Do you come here Crofton?

With a spring in their step, 26 of our borough's finest took on 5km, cleared, weeded and raked paths and still found enough energy to run hard up and down a hill.

It's a new month, so time to celebrate Lewisham's Heroes for June. What a joy to see some new leaders up on the board, well done everyone!

• Distance: Chris, with 214km(!)

• Good Deeds: Neck and neck with five good deeds each were Monica, Deirdre and Jacqueline

• Cheering: Nykolette (we hope Conroy rediscovers his cheering mojo soon)

• Special Award for June, for Commitment to Racing: Nykolette, who seems to be racing every other day right now!

We had one newcomer this week, Ben, who is a trainee journalist and joined us on our run to learn about all things GoodGym (Lewisham), welcome Ben. We did have a fair few tourists this week, what a treat! Strolling over the border from Greenwich were Vickie and Mridula (though Mridula is a bit Lewisham too) and, all the way from Wandsworth was Jack and, on number eight of twenty one areas on his tour of GoodGym London was Graham, amazing tourism Graham! We had so much to celebrate this week, with a weekend of excelling, in running great distances and in smashing PBs. Well done to Nykolette and Nadine in their races (and great work Nadine, on your awesome PB!), kudos to Kim and Eva who, with the help, support and encouragement of Stephen and Conroy, ran the furthest they've ever run before! On the subject of running far, Vickie only went and ran 56km over the weekend, her birthday present to her Dad and here she was, running around and doing good. Inspiring stuff.

Tonight's warm-up saw us taking it in turns to shuttle run/high-knee lift/heel-flick/skip until we were well and truly warm. Heading out through Ladywell, to the sound of friendly car horn toots, we caught up on the weekend's news and looked forward to a brand new task. I have often looked at this beautiful space, as I've waited for a train at Crofton Park and wondered how we might get in here and help out. Well, what a pleasure it was to meet Ben (a different Ben, not journalist Ben) at the Community Garden and find out where we might make a difference.

The garden was looking super lush and much more fulsome than when I came here in the spring to meet Ben initially. Lots has been happening, with railway sleepers (appropriate!) being built into raised beds and lots of planting going on in the existing spaces. Ben briefly told everyone about the space and outlined the work for the evening, clearing the paths of weeds and anything else that shouldn't be there and getting it ready for our next visit, where we will lay bark on the surface and fill the raised beds (wheelbarrow fun).

Little pockets of concentration soon found their own space, with the various tools being used to tease out weeds (or smash, hack and demolish some of the more stubborn specimens). Time was taken every so often to rub the leaves of the amazingly healthy-looking herbs that filled one bed and to take a closer look at the more unusual plants, such as the artichoke. Treasure was building up along the edges of the beds, vintage drinks bottles (Fanta, we think, date unknown), metal tool ends (very piratey-looking), rusted ring things (brake pads apparently) and lots and lots of broken glass - it seems this used to be a bit of a dumping ground before it was taken over as a garden.

Stepping back once the time was up, everyone was very pleased with the result, perfect for our next visit, really great work everyone!

Our group-photo-taking took a comedy turn, as Ben (who had been doing some filming for his report) asked us to shout out something appropriate and 'not too cheesy'. We totally ignored this request and ramped up the cheese to the highest level, hopefully this was what was needed. Off to Hilly Fields and everyone's favourite hill (those were cheers I heard as we rounded the end of the road weren't they?).

Why do hill training?

• It helps build strength

• It helps build endurance

• It encourages good form/posture

• It helps you overtake your nemesis at Hilly Fields parkrun

Tonight we did things a little differently, with the focus being on the downhill. So many of us 'put on the brakes' when we run down hill but, if you ease off a little and let gravity do its work, you will find you run in a more relaxed way and will fly! All those things we looked at in our warm-up, high knees, strong arms and so on, all apply on the downhill too, just as they do when running up.

Great work here, you all looked so much more relaxed and hopefully felt the difference. Extra high-fives to Ali and Sarah, who only joined us for the first time last week , but were running hard throughout the evening and pushed themselves on this hill, no problem.

(we're pretty sure that Helen, Anita and Deirdre peeled off here to go to Brockley's Rock...they said they were going home, but...)

People always look a little stunned when I say 'Let's run up to the top!' just as they think it's all over, but really, it's one more and then a gorgeous downward glide all the way back to our start point :) Here we stretched and looked forward to next week, when we will visit the Honor Oak Adventure Playground (it's been a while), come with us, it's always fun.