign up here

• GoodGym Euro Trip

• Last year GoodGym took part in the London relayand its back again this year with a few added extras are you interested in participating? There is bound to be GoodGym representations again this year.

• One of the most exciting runs I did in 2018, will be on 12 June 2019, 3km team relay in Crystal Palace Park The Dino Dash get your team together if not just sign up here and create a team on the day.

GoodGym Olympics, 3 August 2019 GoodGym Croydon NEEDS YOU!