Don't shoe want me baby?

Stepping lively through Lewisham, a super sixteen took to the streets to help not one, but two charities this week, covering between 5 and 9.5km!

That's right, this week our goodness was being shared far and wide, with one group heading to GRACE and the other over to the Lewisham Disability Coalition. After a few weeks of epic proportions, my late afternoon was punctuated by messages from people saying they had succumbed to the lurgy, injury or work. Our group was smaller and you know, this turned out to be just perfect, with exactly the right number at each task! Get well soon all our poorly or injured folk, we miss you!

To start our evening, we celebrated all things parkrun, with a few of our runners bagging themselves a PB on Saturday morning, well done Chris (though he FORGOT HIS BARCODE!), Vic and Jacqueline. Well done also to Caireen and Kim, who both took part in 10k races yesterday, with Caireen encouraging and supporting a friend around their first 10k, good work. We also welcomed a new face, Chris, who has (like lots of our runners) worked her way through the wonderful Couch-2-5k and has been testing her new-found running skills at our beloved Hilly Fields parkrun, welcome Chris, have some Lewisham Love!

All hail EP!

There has been talk of temperatures dropping below zero this week, but we weren't going to let a bit of chill put us off! Out we stomped for a game of over and under (it involves balls) before our two groups went in different directions, one taking a round trip of 5k to Lee and the other closer to 9.5k to Bellingham. Here we should all step back and admire everything Emma. By the end of the evening, she had completed 17.4km!! Some people like to do their long run on a Sunday morning, but Emma is made of tougher stuff, taking it on after a day's work and slotting a good deed in the middle!

What are shoe looking at?!

Scooping up a couple of people as we went (Hi Nasima! Hi Nykolette!), the GRACE group met Claire, who had a different kind of task for us this week, sorting and pairing shoes, working out if they were suitable to be used again, or should they go to the recycling box. We all agreed that after our visits to GRACE, we are all a lot more particular about what we donate to charity, seeing all the work that goes into sorting through donations. As always, we uncovered some treasures, including some ridiculously fancy gold high-rise heels, some delightful silver tap shoes, some weird toe-less Converse and the biggest pair of boots ever (see above, with Ali's head for scale). Quality control was high (Clare was particularly scrupulous!) and the recycling pile grew and grew. We also had quite a few odd shoes, sadly sitting, awaiting their other halves. Before long we were wrapping up the task (and the shoes-for-recycling) and heading back towards Glass Mill.

Meanwhile, over in Bellingham...

We were contacted by Simon at the Lewisham Disability Coalition, to see if we could help to move some furniture that has been clogging up their office space. With the run being a bit longer, we had a smaller team of six, who were happy to cover the distance and off they went, led by Conroy (thank you Conroy!) and here's what he had to say...

Simon says

Six brave souls took the challenge to run 8.8k to Lewisham Disability Coalition, to help them move some boxes to somewhere more accessible. We initially ran past the task but, with the help of Simon, we were able to turn around and find where we should be. We were met by Simon at the task who instructed us on what he wanted us to do. Instructions received, we quick formed a human chain (Adele: did Emma have anything to do with this?) and began shifting boxes from one office to another. After clearing the boxes from the back office, we went to the front office where all the boxes were and Simon explained he would like them in three piles: 'paperwork, technology and what the hell was that?' With categories like those, there were bound to be some interesting finds. We were taken back to the past, with old floppy disks looking great in their storage box, old video recording tapes and an all-in-one scanner and fax machine.

A floppy disk, also called a floppy, diskette, or just disk, is a type of disk storage composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic enclosure lined with fabric that removes dust particles.

Task completed, we headed back to Glass Mill along the Waterlink Way, where we did some sprints between the lamp posts, then back down to a jog, back in time to join in on the cool-down stretches being led by Adele.

We all regrouped in the foyer of Glass Mill, stretching and hearing about this week's GoodGym Social, which will be in Holborn this time - sign up to meet runners from other areas and to cast your vote in the International Pun of the Month (we are on the shortlist!). Next week's run will take us to another new task, over in Brockley. We will run around 5km and help out with lots of different tasks at MOSAC - click on the link to read about the work they do. Don't forget we have a starter session on Saturday, over at Manor Park, where we will be pulling on our waders to clean the River Quaggy!

See you soon!