On the twelfth day of Christmas my GoodGym trainer gave to me

Southwark News

• That's a wrap for 2019 folks! Thank you so much for making this year wonderful. We're back on 9th Jan when we're heading to Galleywall Nature Reserve - sign up here.

• The Festive season can be amazing but it can also be tiring and overwhelming. Luckily we have this excellent thing called running. The Vet Runs writes about using speed work to 'run it out' when things get a bit much. I am definitely a fan.

• Will you be parkrunning on Christmas or New Years Day? Tweet @ggsouthwark or tag us on Instagram @goodgym_southwark with your festive parkruns.

• I'll be organising a starter session in January on a weekend, keep your eyes peeled on the website and I'll send you info about it.

That's enough of the business

12 runners ran 5.5km to sort donations, build a bookshelf an tape up the window in Red Box Project's new storeroom on Avondale Estate.

Red Box Project is a community-based, not-for-profit initiative, which aims to support young people throughout their periods by providing red boxes filled with free period products to local schools.

Our mission?

• Collect donations from elsewhere on the estate and carry them to the storeroom - including a very fetching (and rather heavy) donkey.

• Sort through the vast amount of donations that they've received over the last month - they went into different baskets depending on heaviness of flow, day and night pads etc.

• Build a bookshelf for in the storeroom for the sorted donations - shout out to Tom and Emma for a stellar job.

• Cover the storeroom window to provide privacy - this proved to be quite a task!

We ripped through the donation sorting whilst the bookshelf was still being built so in the meantime we nipped outside for the 12 Days of Fitmas including burpees, calf raises, inch worms, bunny hops, press ups, tricep dips and more. We got through 18 days before the bookshelf was finished and we ran up the four flights of stairs to finish the job. The storeroom was glorious when we'd finished - a masterpiece of organisation! Christina was delighted.

Before setting off home we reminded ourselves of the 12 Days of Fitmas and set a rule for the run home - every time we stopped at a light or to cross a road, the group chose a number between 1 and 12 and we did the exercise associated with it.

We arrived back to base sweaty and happy and ready to go to Two Hundred Rye Lane for cocktails and nibbles.

Have a wonderful break, enjoy the rest and get out there for a run or two if things get a bit much.

Here's to next year!

Lucy J