Feeling the heat, 22 awesome athletes covered 5km of running to help out at Beecroft Garden Primary School.

The heatwave goes on, the grass turns straw-yellow, flip-flops are acceptable footwear, whatever the occasion and runners everywhere agree that yes, it's OK to stop and 'admire the view'. Phew! There was an air of the laid-back at Glass Mill this evening, with everyone sauntering in last-minute, drinks bottles in hand, cool as you like. There was also an air of the loved-up, after a weekend of cheering, competing, volunteering and rolling about laughing at our team-mates' efforts at the GoodGym Olympic Games 2018. This now annual event is organised by runner, Tom, who very much deserves a MASSIVE cheer for all his hard work. We had representatives in many events, from the torch relay, to the elimination mile and the egg and spoon race. Kudos in particular to Rosemary, who won the pancake race and to Caireen, who won the fruit and vegetable carving competition with her beautifully crafted Lewisham Crown, made from a melon, inspired! Also taking place this weekend, was the launch of the I Move London relay, a month-long World Record attempt, raising money for the Running Charity, Sported and Laureus. A few of our runners took part over the weekend, with Bradley also taking on some volunteering. You can still sign up, there are plenty of opportunities to run and volunteer, so have a look at the website and join in.

Making a bee-line to Crofton Park

After a quick warm-up in the desert sands of Cornmill Gardens, we headed over to Crofton Park, with Bradley as back-marker, keeping us together. This was a brand new task for us and our first visit to a school, so we were feeling a bit excited. We were met by Gemma, who showed us around and explained the tasks with great energy and enthusiasm! To the rear of the building is a garden area that will become a sensory garden. Right now there is a wall that needs a bit of repairing, so the soil (the very dry, hard soil) needed digging out and removing. This meant a team of around five people climbed up and got busy with the digging, while a further five or so people formed a line to collect and carry the soil and rubble to some sacks laid out on the ground.

I'm a little teapot...!

Meanwhile, elsewhere, we had smaller teams working together to weed the beds. At first glance these didn't look too bad, with lovely flowers, shrubs and herbs dominating the scene, so we were quite amazed at the piles of weeds that were accumulated throughout the task. At the front of the school (the grounds are deceptively large - what a great space to run around and play in!), yet more volunteers made themselves very useful by watering the thirsty plants that live in the beds here. Being a primary school, we were delighted by the array of pretty, colourful and fun watering cans (there were even teapots!). As time went on, wheelbarrows were appearing around the front, loaded with soil from behind the wall. Last-minute weeding, watering and digging were done and soon the tools were returned and a tiny barrow of bananas was presented to us, along with a bowl of raisins, thank you! We will be coming back here soon, to continue this work and to take our skills and might into other areas of the space.

The hills are alive with the sound of GoodGym!

As is usual on a run in this direction, we returned via our beloved Hilly Fields, home to our local parkrun. It's been a while, so I thought we should take this opportunity to make use of the hills for some repeats. In two groups, we ran up hard and used the return for our recovery. Watching everyone pushing hard and getting out of breath, I remarked to Vic about how lucky we are to have so many wonderful hills around here, well, I think so anyway ;) One of the best things about hills is the view you're treated to at the top, so we paused to enjoy this, before heading down and over to our start point. Here, we stretched and talked about next week's task, back to Crofton Park, but this time to visit our friends at Crofton Books, sign up and join us!

See you soon x