On one scorcher of a Tuesday evening in Kingston a fantastic 14 GoodGym-ers turned up to brave the heat and excessive sweating for a fun-filled evening of running and doing good! Mark was away on holiday so I had the pleasure of leading his wonderful Kingston group. It was great to see the familar faces of Nicola and Xander and Bill from my last Kingston run, fab to welcome Luke to his second Kingston run and the bonus of my 4 tourist friends, Andy, Michelle, Morag and Steve from GoodGym Houslow, Wandsworth and Lewisham - what a team I had!

Before we set-off to tonight’s task at the YMCA Allotments in Surbiton we gave a big round of applause to the following runners for their achievements this past week:

1. Andy and Morag for completing the Swansea Half Marathon on Sunday. Despite no swans being seen, Andy got a fantastic PB and Morag completed her first (of many?!) half marathons.
2. Samia and Nicky for completing the first Kingston mission. An incredible amount of tree branches tackled! – have a read of their wonderful mission report here.
3. Last but not least, to the hugely energetic, speedy, stretchy, and wonderful Richmond and Kingston Trainer Mark on completing his 100th good deed on Monday night and earning his wings. In honour of this the group re-created the 100 wings which provided the wonderful cover photo with only minor Photoshop assistance!

Well done guys!

What TFL?!

Unfortunately due to the severely delayed South West Trains many of the group were unable to make it down in time and some decided to meet us at the task – a wonderful service provided as always…

Hot runs faster as you can catch a cold!

Following a quick warm-up the team set off on the 3.3km run down to the YMCA Allotments. The 3.3km run down ended up being a 4.3km due to me taking the team a slightly ‘scenic’ route down and Mark I even got in a small hill for them….sorry team! The traffic lights provided the perfect pause for hydration stops and regrouping, with the fun of a few wall sits for the speedier ones at the front. We were nearly at the task when Lesley took a tumble after a small slip on the kerb but thankfully no limbs were badly bruised, and the iPhone screen was intact!

We had a fun stay at the YMCA, we digged’ the allotments

We were welcomed at the entrance by the markedly less sweaty '(wo)man about town' Michelle and YMCA Community Activities Team Leader, Sarah who explained the vision of the YMCA allotments for the community and what we were going to help out with tonight. Sarah led us down the path towards the plot of land that some community residents and YMCA staff were already tackling, they provided us with some bright new gardening gloves and an array of tools to tackle the weeds and overgrowth. Everyone chose their tool/weapon of choice and quickly got stuck in, Bill even managed to obtain some additional tools through some expert hand explanations from a kind woman working on her allotment. The team worked like a well-oiled machine and there were weeds and big green bags being quickly filled. Some extra hands were provided by Morag and Steve who completed some great unintentional Strava art and sight-seeing of the surrounding area...

Much was achieved in our alloted time

As always the half an hour quickly passed and there was a marked difference from when the team had started. With the tools and gloves tidies away and returned there was time for a quick post-task group photo with Sarah and the community residents and YMCA staff – the lovely summer sun and the fabulous team made more one beautiful photo! Following a brief final chat with Sarah who reiterated how much she’d love to have the group back in the near future, we all said our thank yous and goodbyes, and the team headed back to base on a less scenic and more direct route back.

No hot shots!

Sadly/luckily (delete as appropriate!) there was no time for the fitness session of ‘shot up, shot down’ but we did ensure a good stretch before we all headed off home to re-hydrate.

Thank you for making me feel so welcome and for all your hard work on a very hot evening, stay hydrated and make sure to as the Aussie’s say ‘Slip! Slop! Slap!’. Big thank you to Samia and Kate for their navigation help and to Jane for back-marking and helping me not lose anyone, success! Have a fantastic week and see you again soon.

Mark’s back next week and the task is “Ball Pond Cleaning"! Sign-up here - sounds like you'll have a ball at this one!

And a quick reminder that it's the GoodGym Olympics 2018 on Saturday at Parliament Hill, all are welcome to come watch, have a picnic and a cheer! Pritesh and Steve are also organising a fab post-Olympics social too.