Why did the GoodGymmers cross the road?

On a beautiful South East London evening, eight GoodGym Greenwich athletes ran 5k, giving what for to some weeds at The Orchard Community Centre and making themselves seriously out of breath with some chain running **and shuttle running. Stars.**

We gathered together at our beautiful start point - yes, we think Greenwich wins for the most grand start point out of all the GoodGyms, really, it's a stunner! Things were slightly different this evening, with Shaun becoming Adele and new introductions being made. The number of red t-shirts showed that most of us have been a few times now and know how things work, but it's always good to hear about coach running and missions again, in case you find you now feel ready to try the other things that happen alongside our weekly group runs.

The noise level in the courtyard picked up slightly as we played a quick game of shin-tag, always a fun way to warm up. We moved on to some drills before heading out towards our task for the night. Our outward run gave us a chance to chat and catch up, while passing the buzz of the Greenwich pubs (yes, passing, a quick head-count made sure we didn't lose anyone to the lure of the pint glass).

We were soon at our venue, The Orchard Community Centre, which is part of the Greenwich West Community and Arts Centre. Here, we were met by Elisabeth, who passed us tools and showed us the areas that needed our attention. The centre is on a busy road into Lewisham and the raised beds seem to attract a fair bit of litter from passers by. The sound of the traffic drowned out the grunting that was being done, as some of the more stubborn weeds refused to budge - it's amazing how easily a sycamore or a buddleia can take root...and take over.

Guest star

As our runners got their heads down and deep in conversation over the job at hand, there was a very jolly 'Adele!' as GoodGym Lewisham regular Caireen made a guest appearance in her slippers! She had been happily chilling with a cuppa on her sofa, when she noticed us in our red shirts, hard at work outside. As she was most definitely off duty, we let her get back to her brew.

Up hill and down heath

Time passed quickly, as it always does on our tasks and everyone gathered together their tools, knotted their bin bags and bundled up their gloves. Elisabeth thanked the group and waved us off up the hill towards Blackheath. No hill repeats tonight, just a re-warming jog before the real action. Finding a nice open space away from the crazy traffic, we ran a large loop with Adele in the centre...with her whistle. It's a very special whistle and this was its first official outing. Shiny. To get our heart rates back up and to build strength, we ran in a line and, when the whistle was blown, the person at the back sprinted hard to the front and so on.

Chain running over, we did a bit of partnering, with one of each pair doing some good, deep squats, while the other ran shuttles. Really fast - they're fast here in Greenwich you know. And now, with the promise of a down hill home, we headed towards the road.

Stop! Look! Listen!

And wait. And wait some more. And a bit more. Oh dear. You'd think, by 8:20pm, that the traffic might have died down over Blackheath, but no. But we were determined, we were brave and, above all, we were sensible. Tufty would have been proud.

A lovely down hill stretch took us back to Queen Anne Court, where we got all the tension out of our aching muscles with a good stretch and caught up with what's in store next week. See you there!