Holy crêpe! 23 GoodGym'ers forgoed pancakes as they ran 3km back to school to paint 'The White House' blue & green!

Despite the light drizzle in the air and tempting thoughts of freshly cooked pancakes, GoodGym'ers came out in their shroves in H&F to run and do good! It was lovely to welcome along Hon, Alex and Raimonda for their first GoodGym H&F run - hope to see you all again very soon! It was also wonderful to see lots of 2nd and 3rd timers, and of course my regulars, thank you for all coming along.

Stacks of news

1. GoodGym Monthly Social - In Walthamstow, this Thursday - join Pritesh & other GG'mers for heroes of the month, February's IPOTM (International Pun of the Month) and lots of other fun. Sign up here.
2. GoodGym Shindig 2019 - weekend of 19th July, in Ironbridge. Register your interest by 21st March.
3. Community Missions - Up for a weekend community mission? No DBS check is required for a community mission.

• Sat 9th March from 10.30am - help finish sort clothes donations for St Mungo's Reconnection Post in Hammersmith, sign up here.
• Sat 6th April from 12pm - help sort food donations for City Harvest in Acton, sign up here.

And a big well done to Tom who smashed the Victoria Park Half Marathon on Sunday!

We all flipping love GoodGym on a Tuesday evening

With the name and number count and short pulse raising warm-up completed we headed off on our short 1.5km run to our task tonight at Flora Gardens Primary School. With one quick wall sit completed en route, it wasn't long before we arrived at the school gates and were buzzed inside by the school's Business Manager, Jeanette who was waiting for us inside 'The White House'.....thankfully, not the White House!

In 'The White House', Flora Gardens Primary School run a before- and after-school club where meals and snacks are provided so that no child goes hungry. Unfortunately like most schools, they were facing tough financial pressures so did not have the Monet to pay for full price paint and professional redecoration of their school buildings. Thanks to Community Repaint, a brilliant scheme that redistributes leftover paint into their communities at around a third of the price, Jeanette had managed to source around 60 litres for under £150 and for the second time, the many helping hands of GoodGym runners to help revamp some white rooms. What a steal!

Well colour me surprised, more painting?!

Tonight's task was to apply the second coat of the bright 'Gilbert Green' and 'Heavenly Horizon' colour to the once white and dull walls of the main downstairs room. In 60 minute makeover style, half of the group quickly armed themselves with paint brushes and covered up their valuable GoodGym tees and sportswear with the free oversized L'Oreal t-shirts that had been sent to the school - normally used for when the children do arts and crafts so as to protect their school clothes, genius!

Time to get stacked

While half of the group were painting away the other half made use of the playground area outside for this week's fitness session. Following eight laps of the playground area where the group did some excellent short sprints and indian runs it was time for some 'child's play'. First up was the classic, stuck in the mud, I was just as baffled as last week when many admittedly they had not played this classic game when they were younger - obviously they were brushing up on their painting skills! With the rules explained and the 'tagger' selected everyone sprinted off in different directions, in order to free someone who was stuck five squats were required by both runners. After a couple of rounds everyone had very sweaty foreheads and blushed cheeks, an all-round fun and effective sprint workout!

One final push...don't worry be hoppy!

With the lower body workout complete it was time for an upper body blast. In a take on 'rock, paper, scissors' the group paired up and battled it out in the plank position, some very amusing battles were had, with Tom and Katherine for one seemingly choosing the same each time! Next up was some press-up pyramid work, first up the pyramid, 30 seconds of press-ups and rest, 20 seconds of press-ups and rest and finally 10 seconds of press-ups and rest, and then the small matter of back down the pyramid....tough work but fantastically executed. For some, there was also the bonus exercise of either frog jumps or supermans. Great effort on the fitness work all, pancakes definitely earnt!

We'll get our coats...

With the rotation of the groups seemless, the walls had had their second coat of paint efficiently and skillfully applied and were now looking a lot fresher and brighter than a couple of weeks ago. With the painting completed and nut bars kindly provided by Jeanette either consumed or squirrelled away for later, all that was left to do was to help Jeanette clean-up and capture a brilliant team school-like photo in front of the Flora Gardens School sign outside. We said our goodbyes to Jeanette and headed out of the school. With the rain starting to come down heavily we unaminously decided against the longer run along the towpath and instead headed off, expertly guided by Sapphire, on the shorter and more direct run back to base for our cool down and stretch.

Next week we're heading up to White City Adventure Playground to help them clean up some graffiti, sign up for next week's run here. Hope you enjoyed some pancakes, have a fab week and good luck to all those running the Big Half on Sunday - hopefully see you either during the race or afterwards! And if you see her, Jeanette is marshalling down by Tower Bridge so give her a big cheer or wave! And good luck to Sapphire in the Thames Meander too!