The Aces of Spades

On a freezing cold Monday in Lewisham 23 runners covered 5km, shifted soil, cleared leaves and weeds and tackled a 1km time trial.

Big thanks to Oli for tonight's rocking title pun and others throughout this report.

My mind is utterly blown by the extent of goodness on display locally over the weekend! We had people over at South Norwood parkrun, supporting our friends at GoodGym Croydon through volunteering, we had Olivia completing her first mission AND community mission in one morning and we had a whole host of people at our Beecroft Garden task and out there running to help people in their homes and to visit for a weekly chat. Just incredible.

All this effort has edged us that much closer to our goals in the January Challenge, with an extra special mention going to Nykolette, who did three good deeds on Saturday, taking her up to fourteen for January, wow!

All our Lewisham Love this week goes to Alex who joined us for her very first GoodGym group run and to Nicky and Kate who came on tour from GoodGym Kingston, to accompany Alex, how lovely!

After a very quick warm-up, we stepped lively up and over to Crofton Park, with Nykolette very kindly keeping us together at the back. As we ran past Brockley and Ladywell Cemetery, I heard about how GoodGym Kingston had a graveyard task at Hallowe'en, complete with skeleton costumes and everything! They're fearless in South West London! Arriving at the school, I was very excited to see all the work that has been done since our last visit and I wasn't disappointed. What incredible progress everyone has made, with only a little more digging to be done.

Ramping up the effort

Surrounded by wheelbarrows, it was easy for people to find a piece of equipment and get on with the task. A group of determined diggers worked at levelling the last bit of soil in the stepped area, some powerful pushers took barrowfuls of soil around to the skip and, around the front, our wonderful weeders tended to the raised beds. At the rapidly filling skip, we had a team of turbo tippers, taking receipt of the heavy barrows and spreading the dumped soil over the surface, making room for the next load. The ramp wheeling techniques were impressive, with Kim in particular embracing the added bit of 'hill' work.

Don’t forget to serve your tipper

It really was a hive of activity tonight, with work going on in all areas of the playground. Keeping an eye on everyone kept me out of mischief and it was time for a five minute countdown before I knew it. A few last barrow runs, a gathering of weeds and the scraping off of sticky mud and it was time for our group photo (apologies here to Oli, who really does have an actual head in real life). We will return to Beecroft soon, to see the project through, so keep an eye on the group run page.

Nightskipper

It's been a while since we did our 'monthly' Time Trial, so I thought we should try and squeeze one in before January is out. For those who don't know, the TT is four laps of the area outside our start point, which is near enough 1km (and is a Strava segment if you're into that sort of thing). It was a great effort from everyone, with Tom, then Oli racing in, closely chased by Emily. Thank you to Nykolette and Amber, who encouraged Clare to give all she had for that last push to the finish!

A couple of things for your diary:

• On Saturday afternoon our neighbours, GoodGym Bromley, have a community mission, collecting donations for the Rainbow Trust at Crystal Palace Sainsbury's.

• On Sunday Nykolette has arranged for us to volunteer at the Cancer Research Winter Run. There are various roles to take on, so have a look here to sign up and find out more.

• Next week we have a brand new task, over at the Salvation Army in Deptford. We will also have a smaller group heading to GRACE to help set up their new shop space, sign up here.