Screw this, I’m off to bed!

On a fine July evening, 25 runners took a 5km round-trip to help out at GRACE in Lee.

Thank you Oli for our marvellous title pun and others throughout this report.

Were you up at Hilly Fields on Saturday morning? Did you see a group of people picking up litter? That was us! The park is particularly messy at this time of year, with people having picnics, but not taking their rubbish home. We're having a regular litter-pick before parkrun, details for this Saturday here. The parkrun was a place of great jollity this week, with Jacqueline hitting her 250th run (wow!) and Vic celebrating her birthday. It was also pacer week and it was great to see some familiar faces helping others reach a goal.

NEWS

• Many of you took on the Big Half earlier this year and I know some of you felt inspired to give it a go next year. Well, now's your chance to grab a place! We have a few community places for £10 each so, if you are committed to taking part, email me with the subject heading 'Big Half'.

• We had Simone from the Lewisham Local Card with us this week, hearing all about what we do, why we do it and how it makes a difference to us and the people that we visit. To find out more about the card and to register for one yourself, have a look here.

• This week Louise hit her 50th good deed milestone! This is quite speedy work, with her goal being to reach this point within a year. She totally smashed it, with a fair bit of GoodGym tourism and a few weekend missions. Well done Louise, here's to the next 50!

It's always lovely to welcome new faces to GoodGym Lewisham and all our Lewisham Love this week goes to Daniel and Jez, who were joining us for their first ever GoodGym group run (it was great also to see Charlotte and Sophie, who joined us after a break).

A very big thank you this week to Emma, for leading up front and to Amber for back-marking. We had a little warm-up to get the heart racing, before heading out along Lee High Road to help out at GRACE. At the task, Louise split us into four teams, with each group heading to a different part of the space. We had:

• TEAM PAIRLESS WHISPER - sorting through shoes, pairing them up, then putting them in the appropriate place (there might have been a fair few odd shoes left over!)
• TEAM BAGG(SY)ING - sorting clothing into various categories, bagging it up and moving it into the storage space
• TEAM IT'S COT TO BE-BE-BE-BE-BE-BEE PERFECT - reuniting various bed and cot parts that had been mixed up and sorting out the screws,dowels and instructions
• TEAM BUGGY - checking over and reassembling some buggies that had been mis-matched

Each team worked with great commitment, as time rushed by. There were moments where it looked like the clothes might not make it into the bags, or the screws, which had been ordered and laid out so meticulously, might not be matched with their bed or cot. We shouldn't have worried though because, in true GoodGym Lewisham style, we wrapped everything up in the last few minutes, ready to run back to base for a very quick 'plankerpillar' - good work!

Next week we will be visiting our good friends at Seniors, this is a longer run, of around 7km (with views!) and will be led by Conroy, sign up here. In the meantime, I would like to wish strength and determination to Kim, who will be taking on her first ever ultra distance event at the weekend, at the amazing Race to the Stones. With the support of Tom, who has tackled the longer distances before. They will be covering 100km over two days and camping en route. I'm sure you'll agree that Kim has been on an incredible and inspiring running journey and we will be behind them all the way, willing them to push on to the finish.

Go Kim! Go Tom! You can do it!