50 Shades of Magnolia

13 runners were carried on the wind through Penge this evening, covering 3km of running and also the walls of Melvin Hall with paint.

Thanks this week go to Helen for her marvellous title pun.

Lots of amazing running going on again at the weekend! Well done to Louise and Stuart, who joined in with the GoodGym London long run, meeting runners from other areas and ending up in Greenwich for a post-run drink. Nice! Great work from Clare, who not only ran 18km, but slipped a challenging 10k race into the middle! The other rather special news this week is that Louise went on her first coach run - this is where you are paired with an older person for a weekly social visit. Quite often the people we visit are isolated and might not see anyone for days, so Louise is doing something really great :)

No newcomers this week, but how lovely to see Dan after a little break, good to have you back Dan!

Hallright on the night

We warmed up a little, what with yesterday's milder weather being a big old tease and the wind whipping the cold air around our lycra-clad bodies. Our run wasn't too long, taking us down to Melvin Hall for more painting (we're getting there!). As I ran, I heard about the route that our Sunday long runners went on, it sounded great, a sunny day and a riverside run! We also chatted about our neighbours being on BBC Breakfast at the weekend, fancy. On arrival at Melvin Hall, we were met by Kathy, who showed us down to our space, passing us the tin of primer as we went. Hannah got stuck straight in with this, enjoying covering up the bands of darker colour at last. The rest of the group filled trays with white paint and got rolling.

Is this alwhite?

A few minutes later Louise appeared, 'I'm pretty sure we used magnolia in the 'peach room' before...' Oops! Back came the trays and we quickly returned the paint to the tub, washed the rollers and started again...with the right paint! With a committee meeting in the adjacent room and an antenatal class in the main hall, we tried to keep our talk quiet (not easy) and missed out on my usual banging tunes ('Hoorah!' say my runners).

Painting the town (lucky) red

In the corridor, Stuart and Stephen were talking about Chinese New Year. Now, I hadn't intended for this to happen, but I seem to be making a weekly list, so this week we're finding out people's Chinese zodiac signs.

• Stuart - Ox (steadfast, solid, a goal-oriented leader)
• Stephen - Pig (extremely nice, good-mannered and tasteful)
• Hannah - Snake (seductive, gregarious, introverted, generous, charming)
• Adele - Rat (quick-witted, clever, charming, sharp and funny)
• Jane- Rooster (practical, resourceful, observant, analytical, straightforward)
• Rachael - Dog (loyal, faithful, honest)
• Harriet - Golden Dragon (energetic and warm-hearted, charismatic, lucky in love)
• David - Pig (as above)
• Louise - Tiger (authoritative, self-possessed, has strong leadership qualities, charming)
• Dan - Sheep (creative, thinkers, wanderers, unorganized)
• Clare - Tiger (as above)
• Kate - Water Snake (as above)
• Helen - Tiger (as above)

How interesting that all the tigers congregated in the same room, the collective noun for a group of tigers is a 'streak' or an 'ambush', no comment! As we are now in the year of the dog, it seems Rachael is meant to wear lucky red, how appropriate!

Having painted everything we could in the time we had (including our own clothes in places, though Kate gets all the cheers tonight for her awesome painting onsesie!), we washed our equipment and packed it all away until next time. We didn't dare use the kitchen to wash up this week, with it having been newly fitted and looking very lovely (thanks to the new local Bunnings store).

Talking of which...I had planned for our return run to go via the recreation ground, but took the wrong road, so where better to lunge ourselves silly than Bunnings' car park?! It was all about the glutes this week. It's very easy to let your quads and hamstrings do the work when you're running but, if you really want to feel the force, you need to engage your glutes. A couple of rounds of lunge variations and we certainly knew where our glutes were located. Stretching them out, we contemplated next week (sign up!) and Stuart suggested we also hang around afterwards for a drink (and food if you like, it is hungry work, after all!). Good thinking Stuart. See you then!