One way to cure post-holiday blues...GoodGym H&F Tuesday's! It was lovely to be back and to be joined by 16 wonderful GoodGym runners despite the cooler and darker conditions. Welcome along to Freddie on his first GoodGym run, welcome back to Serena and a Haringey 'high five' welcome to Dave doing some GoodGym tourism! And a big thank you to Alyx who covered the run last week, it sounded like a fun run.

With everyone gathered at base we headed outside and had a quick penguin-esk group huddle of introductions and the weekly news round-up...

1. Community Mission this Saturday! We will be following-up our August group run visit and lending a hand at Springvale Estate Residents Hall. No DBS check is required. Sign up here.
2. It's the London-wide GoodGym monthly social this Thursday in Angel at the Islington Townhouse! Full details here.
3. Next Tuesday is the GoodGym H&F monthly social - come along post-run for food & drinks. Location TBC.

Well done to Tom for completing the Tough Mudder Half (the mud may be gone by next week!...) and to Dave for completing the Spartan Race at the weekend.

With the intros and news done we did a quick name and number count and warm-up before setting off on the short 1km run along to the task, a GoodGym H&F first, toil and lay an artificial lawn for Hestia Housing and Support. At their Talgarth Road home, Hestia Housing & Support provide personal care and accommodation to those with complex and mental health support needs.

Always Look on the Bright Guide of Life

It wasn't long before we arrived and we were met at the door by Debo who led us inside and out to the garden area. A large cardboard box of fresh tools and equipment had been provided along with some step-by-step instructions of how to lay the artificial lawn. However, with Autumn well and truly upon us there was a large amount of leaves that first needed to be cleared from the area before the existing grass could be removed. Sarah was of course the first to excitedly grab the bin bags and hold them open as others swept and tidied the area.

Step 1 - clear the area & remove the leaves and exisiting grass...nice and simple, quickly & easily done! 8 full green bin bags filled within minutes

Step 2 - keep the weeds out, roll out the black weed membrane...focusing on half of the garden area the group cut the membrane to size and fixed them in place using the pins

Step 3 - roll out the artificial lawn...

At this point everything become a touch more complicated...what way should the sheets go? how do we fix them in place? Despite some lingering uncertainty of how this was to be done the group rolled out 4 sheets of the artificial lawn and began laying them as described in the guide. However, with only half of the membrane down on the whole area, and a lack of light and hammer, as well as no prior knowledge or experience of how to join and fix artificial lawn sheets together, everyone decided to just pin down a few of the sheets and fluff up the artificial lawn to make it look more realistic - while most used their hands, Freddie had the genius idea of using a broom to speed up the process! With time now also against us we decided to call it a night and used some of the green bin bags to help temporary secure the sheets of artificial lawn.

A Green Streak

We said a quick goodbye to Debo and set off on the short run over to Brook Green to complete a quick 1km time trial lap around the outer perimeter of the Green; to ensure the group got some extra few metres of running I of course 'purposefully' took a wrong turn en route that required a nice semi-synchronised U-turn. Building on the running technique work done with Alyx last week the group all set off on their sprint behind leader, Tom and it wasn't long before everyone was back at the start having completed the lap of the Green in super quick time. There was some excellent 'pockets to sockets' technique and good postures displayed, and post-lap everyone had significantly raised pulse rates, and redder and sweatier faces. Brilliant effort all! Thank you very much to Jason & Bex for being the time-keepers and bag holders.

With the group nicely congregated we did some squats and lunges before heading back to base for a quick cool down and final stretch with some Slovenian biscuit treats.

Lovely to see you all last night, a big welcome to Freddie and Serena, and thank you for your help with the 'rather complex' task! Good luck to Tom this weekend in the Royal Parks Half and to anyone else that is racing or parkrunning (It's National parkrun day on Saturday so why not go along to one and join the fun!).

Next week we have a slightly longer run to help Family Friends move and dismantle their office furniture. Sign up here. Have a great week!