This Saturday I popped down to the Beckenham Baptist church to help with their Spring clean! I was given the task of cleaning the Prayer chapel, a room overdue a thorough clean having not been used in a while. Lots of scrubbing, dusting, and vacuuming later and the room was sparkling!

Wending their way through miniature spooks and ghouls, eight unfazed runners covered around 5km and sanded a whole load of woodwork at Beckenham Baptist Church.

This week we welcomed a couple of tourists. Hello to Gosia, who was running in her twentieth GoodGym area tonight (wow!) and to Helena, who normally runs with GoodGym Islington; welcome south of the river Helena, where it's really at!

Kudos to Louise and Stuart for their pumpkin t-shirt and slightly garish leggings, on theme!

Goal!!!!

Before we set off, I talked a little about goals and just how marvellous they are. You can set yourself a goal on the GoodGym website, which can be very motivating, putting it out there and telling everyone what you aim to achieve (you will also get lots of support from your fellow runners). Louise pointed out that publicly announcing a goal can go either way, so let's all set one and do a little experiment shall we?! I haven't set a goal in a while, so I will practice what I preach and set one shortly.

Our run this evening took us over (down, yay!) towards Beckenham and past a few cute mini-skeletons and vampires who, to be honest, looked more shocked by us running towards them, chatting loudly! We were soon at the church, where an alternative non-Hallowe'en children's party was taking place, with a bouncy castle, which we had sadly missed, as it was slowly deflating when we walked in (now that would have been a fun fitness session!).

Since our last visit, Nigel and the other helpers have been busy giving the room another coat of paint and our job tonight was to sand the woodwork, ready for some glossing. Once everyone had grabbed some sandpaper, there was a cacophony of raspy noise, as the old, dark blue paint was smoothed away. As always, our volunteers worked quickly and we even had time to crack open a tin of paint (weirdly called 'Naughty Step', who comes up with these names?!) to start painting around the edge of the doors and windows. It's looking good! Nigel informed us that this room is to be decorated next week, by a visiting group, as a bomb shelter. This will be used by school groups as part of their learning, we're intrigued to see the transformation! To make the space usable, we had to move the furniture back to the edges, with a quick wiggle and shuffle of filing cabinets and bookshelves.

Treat or treat?

Time to go and time for a quick fitness session. By now, all the tiny treat-seekers had gone home to bed and had been replaced by their older, less charming counterparts. We ducked into the entrance of a nearby park, to play a little game. With a lucky dip in the bag, you could find yourself with a 'trick' (squats, tricep-dips, lunges etc) or a 'treat' (a little shuttle run), which we did for a while until the local pranksters decided our vicinity was the place to throw fireworks. Again, time to go!

As we stretched, we talked about next week's task, another brand new one, to Melvin Hall. Why not sign up now and put it in your diary? We also talked about Stuart's upcoming trip (lucky thing), we look forward to seeing the red t-shirt on tour and hearing all about it in a few weeks. Well done everyone on another great task, aren't Tuesdays great?!

Flying through the borough of Bromley, our fabulous fourteen covered 5km and covered the walls at Beckenham Baptist Church with a fresh coat of paint.

So many new faces again this week! Word is spreading about how much fun can be had in Penge on a Tuesday night :) Welcoming our newcomers with open arms, we said a big GGB hello to Adam, Molly and Richard. Give them a cheer, go on, it makes people feel warm inside.

On Saturday, a few of us met at Crystal Palace parkrun, with some neighbours from GoodGym Lewisham coming over to join us. Well done in particular to Stuart, who ran his first ever parkrun and took something like four minutes off his previous 5k time and on a hilly course too! Thank you also to Louise, Elly, Ian and Hannah for coming along and pushing themselves when most people were enjoying a cup of tea in bed. If you don't know how parkrun works, have a look here and sign up - once you've printed off your barcode you've got your number for a life of free, timed 5ks!

To the task!

We returned this week to Beckenham Baptist Church, to finish off what we started last week. With Nicola kindly taking the role of back-marker, we headed out onto the streets...along with the rest of South East London, it seemed really busy! This hustle and bustle did mean that we got ourselves some friendly toots, always good to receive some passing support! As always, a run and chat goes way faster than a huff and a puff by yourself and, before we knew it, we were ducking in and heading to the garden behind the church, to meet Nigel.

We quickly divided the group into those who would finish the garden room with a second coat of paint and those who would venture inside to coat the freshly plastered walls. As rollers rolled and brushes brushed, I jogged between the two spaces, taking photos and mostly marvelling at how speedily our volunteers worked. Over in the church, we heard about Nigel's London to Brighton bike ride (very impressive!) and tried to talk him into joining us at the Petts Wood 10k in two weeks. In the garden room we heard Adam recounting his weekend of obstacle traversing at a Tough Mudder event - that's twelve miles of running AND ice AND electrocution AND big things! This might explain why his arms were aching a little when he painted the ceiling, sorry! Once again, the painting skills of our group were second to none and, as I was counting down the minutes, we realised that there was just a small patch of ceiling in need of magnolia. With a determined look on her face, Louise grabbed the roller extender and got the job done.

Run for the hills!

Running back towards our start point, we remembered that it's all up hill, but no worries, we're strong. Before the hill got too steep, we dodged sideways into the little park and worked our way round. This was partly so I could decide if there was enough light to do my planned fitness session and, as it was definitely too dark, our little loop built up our run to nearer 5km, pausing at two handy benches for an alternative session of pairs push-ups and triceps-dips. Just that last little push to go, up and over and time to catch our breath and stretch. Another evening well spent.

Why not join us next week? Our task is just being confirmed, so keep an eye on your email and also on Twitter @GoodGymBromley. You can sign up here and book yourself an evening of sociable running and goodness.