Springbank forward, fall back

As the rain came down, 26 waterproof wonders ran 5km to plant hedging, fruit trees and to create a new path in Hither Green.

Did you see that rain from your sofa?! We didn't just see it, we embraced it! That's what it's all about. When you're part of this team (family?), you sign up and you come, rain or shine (or snow and ice recently!). Well done everyone for turning out on a grotty, misty, murky evening. Joining us tonight, for his first run in Lewisham (having made his debut over in Greenwich last week), was David, give him lots of Lewisham Love!

I might have been stalling slightly, not wishing to venture outside, but I also had a lot to cover in my pre-run briefing tonight, after another amazing weekend of racing. Of course, some of our racers were having a well-earned rest (apart from Conroy, who made it out tonight!), so we celebrated in their absence.

• A very big congratulations to Sarah, who ran the Manchester Marathon yesterday, bagging herself an 18 minute PB, amazing!

• Well done also to Nykolette and Conroy, who ran the Croydon Half-Marathon in That Rain. We also gave a big cheer to Bradley here, for standing around for over two hours to support them and even joining Conroy on the road, to run the last mile with Nykolette, encouraging her all the way.

• There was also a bit of sociable running going on, with Caireen, Lucy and Jacqueline going on a Gin Run, learning about the history of gin and, well, enjoying a tipple at the end!

Let's get physical

Our warm-up saw us playing a little game of 'Everyone's It', with some nice squatting thrown in. We also did some dynamic work to get our bodies ready to run. Thank you to Clare for being tonight's back-marker, keeping us together and making sure nobody was left behind. Before long, we were approaching the wonderful Springbank Road Community Garden, where we had a lovely task last summer, when it was in full, colourful bloom - tonight it was looking particularly lush! Straight away, Anne-Marie set-to, telling everyone about the different jobs and handing out tools and equipment to enable us to do these jobs safely. As we were working partly on the station embankment, we had hi-vis and a good old H&S briefing (this is where I get my serious voice on and do a bit of shushing). Once we were split into three groups, we went our separate ways to:

• dig over and create a new path in the Springbank Road Community Garden. This will now be covered in membrane and then gravel, to allow volunteers to move easily within the space.

• planting native hedging (including hawthorn and sloe) along the Hither Green Station embankment, with a swift action that involved digging with a trowel, popping in the 'plug', placing a bamboo and wrapping and protecting it all with a plastic tube.

• planting three large fruit trees on the embankment on the other side of the track, with a great deal of (weird and random) litter needing to be cleared before the digging and planting could be done - has anyone in the HG area lost a tin of chicken soup, unopened, sell-by date 2019?

Treemendous!

With everyone spread around the vicinity, I jogged between the spaces, making sure people were safe, engaged and also taking plenty of photos (thank you to Kim and Emma for some of tonight's photos). Once we had gathered our tools, handed back (reluctantly?) the hi-vis, paired the gloves and eaten some biscuits (thank you A-M!) it was time to go. We will be coming back here during the Hither Green Festival in May, so sign up if you want to see how the garden has grown.

Our run back down the hill was a drizzly one, but we were very soon back at Glass Mill, where I broke it to the group that it was time for a trial, our 'monthly' time trial. It's been a while and our run was short enough to leave sufficient energy to push around Cornmill Gardens, right? When you consider how slippery it was, how hard everyone had worked at the task and how down right grim the weather was, it was particularly impressive to see you all push so determinedly around the (almost) km course, well done! If you want to see the Strava segment and check out the leaderboard, have a look here.

Next week, we will return to our friends at the delightful Seniors, expect a longer run of around 8km (with views), a variety of indoor and outdoor tasks and possibly a post-run social to wish all the best to our friend Chris. Good luck on Sunday, to our Brighton Marathon runners Hannah, Chris, Eleanor and Chris. It's a super-friendly race, with great support and I heartily recommend stepping out of your running shoes at the end and dipping your tired feet in the sea.

:)