After a day of constant rain and freezing easterly winds, I think I can speak for us all when I say it took a bit of extra motivation to get our GoodGym tops (plus multiple extra layers!) on and head out to Guildhall tonight!! This speaks volumes about the fantastic power of GoodGym that whatever the weather, literally come rain or shine, it always motivates us to make the extra effort to get out on a run, meet up with friends and help our local community.

This evening we welcomed Mathew for his first GoodGym run, and although he says that it had nothing to do with the task being an indoor soft play area, we all know the truth! It was also great to see Roz again for her second group run - she is clearly not just a fair weather runner!

After our usual boardroom briefing we headed out into the rain for a much needed warm up. The tempo was definitely aLEGro as we skipped and side stepped our way around the green and fought off the urge to run home instead of to the YMCA! Our task tonight was to re-visit our friends at YMCA St Paul’s to help clean their soft play area. We were previously here on a hot sunny day in July and therefore it was a bit of a different run out along the dark wet towpath this evening being dazzled by head torches rather than sunshine!

We did 2 different routes to the task tonight to allow for different levels of running experience, but both groups dug deep and kept running the full distance and the timing worked out perfectly with both teams arriving at the task together. We were warmly welcomed by the lovely task owner Memory (now there’s a name that’s impossible to forget!) who even offered us tea and coffee!! She showed us through to the soft play area, and after seeing our damp trainer trails, quickly found a mop and bucket to help us ensure that we didn’t leave our mark in the wrong way!

We know how to get to the bottom of things when doing good #goodgym #softplay #ymcahawker #volunteering #doinggood #kingston #running pic.twitter.com/bI3cCMSPdb

— GoodGym Kingston-upon-Thames (@GoodGymKingston) November 20, 2018

We didn’t need to be asked twice as we were unleashed onto the climbing frame, armed with jay cloths and cleaning spray, each runner found their own route around the crazy maze and before long their were runners in every corner of the play area. We were slipping and sliding both inside and out tonight - firstly along the muddy footpath and then down the jumbo slides! The squeals of delight from the runners helped you to guess which slip and slide they really preferred! It wasn’t all child’s play though, this was a serious assault course, that would rival any tough mudder… it’s a jungle (gym) out there!

Once we downed tools , we slip and slid all the way to GoodGym-boreeeeee!#softplay #slide #fun #play #ymcahawker #volunteering #cleaning #running #doinggood #kingston pic.twitter.com/i1mfxXGaxH

— GoodGym Kingston-upon-Thames (@GoodGymKingston) November 20, 2018

With the play matts de-fuzzed and disinfected, the final job was to clean the slides (just one more time!) and then with a final swish of the mop we were done!