Despite the pouring rain and prospect of another wet and cold run, last night a brilliant 7 other GoodGym'ers avoided the temptation to stay dry and in the warm and joined me for our final group run of 2018! Amongst my lovely regulars it was great to welcome along James for his second H&F group run - hope you enjoyed it!

That old chestnut...the news!

1. Tonight was the last group run of 2018! So NO Christmas Day or New Year’s Day GoodGym H&F but remember there are quite a few parkruns happening.
2. There’s still time to get your festive GoodGym badges with Community Missions still occurring over the festive break. Why not aim for the Winter 321 Challenge badge: 3 cheers, 2 community missions and 1 group run?!

In the line of flyer

This week we had a flyering task for 3 wonderful community organisations:

1. Family Friends - a small charity who provide a parent befriending and child mentoring service in West London. They use volunteers to support the service and are currently looking to recruit new mentors and befrienders.
2. Doorstep Library - a charity that recruit and train volunteers to go into some of the most disadvantaged areas in London to help introduce children from ages 1-11 to the pleasure of reading and inspire them with it.
3. Acknowledging Youths - a project that was set up to raise the aspirations and make a positive impact on the life of disadvantaged young people in London. They provide education and training to help prepare the young people for interviews and ensure they are ‘work ready’.

Following a quick warm-up we all headed off up to Shepherd’s Bush Road. Once at Brook Green we split into two with Team One - Sarah, Jonny, Jason and Chris covering one side of the road and Team Two - Sarah, James, Johnny and Beth covering the other side so as to maximise our flyering efficiency.

Both teams headed up Shepherd’s Bush Road and then along Goldhawk Road distributing many of the flyers to local newsagents, laundrettes and pubs as they ran, with the latter proving very tempting for a quick refreshment stop!

Safe you 'elfs for Christmas!

With the pub temptation avoided both teams pushed on and regrouped by Goldhawk tube station. With the rain still coming down and the flyers beginning to get overly damp we decided to call it a night on the flyering front and posed for a group photo under the shelter of an office.

In order to get a good run in, especially since as Sarah noted, I'd begun to get my bearings around the area a far lot better so there were less 'scenic routes' taken, we all headed down towards Furnivall Gardens.

The 12 Days of GoodGymas

Once at Furnivall Gardens the group completed a nice festive themed pyramid fitness session. In true grinch style I added an extra degree of difficulty by asking everyone to complete a short 10m sprint after completing each exercise.

On the 12 days of GoodGym Christmas, my GoodGym Trainer gave to me (carol singing however was not enforced!)...

1. One nutcracker knees
2. Two tricep presses
3. Three snow angels
4. Four Christmas Tree balances
5. Five Boxing Day Presses
6. Six lunge wraps
7. Seven shooting star jumps
8. Eight rocking bridges
9. Nine press on the walls
10. Ten leaping leap frogs
11. Eleven drummer squats
12. Twelve toy soldiers with high knees

Lighten up, it's Christmas!

Everyone put in 100% effort and had significantly raised pulse rates, and redder and sweatier faces after completing the session. Brilliant effort all! All that was left was for us to run the short distance back to base, admiring the wonderful Christmas lights on display at St Paul's CE Primary School en route. Back at base we sheltered under the car park of the Better Gym and had our final stretch off in 2018. Here's to 2019!

Thank you all for a RUN-derful latter part of 2018, thank you for all your hard work and smiley faces week in week out no matter what the weather. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! See you in 2019! And many thanks for my Buddy the elf approved treat!

The first group run in 2019 will be on Tuesday 8th January!! It will be an INDOOR task sorting donations for St Mungo's Reconnection Post, sign up here.