Hot Croft Bunting

The Lewisham sunset was streaked with red last night, as twelve of our finest took to the streets, converging at Crofton Park Library, where our task was well and truly smashed. A hill was tackled and so were some pretty intense body-weight exercises, with a total of 4.5km being covered. These runners rock!

The foyer at Glass Mill was full of chatter this week, as everyone caught up on the week's news and we welcomed first-timer Pavel - show him some support here! We heard about some epic weekend running, with both Conroy and Catherine having tackled obstacle races of varying distances...and here they were, ready to get stuck in! Machines. A quick game ensued, to help us remember each other's names (I consider myself pretty good at remembering names, but there's nothing like being on the spot to make you go completely blank!), we did some high-knee drills to warm ourselves up, then set our devices going to record the run ahead.

Saturday saw Crofton Park awash with festival-goers, as Croftfest got underway. We had a one-off mission over here, where regular runner Jacqueline got busy with the bunting. Of course, we all know that what goes up must come down, so our task for tonight was to restore some calm to the Crofton Park Library. We were met by Jason and a gazebo, so four volunteers quickly got stuck in, working out the complicated structure, disassembling its giant umbrella-like mass. Four more took to the streets on a bunting retrieval mission, carefully folding the bunting as they took it down, ready to be reused at the upcoming Croftmas(!).

Inside the library, the remaining runners got busy in the bookshop, bringing some heavy boxes in from outside, then sorting through the contents. This kind of task always turns up some treasures, with Jacqueline finding a very appropriate copy of 'Ditch the Gym! Get Fit for Free!'. With everyone now back from gazebo-collapsing and bunting-gathering, everyone got busy in the bookshop, finding suitable shelf-spots for a very varied and diverse range of donated reading matter. Dave and Stephen found themselves cross-legged on the floor with a whole box of Mills and Boon, we didn't hear them complaining once. After Jason had thanked everyone and showed us the lovely new Crofton Books bookmark, it was time to get warm again and run up to Hilly Fields.

You obviously can't avoid a hill at Hilly Fields, but this time we just ran up one without any repeats (some were relieved, but I'm pretty sure some love a bit of hill action). The plan had been to use the 'workout' area, with its handily spaced bars, perfect for push-ups and triceps-dips, but it was completely pitch black! This darkness has crept up on us over the past few weeks, so we nipped into the children's playground, which was the most well-lit spot in the park.

Time to grit our teeth and embark on a couple of rounds of not so playful body-weight exercises. Two groups gathered around the pirate ship, with others making the most of benches, rocks and tree stumps to push up, squat, lunge and dip. It went very quiet. Just outward breaths. 45 seconds active, 15 seconds rest. Twice.

Such strength! Such effort!

Only a downhill run and we were free to stretch. We were met though, by a completely dark path on our way to Vicars Hill, nothing, not even a little shimmer - it's most definitely time to bring head-torches, bike lights, whatever light source you have handy, if only to make sure we ourselves are seen on our run! It felt good to stretch our muscles after all that hard work and to talk about what's coming up (not yet finalised for next week, but sign up anyway!) and to think about our next social, which will be on October 10, our #runandtalk session, so the usual running, but even more talking!