For the shear Ladywell of it!

On a blustery, rainbowy, sunshiney, rainy, blowy, chucking-it-down kind of day, thirty tip top runner volunteers headed out into Lewisham, covering around 3km and clearing the Ladywell Wildlife Area.

I thought last week was a head-poppingly exciting week for celebrations, but this week seemed to top it off big time! First of all we congratulated Nykolette, who smashed her parkrun PB at the Hilly Fields 5th birthday on Saturday (well done to everyone who came to run, walk and volunteer). We also gave a big cheer for Emma (and Clare in her absence), who took on the very different challenge of the Bacchus Half-Marathon...dressed as Ginger Spice (as part of a team of - mostly male - Spice Girls). Over in France, Chris was at the similarly boozy Marathon Medoc (but wasn't around to feel the love tonight) and, up in Newcastle, at the Great North Run, Chris bagged himself a PB (but was clearly putting his feet up this evening), Stephen was chief cameraman, documentation specialist and PB-catcher as Sean, dressed in a rather fetching costume, attempted to crack the World Record for the fastest Gingerbread Man to complete a half-marathon. Blimey!

Of course, the biggest celebration tonight was for Jacqueline's now 104th good deed! Well done Jacqueline, good deed doing, coach running, BBC Breakfast starring super GoodGymmer!

Joining us for the first time this week were Jo, Rosie, Naomi, Suzanne and Sarah (who actually frequents GoodGym Greenwich, but joined us for a change this week). It was great to see Eve back with us after a little while and also to see Samuel, who does lots of missions, but can't always make a Monday evening.

As it was Jacqueline's evening, we did one of her favourite warm-up exercises, shin-tag, always a disappointment for me when I demonstrate it, as I'm actually pretty rubbish at it (note to self, practice at home). We then continued the weekend's ginger-flavoured theme with a game of 'Run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!' Of course, Sean had to take the role of baker here, catching the many Gingerbread (Wo)Men and recruiting them to his team. Sorry Sean, I imagine your legs are a little sore after chasing a World Record!

On arrival at Ladywell Fields, we gathered around the container that holds a wealth of fancy tools and everyone watched as I attempted to open the lock. There's something about the locks on gates in parks, they each have their own set of challenges. A big thank you to Conroy, who used all his might to lift the door, thus allowing me to release the lock. And we were in! So that's practice shin-tag and learn how to get past the secure fortresses that can be found in the parks of Lewisham, that's a lot of homework to keep me busy!

Once we had selected our tools, put on gloves, marched across the park and got through another lock challenge, we were in. Spots were found for the various jobs in this hidden gem, that is used by the pupils and staff at Holbeach Primary School, as an outdoor classroom.

• clearing the paths of brambles

• tackling the ivy that is encroaching on the paths

• picking litter inside this area and in the wider park

• digging spaces to position logs for the seating area

The light fell quickly tonight though and it was soon apparent that, even with a few head-torches and Conroy's fancy little light, we couldn't really see what we were doing, so it was time to gather our tools and head back to the shed. Great work everyone, the paths are much wider and safer for the children to enjoy and I'm sure we will be back here to restore the pond in the near future.

We now went on to warm our bodies back up, with some dynamic drills and stretches, then carried these moves through to our running, with some intervals to push ourselves around the park. Now, when I was planning tonight's session, I had pictured visibility, I had pictured being able to communicate a whistle across the park, but what followed took its own course and had an air of delightful chaos! Well done everyone for working hard, pushing yourselves to run faster and for tackling that little hill when we altered the course slightly. The sudden darkness certainly makes for an interesting fitness session!

Our stretches back at Glass Mill gave us a chance to hear about next week's group run, a new task at the Lewisham Irish Centre, so a run of about 4km in total and an indoor painting task. We also talked a little about racing, with the Petts Wood 10k coming up on October 8th - you can find out more and sign up here (don't forget to actually enter the race too, it's selling out!). To round up a lovely evening, a few of us headed around the corner to Levante, to enjoy some Turkish food and to catch up on all the news, completing the spicy theme with some post-kebab Gingerbread Runners.

See you all soon!