GoodGym, gives you wings

Under a weirdly orange/grey/golden sky, 33 runners leapt across the borough to Crofton Books, covering 4km in total.

Excitement levels were through the roof tonight! So much to celebrate, birthdays (loads in October!), achievements (well done racers Conroy, Nykolette, Ivo, Clare and Sarah) and good deeds (an abundance of missions and coach visits in the past week, well done)! We also had the honour of seeing Jacqueline wearing her lovely new wings - did you know that, when you've done 100 good deeds, you get a special red t-shirt with wings on the back? Check out the photos to see how wonderful she looks.

Welcome to Lewisham!

We had a fair few visitors tonight, some new to GoodGym group runs - hi-five to Chrystal and Jess - some new to Lewisham - SE13 love to Johanna, Gennie, Ivo, and Gosia,. Phew, so many new faces and names to remember!

Chrystal was joining us this evening to speak to our runners about all things GoodGym and to experience her first ever group run (she is a regular coach runner, so has many good deeds under her belt, but no group runs!). Her podcast will be coming out in November, so keep an eye on Twitter @StancePodcast or @GGLewisham and you can listen to previous podcasts here.

Record breaker?

The other thing that was elevating our excitement levels was the very real prospect of smashing our attendance record (34, at our first ever group run in January 2016). After a brief intro in the foyer, we swept out into the blustery and strangely eerie grip of Storm Ophelia, all set to do our name-check and head-count...31, 32, 33. 33! We just needed Stephen to jog up and we would have matched our previous record, oh well, there's always next week.

Warmed up after a few little games, we ran together through Ladywell, with Lucy and Conroy making sure nobody was left behind and were soon arriving at Crofton Books, where we were met by Jason and Silvana. This space is vast, with lots of nooks and crannies for eager volunteers to position themselves. Jason allocated tasks and everyone quickly set to work. The various jobs being undertaken tonight were:

• Finishing off the painting in the entrance (started by us a while back!)

• Venturing into the cellar to locate any vintage (60s and 70s) books for an upcoming sale (you can see from the photos that there were some niche 70s manuals to be found)

• Sorting and ordering the books in the bookshop

• Creating a lovely display of some very old and beautiful books

• Pulling out the books in order to clean the shelves, then returning the books in exactly the same order (v.important Clare)

• Organising the audiobooks

• Something outside that shall remain a mystery

With the music playing and the chatter at top volume, the tasks were flown through at great speed. Before long, we had our countdown and pretty much had to drag the more pedantic members of our group away from the not-quite-properly-alphabetised books and gather for a group photo, accessorised with a feather duster. Fancy.

With no problem

As our regular runners know, we can't return from Crofton Books without some Hilly Fields fun. With a large group and short on time, we split up into smaller groups and did some superb chain running up Montague Avenue, perfect training for our local parkrun. One more run up and we continued over the top, enjoying a lit-up London to our left, then ran down, down, down, back to Glass Mill. What a great session everyone, these tasks just don't get done without your help.

Some runners just kept on running, all the way to the Ladywell Tavern, with so much to celebrate, it was social time, something we like to do every so often, giving us a chance to chat even more!

Next week is going to be a good 'un. A brand new task for us, at Besson Street Community Garden. Expect shovelling, shifting, spreading and lifting, an all-round excellent upper-body workout. Sign up here to enjoy the fun.