Royal Flush

On a mild October evening, ten of Bromley's finest athletes sped over to Crystal Palace Park, covering 2km and giving the park toilets a make-over which would be the envy of DIY SOS.

A very big thank you to first-timers Rachel and Gill who came up with this week's excellent title pun - what great work, you can definitely come again! This week we also welcomed Jon, who was joining us for the first time, lovely to meet you!

ThriveLDN

Earlier in the day there hadn't been many people signed up and I had wondered if the prospect of 'the loo task', as Nicola called it, had put people off, but no! We soon had a lovely group of eager runners, all set to take on whatever lay in store over in the park. Hardcore do-gooders, that's what we are! Before we headed off, we heard a little about today's World Mental Health Day and how all of our group runs this week are in conjunction with ThriveLDN, with the aim of encouraging Londoners to do those things that make them feel good/better and to remind ourselves of what it is that helps bring us together and build strong and supportive communities (our weekly group runs are a great start!).

After a quick name-check (I think I got them all), we jogged up the road to Crystal Palace Park, where we were met by the ever-helpful Penny, all set with brushes, rollers, trays, paint and...da-da-daaaaahh, special fancy forensic-style overalls! Too much excitement! As you can see from our photos, everyone embraced this new look with gusto and appreciated the extra protection from an inadvertent paint splatter. With the walls being largely tiled, the area of focus was above this section and also the ceiling. Without a moment's hesitation, our volunteers were quickly getting busy, masking, cutting in and rolling, with an almost instant and satisfying transformation taking place. We did our best to usher out the daddy-long-legs who were in every nook and cranny, but fear they will be back in place by the morning.

Teamwork

With a fair bit of teamwork, pointing out 'missed bits' on the ceiling and taking turns to paint or roll, the space was fresh and new in no time - great work! Next week, we will return to take on the gents next door (and maybe gloss the woodwork, which could also do with a refresh). Thank you to Penny for our post-task treat of some mint Matchmakers, yum, which people were surprisingly happy to nibble on in the loos...!

Being in the park, we had the perfect setting for our fitness session, but we also had the challenge of very little light to contend with. Making use of the nearby lamp posts, we had a quick warm-up, with some games and dynamic drills to get our hearts beating and our breathing heavy. Taking the route of our time-trial (maybe this will be on hold until we have some more light!), we ran at a steady pace until we reached the long path. Here we formed a line and did some speedy intervals with a quick 'chain run' - the person at the back sprints to the front and so on. Well done everyone on tackling this with enthusiasm, even in such difficult light. We were soon back at our lamp posts and ready to build our strength with some rounds of squats, lunges with knee-lifts, side-lunges, inchworms and then over to the grass (or mud, sorry!) for today's #planktober. You have been doing your #planktober, haven't you? You just commit to 30 seconds front plank and 30 seconds each side, every day in October. Easy.

After a stretch, we returned to our start point, the best place to have a post-run social (and Louise was telling us about the weekly quiz, we really must join in one week). We talked all things GoodGym, all things Penge and all things Crystal Palace Park. If you like the sound of how we spend our Tuesdays, why not sign up for next week and join in?

Here is the link to Four Thought, which I mentioned at our social. If you don't know how GoodGym started, this is a very good listen.