Sowing Our Wild Seeds

Eleven athletes took on Lewisham on a beautiful spring evening, running a total of 6km, clearing some rubbish and sowing their wild seeds along the way

We had to think as well as run on our feet this Monday, as our original task had to be postponed until a later date. This did give us the chance to tackle a particularly neglected and messy area near the back of Lewisham Shopping Centre, that had been brought to our attention previously and was in dire need of some GoodGym love.

We were delighted to welcome first-timers Emma and Louise into the fold and to say welcome back to some familiar faces who have been away, so lovely to have you back! As we were being a little ad-hoc this evening, we embraced the gorgeous sunset and made our way over to Ladywell Fields for some run fun. As we were now good an warm, we paused at a bridge to do some dynamic stretches - avoiding the little dog that seemed to think it would be fun to run between kicking legs - before weaving through the trees to see the fallen tree, now cleared from the bridge after Storm Katie last week.

As this wasn't hill night (awwwwwwww!), we looked up a hill then politely turned away to embark on a bit of fartlek: running hard between various lamp-posts, bins and benches - this is good stuff if you want to build up to getting faster over longer distances...and easy to slot into your running week. We tackled the curly bridge - for some reason people groan when they see it, but maaaan, it's a joy to leap up! Do it! Now we steadied and slowed and agreed to a little time trial, about 850m taken on with gusto and determination, a steady stream of red shirts under the orange sky.

Sigh

And now to our task! Amazingly, it looked like the area had been spring cleaned when we got there, with the worst of the litter having been cleared away. Damn it. This didn't mean our GoodGoodGymmers couldn't still manage to fill about four sacks with rubbish, with eagle eyes and stealth-like moves. Of course, we could count on Caireen to find us some treasure (remember the video tape at Crofton Park Library?) and she didn't disappoint with a little purple transformer/creature/man figure.

By now, Conroy was getting creative with a big stick, 'raking' the soil in preparation for some guerilla gardening (on a small scale mind, remember this was a bit last-minute!). Little pools of poppy seed, cornflower, daisy and so on were gently sprinkled across the ground, and fingers were crossed for a little shower to encourage germination. We hope to glimpse a smattering of colour in the months ahead, with our contribution 'to brighten a dark corner'.

Aaaaahnd stretch

Welcome words after a few core stability exercises, working the plank in a few directions, fighting the shakes and staying strong. Stay strong people, until next week.