Black is the new red

In 31 degree heat, 31 hot bodies took to the streets of Lewisham to run between 3 and 4km and scrub and paint the railings at St Mary's Church.

Thanks this week go to Oli for our lovely, topical title pun, great work!

Oh my, it's so hot! Amazingly though, people still come out to run and do good, all 31 of us! Rolling up for the first time this week was Oli, who has run previously with our friends down in Bristol, but is now local to Lewisham. We hope you enjoyed our south east London brand of good and felt all the Lewisham Love Oli!

It's been another amazing week in the world of GG Lew, with Clare popping off to Norway and taking in a bit of parkrun tourism (it looked lush), Rebecca was off up north to ride the coast-to-coast (that's some serious mileage!) and a massive turn out at Hilly Fields parkrun to celebrate Conroy's 100th parkrun - well done everyone! Our biggest news this week was a milestone, with Bradley reaching his 50th good deed on a mission over the weekend. You know he only joined us in February, right?! I first met Bradley at parkrun, where he came along to volunteer, never having run before. The next week the volunteer roster was full, so he thought he'd have a go at running it. The rest, as they say, is history. Really well done Bradley, you've become such a wonderful part of the Lewisham (and Bromley) family, supporting your fellow runners, even when you've not been up to running yourself, thank you.

Don't fence me in!

Last week we ran over to St Mary's Church to make a start on the railings, this week we were running back there to continue the good work. With a top team of back-markers in place (party at the back - thank you Helen, Rianna, Caireen and Anna), we ran through Ladywell Fields, arriving to meet Marion and team at the front of the church. As last week, all the equipment was laid out on tables, ready for everyone to grab a brush and get stuck in. Some took wire brushes and worked away at the loose paint and bits of rust, while others got busy with the sticky black paint. It was great to see so many people joining us, with a great expanse of railing being covered tonight. We often uncover treasure at tasks, but this time Sarah found a crow bar (also known as a jemmy, before anyone writes in to complain), hidden in the bushes. This seems to be a recent theme, with Nykolette uncovering one on a mission at the weekend...

With little pockets of activity all around the space and conversation flowing, time passed in a flash and we were just about ready to enjoy some generous hospitality and indulge in some drinks and sweet treats - thank you!

With Ladywell Fields on our doorstep, we took the opportunity to focus our fitness session on running form, with some good, strong dynamic drills to warm our bodies and embed good posture, followed by a loop of the park to pair up similar-paced runners. Here's where the fun starts! With each pair heading in opposite directions, the aim was to keep a similar pace, arriving back at the start together. There was the added challenge of hills and some trees obscuring the view, but wow, what fantastic work from all of you, with impressive teamwork and some spot on pacing!

Into the wild

As we stretched back at Glass Mill, we looked forward to next Monday and a trip to the delightful Wildcat Wilderness, where we will tackle a number of different tasks. If you have volunteered at the wilderness before, please take a look at this survey, which will help the team develop some research they are doing at the moment (there's a chance to win a prize too!). As we're celebrating so many milestones at the moment, we also thought it might be good to have a social, post-run, at Mamma Dough - let me know if you are coming, so I can keep track of numbers for the booking. In the meantime, I hope to see some of you at parkrun on Saturday and out and about enjoying the sunshine :)