What a way to get up and running in 2019!! It was lovely to be back after the festive break with lots of new shiny running gear from Santa on display and the beaming smiles and sea of red t-shirts somewhat taking over the BetterGym reception area.

A whopping 25 wonderful GoodGymers joined me for the first run of 2019, including Margot, Corinne, Charlotte and Kat who came along for their first GoodGym H&F group run, lovely to have you along! It was also great to welcome along our special GoodGym guest Rob, the new GoodGym Solilhull Trainer and of course my fab regulars. What a group I had tonight!

In line with our usual formalities we all headed outside for the quick intro and round of the week's news.

I Guess That's Why They Call It the News...

1. GoodGym H&F Starter Session (Saturday 12th January) - Fulham Palace parkrun, plogging & Christmas tree collection/recycling. Sign up here.
2. January Long Run (Sunday 13th January) - This month's GoodGym long run is an 18km run led by Ealing Trainer, Liv along the river and though Richmond Park. Meet outside Kew Bridge for a 9.45am start. Sign up here.
3. JANUARY CHALLENGE 2019! - As a group we need to run as far as we can and complete as many good deeds as humanly possible to achieve (and hopefully surpass!) our 2019 targets - 80 good deeds and 1,000kms run. This year we are in League D against Bromley, Hounslow and Stockport! Let's go H&F team!

One nifty fifty!

And a BIG well done to Sarah for completing her 50th good deed!! Obviously this called for a mega cake and biscuit celebration, after the run of course!

RUN-derful running goals for 2019

Following a name and number count and the return of the icebreaker question, "What running goal do you want toachieve in 2019?", for which there were some fantastic goals and first time marathons, half marathons and PB aspirations we had a quick pulse raising warm-up and headed up on our short 2km run up to St Mungo's Reconnection Post. When we arrived at St Mungo's Reconnection Post we were met by one of the Reconnection Workers, Lucasz. Lucasz briefly explained to group about the valuable services they provide to vulnerable and homeless adults with complex needs in the community, such as the 'No Second Night Out' service they provide – as well as providing 25 beds, they work with the residents to get them reconnected in the community or repatriated back to their country.

All the lost clothes

Tonight's brief was to organise a fantastic array of clothes donated by the public and previous residents that had become slightly disorganised due to the sheer volume of clothes within one small room. As the room and space in which to work was only small the group split into two, Team Trainer Beth and Team soon to be Trainer Rob!

Clothing all sorts

After a slightly disorganised start, Team Beth, in human chain formation, got to work on organising the donations, sorting through the many t-shirts, jumpers, trousers, skirts, socks, hats- you name it, it got sorted. Alice did a fantastic job as chief labeller of the bags (word on the grapevine is that the bags had very much missed Sarah over the festive break!) ensuring that all that got sorted remained clear for others to see, and the rest of the team efficiently placed each item into the correctly labelled bag- what a team! Meanwhile outside, Rob began his fitness session, putting his team through their paces with sprints, basketball squats (Yay! Another type of squat!), lunges and a tough wall sit/sprint relay which left all legs feeling a little tired. Then it was time to switch!

Team Beth was led out to begin their fitness session which included some sprinting, fitness exercises and core strength partner work, whilst Team Rob got to work on the organising and sorting, continuing the good work already done!

One impressive chain line running to time

With some efficient human chain action from both groups, in just over half an hour twenty bags of donations had been sorted, filled and labelled. With the sorted bags placed back into the room and the rubbish cleared away we posed for the massive 'piggy in the middle' group photo and the cheeky group photo where we all pointed at Rob, to show our appreciation and love for our Trainer guest!

With everyone head counted in it was time to say out goodbyes to Lucasz and began our short 2km back to base via Brook Green for a quick 1km time trial sprint lap around the outer perimeter of the Green. We headed to the start of the Strava segment so that everyone's times could be logged and progress tracked, Jason kindly provided the manual stopwatch option so hopefully everyone has a time to aim for when we return this year. Chris expertly led the first of four groups around the Green, and I assume everyone used the post-run cake and biscuits as added motivation as it wasn't long before everyone was back at the start having completed the 1km lap in super quick time. Brilliant effort all!

TREE-sy does it!

Next week we have a TREE-mendously fun task in which we will be running and scavenger hunting for discarded Christmas trees, great fun and a great upper-body workout! Sign up here. Thank you all for coming along and for all your efforts, what a start to 2019! Have a great week and hopefully see you all on Saturday or next Tuesday.

Thank you to Jason for backmarking and many thanks to Catriona and Rob for the extra photos!