18 runners ran 4-6km and helped Thornhill Sq Gardens & WPCA in a @ThriveLondon special

This week GoodGym across all our London areas is partnered with Thrive London who are getting people to talk about wellbeing and what that means when living in our great city. In my opinion GoodGym massively helps your wellbeing as you meet new people, are involved in a group, volunteer for your community and exercise. All of which are very important for your mental health and wellbeing. #OKLDN

In other news this week:

• Well done to all those who raced at the weekend including John who smashed Oxford Half Marathon and was at the group run last night!
• Welcome along to Alex all the way from GG York, he has recently moved to London - we are happy to have him along!

WPCA report by PB:

A group of 9 headed north by north-east to Whittington Park Community Association, avoiding Holloway Road as much as possible on our way due to it's sheer busyness, as Chris rightly said Holloway Road is the beginning of the A1 which goes all the way to Edinburgh - boom free fact!

But we weren't running to Edinburgh this time, we were off to WPCA, a community centre & park that brings together people from all ages to be involved in various activities - importantly benefiting their wellbeing (hint Thrive LDN). Upon our arrival we were met by Alice and Desiree from Thrive LDN who explained what they are all about and the partnership with GoodGym (they think we are great).

Thrive LDN: Mental Wellbeing for all

Gary from WPCA showed as what needed doing, our tasks were as follows:

1. Weeded a patch of weeds by the huge bench (pretty sure we moved that back in 2014)
2. Removed all the moss and weeds in the pavement gaps the lead up to the entrance to Reception.
3. Cleared and swept the a patch next to the Early Years Hub
4. Weeded two beds inside the nursery entrance, also removing any leaves.

We distributed our traditional biscuits, chatting wellbeing and got some cool bags from the Thrive LDN team. #OKLDN Arriving back to base with time to spare we did a pocket to socket drill, stairs race and Emirates fartlek based on the letters. Nice!

Thornhill Sq Gardens report by Kike:

9 Goodgymers wound their way to Thornhill square gardens. Once we arrived there were three lovely piles of mulch for us to shift to cover the rose beds. We split into trios to tackle the job.

Headtorches needed yo!

After about 40 minutes hard labour and some malted milk biscuits we found a street light for a quick photo. For the run home we threw in some Indian file running and after a little surprise detour we got choose whether to take the long or short way round the emirates before joining the rest of the group for stretching and fartlek.

Sign up for next week here, we're off to Freightliners Farm & St Luke's - gonna be good!

PB out.