A Mixture of Rungry and Garvenous

Sixteen runners passed through Ladywell and Crofton Park to tackle the garden area at the Honor Oak Community Centre, covering a total of 6km and smashing a few hills along the way.

This week, we were joined by Sarah, the new trainer for our neighbour, GoodGym Greenwich. Sarah will be flying solo in Greenwich from June 1st, so we showed her some Lewisham love as she led our session tonight. You can give Sarah some support here. We also welcomed two first-timers to our group run, give Scott and Silvia a cheer! It was also rather lovely to welcome back a few runners that we haven't seen for a while, no doubt encouraged out by the lovely evening and the prospect of some muddy fun.

What's your favourite biscuit?

Under a slightly heavy-sky (this passed), Sarah took us through our warm-up, lunging, skipping, trotting, side-stepping and toe-tapping. Our usual head-count took a sweet turn, as we were asked to share our favourite type of biscuit (not literally, this isn't GoodGym Islington!). Amazingly, in a group of sixteen people, we only had a couple of repeats towards the end (sorry, I really couldn't move away from the draw of a choc-chip-cookie), what a lot of crumbly variety! After making us drool, it was now time to run. Along Algernon Road into Ladywell we went, up past Ladywell and Brockley Cemeteries, breathing in the sweet air, up through Crofton Park, breathing in the Jerk chicken and across the railway line to our task.

We were met by Yvonne at the community centre. Everyone had a quick look at the overgrown front garden, a mass of nettles and deep-rooted sods of grass and, dividing into two groups, we left a team of determined weeders to get on with attacking this area. The rest of the runners grabbed tools as we passed through to the back of the building. Outside there is a large open space, with a small playground and a newly-mown grass area. Maurits grabbed himself a rake and set-to clearing the mounds of grass, creating neat piles at the edge. The rest of team? Well, they were quickly bent over, examining the undergrowth. The usual chin-rubbing and questioning began, 'Is this a weed?' could be heard echoing through the space. Our two resident gardeners were split between the two spaces, offering advice and knowledge where needed, thank you to Sarah, an avid allotment-owner and Kate, who told us about her garden, that is also home to two chickens!

The raised beds to the rear turned out to be hiding a rose garden and a selection of herbs, with apple mint and verbena making an appearance. As did some broccoli, but not the edible variety, just another of Jacqueline's weekly finds, probably buried by a child from the playgroup that meets here! The playgroup feel could also be seen in some of our tools (alongside a selection of 'proper', grown-up tools), as Niall carefully teased out massive dandelions with a tiny, weeny trowel and a slightly larger, but not much larger spade was found to be best left in the sandpit. Bags were quickly filled, in fact we counted twelve sacks making their way to the bin. At this point we wondered how we might make this aspect of the outdoor tasks a bit more eco-friendly, it seems so sad to just dump everything in the bin...we will look into the possibility of bringing compost sacks or similar along next time and, of course, turning over a well-stocked compost heap is an excellent and enjoyable task in itself!

Green composting

Our rear runners came through to the front of the building, but the front runners didn't seem to want to stop! Minutes ticked away, tools were prised from their fingers and Yvonne thanked everyone for all their hard work, waving us off towards the lovely Hilly Fields. We decided to be adventurous and took a different route, passing over another railway bridge, a little further along - this one allows you to see right along the track, super train-spotting potential! Along Adelaide Avenue and towards Eastern Road, our hill for the evening. Here, Sarah told us the plan: run up the hill as a group and, when the first person reaches the top, everyone jogs back down. Repeat. Regulars gave a little nod towards the fast-legs amongst us and we wondered if our new-comers were speedies too (yes). The thrum of heavy feet and the steady in and out of hard breathing took over from the chatter for now and we finished with an up and over to take in the evening view of the city.

Down, down, down and back to Glass Mill. A finish-sprint was met with some heckling...one day those boys might join us, one day. Time to stretch - thank you Sarah - and to hear about next week's task and an additional starter session on June 4th, as part of Volunteers' Week. We also wished Sarah well in Greenwich, promising to visit sometime (that's allowed, it's on a Wednesday).

Until next time, keep doing good.

(Thank you to Sarah Samuel for this week's title, brought on by post-run/gardening hunger).