Trowels and Tribulations

For our last group run of 2016, eighteen enthusiastic athletes took to the streets of Lewisham, to help Lewisham Gardens transform a local space, to bring colour and texture to a little corner of our borough. We ran and walked, carried, dug, distributed, planted and scattered and had a good, hard fitness session with a few festive twists to get us in the mood for Christmas.

A BIG GG thank you to Dave for this week's pun/title!

Our start point was all a-buzz tonight, with returning runners, visitors from neighbouring boroughs (hello Alex and Tom) and two newcomers all the way from...Glass Mill! A huge welcome to Jaz and Steffi, who work at our start point (or have worked there previously) and have been watching us in action for a while now. Well done on coming and joining in, it was great to have you along! We also had a flying visit from our local councillor, Stella Jeffrey, who very kindly dropped off some spare trowels for our task tonight.

After last week's epic trip to Eltham, this week, in contrast, featured a very short run, all the way across the road to Lewisham Station. Of course, we still need to warm up, even if we are just running to the traffic lights. A big circle, a head-count and a name game to wake us all up (well done, it's hard when you're put on the spot, I pretty much forget my own name in those situations). Once we'd established who we were, we turned to the person next to us and shook hands, then played a little game of thigh-tag, where you have to try and tag the other person's leg with the back of your hand (Alex and I were playing a very polite version of this game, but I could see some major arm-wrestling going on around me, tough stuff). With it being very nearly THE BIG DAY, we had to give our warm up a bit of a festive feel, so good old British Bulldog featured Dasher, Dancer, Prancer and Vixen, with Rudolph (of course) in the middle, trying to catch his reindeer friends.

We were very excited to be setting off to our first task with Lewisham Gardens, who take neglected, bare or sad-looking spaces around the borough and thoroughly brighten them up by planting, landscaping and refreshing them. We were due to meet Anne-Marie over on Station Approach but, when we got there, we found the new seating area had been surrounded by barriers. The first rule of a GoodGym task is don't be put off by barriers, what barriers?! A little confusion ensued, with distracted commuters trying to join us and a quick phone call to locate our task-owner, who was glued to the spot at the bottom of the hill, where she had boxes of bulbs, seeds, rakes, forks and trowels, which she couldn't abandon. It seemed the archway by Maggie's Cafe was the place to be tonight, to hear all about Lewisham Gardens and work out a plan of action.

Everyone grabbed something to lighten the load and off we marched, looking slightly intriguing with our array of tools, back towards Cornmill Gardens. Obeying the new crossing system, we chatted and enjoyed a friendly beep of support from a passing ambulance. It was great having Jaz along at this point, because she was able to tell us that the fabulous light display at Glass Mill is interactive and reacts to the noise levels in the vicinity - it was flashing quite excitedly, with it being rush-hour! Anne-Marie told us that there was another site that we had been saving for another day, but which would be perfect for us to work on tonight, especially after the rain, the ground would be nice and soft.

I have seen this beautiful Mulberry tree many, many times, as I cycle or run past on my way to GoodGym. It's clearly been here a long time, by far pre-dating the houses around it, its thick gnarly branches curling around and, in the summer, heavy with deep red berries, which fall and stain the ground beneath it. This week, we gathered underneath the tree ('here we go round the mulberry bush' anyone?!) and found space to crouch, gently pushing daffodil, tulip and alium bulbs into the soil. Before our volunteers got too muddy, Anne-Marie kindly passed around a big tub of Heroes for everyone to enjoy - how appropriate! Eeach person found a role for themselves, some preferring to rake the surface, clearing any litter, leaves or twigs - well done to Conroy, Tom, Sean and Alex for locating bins and politely asking neighbours for spare bags to put the waste into (whilst getting in a bit of running).

This is the kind of task where you put your head down, catching up with the person next to you and completely lose track of time. Even with a bit of extra time available to us tonight, our task was over before we knew it. It was at this point that people stood up and stretched, rubbed their eyes, stepped back and commented on how good it feels to complete a task. Before we ran off, hands were cupped to hold some wildflower seeds, which were carefully scattered over the neatly raked surface. We will definitely be scheduling in our runs to enjoy the changing colours of this flowerbed next spring and summer!

Shaking off the soil, we said goodbye (until the new year) to Anne-Marie and took in a wide loop of Glass Mill to warm back up again before our fitness session. Thank you to Roni, who was my elfish assistant, holding the Bag o' Baubles. Tonight was all about brightening up our area, so we did a little bit of guerrilla tree decoration, with a bauble relay...look out as you wander through Cornmill Gardens, towards Lewisham Station...

With cheeks all a-glow, time for a bit of Twelve Days of Fitmas (GROOOOAAANNN!), a HiiT session comprising of six sets of moves, repeated twice. We had rounds of forty seconds active, twenty seconds rest, with some very determined, jumping squats, planks, tricep dips, lunges...well done to Nykolette and Conroy, who just went for it, forgoing the offer of a bench and taking their workout to the soggy grass!

All group runs end with a stretch, so in we went (taking in a bit of mud, sorry!), to stretch out our worked muscles and enjoy a mince pie or ginger biscuits and hear about what's coming up next. No group run next week, but we will be off to the Catford Constitutional Club for our Christmas meal. On January 7th, we will take GoodGym to Hilly Fields parkrun, where we will pace runners and walkers to a PB and volunteer in the various roles that make parkrun happen.

I'd like to say a very big thank you to everyone who has joined us in 2016, our first year in Lewisham. In January, we will be celebrating our anniversary, so keep an eye on the events section to see what we have planned.