Sam Lefevre

After such a glorious day in the sunshine, the grey clouds rolled in, but the humid and warmth was still ever present.

Daryl, Emma, Nelly and Sam met up at Old Spike Roastery as they discussed their weekends as they were potentially waiting for a first-timer, but she didn't arrive by 18:45, so Sam proceeded with his GG speech announcing the latest news and what's coming up!

This time, Sam wanted to do the warm-up on Peckham Rye Common as our usual spot is down an alleyway next to Old Spike. Yet, he wanted to use as much space as he could.

After the warm-up, our ice-breaker question tonight was to do with Sam's week as he went hiking in the Lake District last weekend for a work charity event, but he is also going to be participating in the Three Peaks Challenge this weekend. Thus, the question was: What is your favourite hiking spot in the world?

Daryl started with saying the Lake District as that's where his partner is from, but he also likes the Dales, Nelly found it hard to split it between the Lake District and Brecon Beacons, Emma and Sam both chose the Dolomites. Later, Paulin mentioned a place called "Rosemary Hill" and Jen said the place near her parent's place in New Zealand (which didn't make the LOTR cut...maybe the boot-leg edition)

The Bad-Ass Playlist

Straight down the paths leading from one end of the Common to the other and along the way we met up with Paulin who had cycled part of the way. We continued our 1.8k run up Dunstans Road before tackling the steep incline of Underhill and Overhill Road (it's in the name). We made it to the Dawson's Height estate where we bumped into Jen as she cycled from home there. It took us awhile to find "Ellie and the gang" (releasing their highly anticipated EP next month), but after some snooping from Sam, he spotted them.

Ellie was there with Patrick, one of the residents of the estate, but later a few more residents came out to help us plant summer bulbs. There were a variety of summer bulbs and tools to choose from. The instructions were clear: take a bag of bulbs, a tool (not yourself) that you are comfortable with and to plant anywhere. The rule of thumb was to dig double the size of the bulb to ensure it's not too deep and not too swallow.

Whilst we dug and planted the bulbs, Sam put on his "bad-ass playlist" with hits including a few ballads from the 80s. The songs, the weather and the company kept everyone's spirit high. We planted at least 20-30 bulbs each, but we can always round the total to the nearest thousand...

Time flies when you're having fun as the 40 minutes evaporated and before we knew it, Ellie was taking group photos of us! Everyone was pleased with our efforts and there were tentative plans to book in another session in July! #winning

We departed our ways with "Ellie and the gang", but there was a quick viewpoint stop at Dawson's Hill. Despite the weather being cloudy, the views were still amazing. We got in a quick group photo before saying our goodbyes to Jen who cycled home and then later Paulin who picked up her bike where we found her.

We finished off where we started on the Common to do our final warm down stretch before a cooldown walk back to the Old Spike Roastery.

Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came and ran tonight! It was great to warm-up on the Common and the outbound route was challenging, but we made it to the top in one piece. Thanks for digging through some tough soil, but a bit of GoodGym elbow grease usually does the job. Great work team!

Thank You Ellie

GoodGym is all about getting fit and doing good! We praise the runners/cyclists/walkers who come to get fit and help out, but we often forget about our task owner. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Ellie and the residents of Dawson Heights for welcoming us into their community garden and giving us the chance to help out and to make new friends! We hope the summer bulbs will blossom in time.

What a lovely crew for a warm evening's jog and good deed!

We met at the Bridge House, shared our favourite household chores (or I guess just the best of a bad bunch...), warmed up (more) in the park and then basically sprinted down the hill to Cator Park. Seriously, it was a cracking pace! 💁‍♂️

When we arrived, we met Millie, Debs, Lou and Matt who were pleased there were so many of us. After dousing ourselves in bug spray, we split into 4 groups:

🔨 Ian (see pic featuring lovely rainbow 🌈) and Alex were hammering in stakes to keep the new trees upright. They were then weeding and mulching the areas around the trees so the weeds don't take all of the water...

🆙 Kate and George were putting special tree rubber bands and string around the stakes and new trees so they grew in the right direction.

🌱Clare and Maxim were planting a few wee shrubs and trees and weeding the rose beds.

🌴 And Nick, Sam and I were weeding a patch near some little memorials and putting some tree trunks around the edge.

Basically, we did loads.

Millie was saying how the park would look totally different if it weren't for GoodGym's help because they're able to get so much done that they'd often otherwise not get round to. 😊

Nice one gang!

After our good deed, we had a quick game of rock, paper, scissors (squat, plank, sprint) and then ran back for a cool beverage at the pub!