Don't be bashful, weed better get this done!

On a scorchio Bank Holiday Monday, sixteen superstars ran 7km, foregoing the pub garden in favour of a task at the Wildcat Wilderness.

What a gorgeous weekend! After what felt like the longest winter ever, we feel a great sense of joy to be able to lounge around outside, enjoying running, riding, swimming and socialising in the sunshine. A bit of extra heat doesn't put us off getting out and moving our bodies, with a group of our regulars heading over to Crystal Palace Park yesterday to take on a 10k race. Well done especially to Sarah and Bradley, who ran for the first time in their GoodGym Race Team vests (check the link here to find out more about the Race Team and how to get involved). It was lovely to welcome Ali back today, for her first run since completing the London Marathon a few weeks ago, pushing on through to run a fantastic time in such challenging weather, well done Ali.

The area next to our start point, where we like to do our warm-up, was covered in people this evening, chilling out, playing games and...dropping litter. Seriously people! If we didn't have a pressing task to get to a few kilometers away, we would have done a bit of 'plogging', but really, just take it home with you! Getting down to the serious business of warming up, we played a little team game with two balls and a bit of sprinting, then a few skater jumps and squats to fire us up to run. Thank you to Marta and Caireen for taking on the role of back-markers this evening, keeping us together. It was a lovely, if treacly, run, taking in Ladywell Fields and arriving at Wildcat WIlderness promptly and with enough energy left to tackle the task in hand.

Wildcat thing

Scooping up some tools, we made our way along the now lush and overgrown path, to meet Maria in the Wilderness. With the outdoor kitchen due to be built this Thursday, we were all set to continue the work we started, so wheeled rakes, forks, weed-bashers and picks along to our work zone (but not before we had a look at the newly-installed polytunnel - see photo - which will be the perfect place for workshops and growing). Tools were quickly grabbed and jobs chosen, with some people clearing yet more brambles, some using picks to try and remove extremely tough bramble roots, others clearing the metal, string and general 'stuff' that had been uncovered and taking it to the entrance and our last few raking up the chopped brambles, to then distribute them along cleared paths, to act as a surface to walk along.

Time seems to slip away here (oh, how I wish we could stop time and spend much longer at the task) and we were very quickly putting everything back in the wheelbarrows and taking a group photo. We wished Maria well with the kitchen build and look forward to visiting again in June. Running back through Ladywell, we were very tempted by the smell of pizza from Mama Dough, but kept going, like the serious athletes we are, to stretch back at our start point.

Good Luck Team Red Thunder!

This weekend is an exciting time for GoodGym racers, with over 100 runners heading out to Bucharest, to race various distances, cheer and support each other and to refresh and refuel with lots of delicious food and drink. Good luck to everyone who is taking part and we look forward to hearing all about it. For those of us who are still here, next week we will be off to Hither Green to help the Scouts, as part of the Hither Green Festival, sign up here. Enjoy the sunshine and see you soon!