Treasure bubble, take it or leaflet

Spreading the word about what we do at GoodGym, ten runners covered between 3 and 4km, exploring Penge and Anerley.

You've heard of Medal Monday, well I think we will call it Trophy Tuesday here at GoodGym Bromley. Showing off all the bling this week was Clare, who had not one, but two medals to share with us. Well done Clare on tackling both the Bacchus Half-Marathon and the Richmond Half in the space of two weeks (and just look at those lovely medals)! We also congratulated Bradley, who was back on racing form on Sunday, at the Marsha Phoenix Relay Race, over in Hilly Fields. He was part of a team of four...and they only went and won! No medal to show, but he has a voucher to spend at a nice restaurant. Great work, both of you.

It was great to welcome a new face along tonight, hi-fives to Darryl, who joined us for his very first GoodGym group run!

This was a funny old week to do your first run. The task we were lining up has been postponed for a few weeks, so we were taking on the challenge of spreading the word about what we do...with a few twists. Armed with leaflets about coach running and missions, and a few postcards, it was the job of our runners to tell people about our group, passing on information about the wider activities we do locally. Alongside this, there were a few things to tick off:

• Post/hand out flyers
• Speak to people about GoodGym
• Pick up litter
• Find an interesting street name/name of shop/cafe/pub
• Think about/find a venue for our next social
• Pick up a piece of treasure (natural or otherwise!)
• Distance covered
• Think up a smashing pun for this week's run report title :)

Split into two teams, one took the Anerley side and the other took the Penge side, aiming to meet back at the war memorial at 8pm. As the two groups put their heads together and planned their course of action, I ran down the High Street, to hand out flyers and spread the word at the various shops and businesses along here. I was surprised to find most places closed (not registering that it was past 7pm!). I did find a potential task venue though and popped into Homebase to source some bright lights for our dark tasks, so it turned out to be a very useful run!

As 8pm came round, I noticed a few red t-shirts gathering and showing off their findings. Taking it in turns, we heard about the adventures that had been had. One group had been on a street art tour of the area (see the photos, I did edit them down a bit, there's A LOT of street art around here!) and did some great work clearing litter from a neglected grassy bank (finding a lovely hand/star-like leaf treasure en route). They also went into a local pub to spread the word and secure a possible venue for a social - good stuff! One area they were not so successful in though was a title pun, but all the points for a full bag of litter and a well-spotted 'Charles Dickens Terrace' (we're unaware of a local connection, random but nice)!

Our other team worked hard on finding treasure, by embarking on a bit of Geochaching, which offered up a sweet little bubble bottle (the item they left in its place, an antiseptic wipe, made me glow with Health & Safety pride, you never know when you might succumb to a Geocaching graze). This prompted the rather lovely title pun (see above), which could take them into the lead, but their bag of litter was a little less bulging. They did also visit a possible social venue though, so we can now take our pick!

On balance it was difficult to judge who was winner in this epic challenge so, with such high quality hunting all round, I will call it a draw.

Next week we will be back to our usual format, as we run to Cator Park, to tackle a few more brambles and weeds. This will be a dark task, so please bring a head-torch if you have one! On Saturday Kat (and I) will be taking on Swim Serpentine, spending a good hour or so in the cold water, to complete the two mile challenge - good luck Kat! On Sunday it's the turn of Jenn, Ben and Ian, who are running the Beckenham Half-Marathon, best of luck everyone and don't forget to bring your medals next week!