It seems to rain a lot in Woolwich. Which is insulting, and probably not true, and based on nothing but the truth (!) that every time I’ve been in Woolwich on a Wednesday, it has been pelting down water from the black sky.

But I like the rain.

And so, it seems, do 9 other GoodGymmers, who collected outside Woolwich’s very lovely Crossrail station this Wednesday evening. Albeit under cover, and in the dry, and all armed with waterproofing and umbrellas and hats and very lovely smiles.

Our run leader, Sara, started the session with a question: if we were in a famous band, what role would we play? And I think, after considering our band of answers, we have amongst ourselves, superstars – hip hop hype dancing MCs, a frontman 80s rock god, and Elton John. And hyped by our responses, we two-stepped into a quick warm up, and we then burst through the smoke machine, and into the light and rain, and we headed to our task.

Up the long, winding hill…

Hours passed us by, and night became day, and day became night, and still, we hadn’t left Woolwich… We set up camp somewhere along the hill, and a dizzy haze descended upon our group, and some started to clean the roads and the lampposts, thinking we were already at our task. Amidst our delusion, at some undetermined point, we moved on, up the hill, leaving a section of road spotlessly clean. And then, suddenly, we were in the reception foyer of Shrewsbury House, dazed and confused.

There, we were met by the lovely team who run this fantastic community centre, and we were taken to a separate outbuilding, our arms loaded with an abundance of cleaning paraphernalia. Here, we got cracking – some, with long-reaching dusters, brushed away cobwebs from the ceilings, Sara cleaned with a handheld hoover, Andy wiped the walls and radiators clean, Pieter tackled the floors with the hoover, Kerry knocked the punching bag around and made Brin very scared, and this is just a snapshot, because everyone was busy making the place lovely and clean and ready for use by the local community.

And then, quite quickly, it was time to leave, and we took our cleaning gear back to the reception foyer. Here, Alex and I left the group to jump on a bus, and the rest headed back down the hill through the rain.

A really lovely evening everyone and looking forward to the next one!

What a brilliant evening we had last night, we had the largest group so far for a Woolwich start group run, and we welcomed Katy to her first group run, you were a very welcome new face Katy!

Two thirds of the group gathered outside the Elizabeth line station with trepidation for the planned hilly route, and I led the welcome and we discussed in the ice breaker our highlights from August - which were all lovely to hear, I can't believe how quickly the month has gone. A personal highlight has been our sunny evening group runs and seeing the results of our work, especially some of our stars who are training for the Big Half and London Marathon.

We did a quick warm up to make sure our legs were ready to take on some serious elevation. First up two laps of the green space and then lots of squats, leg swings, side squats and some hamstring sweeps to prep our legs for the hills. Backmarkers assigned and route confirmed we headed off, and we managed with a few breaks to make it in great time to Shrewsbury House.

Now this being a new task in a new area, but also, up a big hill, meant most of the group hadn't really explored the area. First up was a fun off road route I had found which was a fun discovery. The house is located in a conservation area and so it's a really hidden gem. We got the house and the groups converged with those meeting at the task. It was a simple one tonight, grab a magic sponge and clean up the walls. The walls were covered in bumps from furniture and blue tac, and very quickly with the many hands available the room was looking super shiny and new.

We headed out back to take some fun photos, this week we worked on our chorus kick line, I'm pretty sure we will soon be so skilled we could host a goodgym variety show. Even more fun was discovering that from the back of the house, we could see Andy's house! What a lovely place to live Andy.

We headed off and enjoyed an epic descent including a beaut view of the river from the main road! It was a perfect photo op before we continued our descent back to the station. Once there we did a big stretch session and headed off into our evenings.

Good luck to all of those partaking in the Big Half this weekend, we have a space booked at Richard 1st on Royal Hill for those running, spectating or seeking a roast and GG social. Next week we'll be back in Greenwich for the start location.