On a surprisingly balmy Monday in Lewisham 27 energetic souls ran 7km, carried beautifully sculpted metal panels, bashed weeds, lopped leaves, sawed logs and very carefully extracted shards of glass from the ground. All in an evening's work for GoodGym Lewisham.

I was away last week (thank you Conroy for leading) so, to really confuse me in my slightly befuddled post-holiday haze, we had a whole host of doubles (even a triple) tonight. Our head-count this week saw two Steves, two Annas, two Kims, and three Chrises!! You're all special to me, but man, I had to think carefully. Thanks for that.

There was a great deal to celebrate this week, with achievements aplenty over the weekend. Well done to both Amber and Nykolette, who took on obstacle races yesterday (funnily enough, they weren't with us this evening, still scrubbing the mud off probably). Congratulations to Chris, who tackled the Ladywell 10,000 yesterday, running in the inaugural event at our local track and smashing his previous time to achieve a sub-40 minute 10k, incredible running! Well done to Sean, who did his first mission on Saturday - I love hearing about our runners helping out in the community at the weekend and getting the mission-bug. Talking of community, Vic completed her 50th parkrun, up at Hilly Fields on Saturday, with plenty of support from our runners, who accompanied and supported, either running or volunteering, well done Vic. Last, but definitely not least, was Emma, who did her 50th good deed at a mission for Mr T (no, no sign of OTT blingy necklaces was seen, sadly). Emma has been running and volunteering with GoodGym for a while now, spreading her energy across different areas, but has officially embraced Lewisham fully, making us her 'home' area (we're honoured). Great work Emma, I look forward to seeing you in your black t-shirt very soon.

All this love and respect was a perfect introduction to all things GG Lewisham for this week's newcomers. Lewisham Love goes out tonight to Chris, Charlotte and Sophie.

We had a brief warm-up game out on the grass (avoiding the local wheelie wonders), then grouped together to run steadily over to the wilderness. Thank you to Steve for being this week's back-marker, making sure nobody was left behind.

We seemed to cover the 3-and-a-bit kilometers quickly tonight, arriving promptly, to meet Maria and Rachel. Following the vandalism that took place a while ago, Rachel has been commissioned to create some beautiful metal panels to enclose the new hives, creating a safe, but unobtrusive apiary. Our task was to carefully transport these panels from the car in the entrance, along the long path and to the area being prepared for the bee homecoming. With 25 panels, two wheelbarrows and 27 runners, it seemed that this was meant to be! A steady and thoughtful line of intricate panels were walked across the bark surface, avoiding getting caught on overhanging branches along the way. Arriving at the cleared area, the metal structures were laid down gently and will be put together in the next week by another team of volunteers. Thanking everyone, Maria pointed out that this seemingly simple task would take a group of one or two volunteers far longer to complete, with the long path having to be walked many times and with the panels being possibly quite heavy for some people to manoeuvre easily. Well done team!

With this job done so quickly, there was just enough time to grab various tools, trugs, gloves and bashers and set-to on the paths. Across this large space we had:

• loppers, lopping/pruning low-hanging brambles, low-lying nettles and stray branches
• glass-gleaners, carefully extracting the broken glass that constantly appears on the surface after the rain
• loggers, getting busy with a saw to cut firewood
• weed bashers, getting out their pent up anger and making the paths more easily passable

With about twenty minutes spent on this additional activity, areas of the space were quickly restored and pushed back to allow users to pass through and explore, without worrying about getting caught up in the bushes.

This week was probably the first time were I've noticed the photos starting to look a bit grainy - I must remember to take a group photo at the beginning from next week! As we were leaving, Maria mentioned a task we could still fit in as the nights draw in, so we hope to come back before too long - though we will definitely be heading over on the 16th for the Wilderness Urban Harvest! Do you have tree climbing skills? They might come in handy!

On our return, we stretched and chatted about Saturday's Hilly Fields parkrun, which is a special one, with it being the 5th anniversary run. We have listed it as a race, so sign up and join us, there WILL be cake! Next week we are off to another delightful task, this time with a much shorter run, to Ladywell Fields. Sign up here and join us for a social afterwards, to celebrate Jacqueline's 100th good deed.

Two of our regulars are 'running' in a couple of quite boozy races this coming weekend. Best of luck to Emma at the Bacchus Half Marathon (as part of the Spice Girls) and Chris at the Marathon Medoc (as part of Wham!) - we can't wait for the photos! On Sunday, Stephen and Sean will be at the Great North Run, with Sean making it that bit harder for himself by running dressed as the Gingerbread Man! Good luck all of you, what a fun way to challenge yourselves!