Take it to the GMax!

As snow fell on South East London, eleven athletes endeavoured to run over to Sydenham to help out at Gmaxtrackstars.

As we went to press, we were in third place in our division for the January Challenge, just a few places away from second - can we change that in the next two days?! We had a few extra good deeds happening over the weekend, with our coach runners busy visiting older people for a chat, Ian and Bradley over at South Norwood parkrun for a bit of pacing and others helping out on missions in people's homes - excellent work!

• We do have another opportunity to do good this coming Saturday, with a community mission to collect donations for the Rainbow Trust at the Sainsbury's in Crystal Palace - find out details and sign up here.

The biggest news today though, was that we now have our first wings in Bromley! Congratulations to Bradley, who completed his 100th good deed, thus earning himself the very special red winged t-shirt. Bradley has been with us less than a year, so this is quite some achievement, especially when you consider that he had never run before he joined us! He has really grown in many ways in the past year, going from strength to strength as an athlete and sharing his skills widely through volunteering at other groups outside of our sessions. Well done!

In single pile

Tonight we were super excited to be heading to a brand new task! Our beneficiary this evening was the Gmaxtrackstars, an athletics club who work locally with people at all stages in their sporting journey and are in the process of setting up their new space on Sydenham High Street. A short run there in the rain and we were set to go. We were met by Mark, who was up in the back of a big lorry, bringing in some lights and air vents that had been donated to the space. He quickly showed us our job for the evening, pointing out a big pile of flooring that needed taking downstairs.

Dust a minute!

Mark proudly showed us around the space, telling us his plans for the various areas, with a focus being on a yoga studio (we can't wait to come back and have a go!). Embracing the dust, we quickly found a rhythm, carrying a pile of planks on our shoulders, sharing the load with a friend, slotting lengths of flooring under our arms, all done with a great deal of teamwork as we maneuvered between each other on the stairs. Some took a few moments away from the flooring, to help Mark bring in some materials from the lorry, then resumed lifting and shifting.

Plank you very much

When we first saw the pile, we did wonder if we could do it but, as time ticked away, it was clear that yes, we could! A few quick jogs up the stairs and we had cleared the space. This flooring will be laid in one of the studio spaces, which we decided to use for our fitness session - it was a choice between dusty indoors or snow! There was some great work here, using the space for its intended activity. We did rounds of squat jumps, lunges, push-ups and a special plank - could you feel those glutes working?

Running back towards the Bridge House in the snow, we made use of one of the bridges for our stretches, steam rising from our hot bodies! Next week is another new task, this time in the other direction, at Anerley Town Hall, where we will be moving some tables into the basement, sign up here to join in. See you then!