Plumming the depths of this wilderness re-tree-t

Embracing the most beautiful, crisp and sunny day, thirteen of Lewisham's most enthusiastic runner volunteers tackled 2km of running and bished, bashed and smashed their way through the WIldcat Wilderness.

Over the next few months, we will be having a few Big Half starter sessions in Lewisham, a chance for regulars to get in some extra good-doing and for newcomers to see what it's all about. Today we had three first-timers joining us and hopefully they felt welcomed by our regulars. Lewisham Love goes out to Euan, Julia and Donna - click on their names to give them a great big cheer.

The great thing about a GoodGym starter session is that they're often in the daytime, so we get to visit tasks that we might not get to on these dark, cold, winter evenings. This time we had the pleasure of popping over to the very special Wildcat Wilderness, where Maria and her team had 50 people signed up to come along and make Christmas wreaths and other festive activities, 50 people! Before we ran there though, we got to know each other's names a bit better and did a little warm up, very important before we run!

At the space, we were shown an assortment of tools, with everyone donning gloves and grabbing whichever sharp implement took their fancy. Maria led us through the wilderness to an area that is being cleared to make way for an outdoor kitchen. At one end we could (just about) see a plum tree that needed releasing and it was our job to work through the brambles and other undergrowth to reach the tree, to allow for it to be pruned. In other parts of this space, we had a team of lumberjacks, sawing down a sad-looking oak, that couldn't survive in this spot, then another tree that was making life difficult for a rather lush, green tree around it.

As always, it felt like we had been here for about five minutes, but time was running out. One last push by the plum tree seekers, who did indeed manage to reach it and by our lumberjacks, who sawed hard to take down the last bit of trunk, amazing work!

As with our group runs, we try and fit in a little fitness session at our starter sessions. This time we ducked down towards the River Ravensbourne and made use of a little space to do some partner strength work and running (once everyone had understood what the heck I was going on about!). The aim of this game was to activate and strengthen our glutes, those all-important power sources for our running.

Well done everyone, it was lovely to welcome some new runners and to see a few regulars in the daylight, aren't you gorgeous?! If you enjoyed this session, we have another Saturday starter session on December 9th and, of course, our regular Monday group run, meeting at Glass Mill at 6.45pm.