What a night to celebrate such a fantastic birthday - GOOD GYM's 10th YEAR!

Whether Ivo knew just how contagious doing good could be and how many would want to contribute we don't know but one thing is for sure he is a legend and so Kingston wanted to hail the hero by paying tribute in his form...that's right we ran tonight Ivo-esque with the trademark cap and glasses (and of course a GG shirt).

As well as trying to pull of the look our challenge was to wave our flag in as many places as we could, get a fun run in and of course help a great community mission - and all before the kitchen closed at the pub.

Did we do it of course .... we did and more. We started the night welcoming three new runners, Jessica, Louisa, and Tish who fell straight into fancy dress and celebration mode, making an awesome compliment to the team - Lovely to have them join us!!

A fast brief, briefer warm up and baseball caps and glasses on we took to the Kingston streets, glowing warmly in the evenings fading sunshine. Rather than take the direct route we wanted to enjoy the run some so headed to bushy park making the most of the daylight while we had it and the great open space - we had a SEIZE the FLAG run which was not competitive at all (except for perhaps the run trainer who shouldn't be allowed to play such games).

Flag seized and a strong pace set we headed to CANBURY gardens to meet the lovely Marilyn and some sleepy chickens. Straight to work and watering, filling butts, emptying butts, pallette moving, path clearing, moving compost, filling the pond, moving tyres and even EATING TOMATOES all took place in a flash! Job done and time to spare...was it the thought of the pub that helped us make great time or just the awesome teamwork of a great Kingston team!!! The latter surely as rather than extra time in the pub we squeezed in a preliminary round of a in-promtu 'MARK SAYS CIRCUIT" in the dark too! Much Kudos to all as admirably done and hardly a burpee in sight!

Goodgym on the run in Bushy Park #happybirthday #10yearsold #birthdayrun #running #volunteering #goodgym #bushypark #kingston #runninggroup #doinggood #fun #celebration pic.twitter.com/f5bH3GAukm

— GoodGym Kingston-upon-Thames (@GoodGymKingston) September 18, 2019

So back to Guildhall where surely it was time for a photo as we hadn't had one of the flag in at least 5 running strides.

Finally the pub- Private room of course as only the best will do for a place to hang the great GG logo and toast what makes our Tueday evenings and all the good that has happened in the GG name over the last 10 years. Cheers and here's to many more for many more to enjoy!

Happy 10 years @Goodgym!!!! #birthday #runnersdoinggood #runninggroup #community #celebration #cake #fun #social #volunteering #reason2run #getfitdoinggood pic.twitter.com/9APTPas1TG

— GoodGym Kingston-upon-Thames (@GoodGymKingston) September 18, 2019

See you next week for a visit to Citizen Zoo and all don't forget Super Saturday Mission running this weekend Plog along Sunday too!

There was a huge sigh of relief from us when we returned to set down the farmers' market and found the gazebos and stalls still standing. Phew, they weren't swept away in the gales!

As if we had a tailwind behind us, we carried the barrier posts and chains back to the shed. Easy breezey!

It was then time to take the gazebo down - and quicker than you can say "Beaufort scale", we were done!

There are going to be new barriers this week.

NEW BARRIERS???? "What would these be like?", we wondered with as much excitement as can be had about barriers. What we hadn't anticipated was the range of new pun opportunities this would bring.

We were given a tutorial about barrier assembly, fixing the chain-attaching heads to the bee-esque posts and starting to pun it up. Laura also humoured me with a perfect Boomerang opportunity, before we started on step 2.

@GoodGymKingston warming up to get into pole position @SurbitonFM this morning pic.twitter.com/5jhXYXAM0u

— GoodGym Kingston-upon-Thames (@GoodGymKingston) March 16, 2019

It was time for us to get into pole position.

We carried pairs of poles along the street, guestimating where the stalls would be set up. Then we were posted back for step 3: chain attaching.

We chained posts whilst punning, humming along an unchained melody as we bee-vered away. Like a chain reaction, the street was soon lined with our beeline of posts & chains. Now for task 4:

Would this be worth weight-ing for?

After a bit of confusion, we finally found the weights that needed to be filled with water to hold the gazebo down.

Water you weight-ing for?

Well, the bar to open. But as soon as it was open, Alice leapt inside to take a new role of filling the containers with water from behind the bar. Alice, you certainly pulled your weight!

All done, we greeted our market trader friends and will return later for setting down.

It was a great turn out tonight with 18 of us gathered at the Guildhall for a super long but super informative briefing with lots of news packed in: Summary as follows

• CONGRATULATIONS 1st Nicky earned her wings! Well done on 100 good deeds Nicky!

• Sadly next week is Nic C's last run with us, a message will be going out about a drink after next week's run to say farewell and celebrate all the great runs she has had with Kingston

• We have smashed our January Challenge and are top in our division but lets keep going and see how much more we can do!!!

• There is an Unofficial unoffical Goodgym Socialisng facebook page which talks about all things Goodgym, advertises socials centrally and gives you the chance to vote for 'pun of the month' - Check it out!

Tonight we also welcomed two new runners - Di and Lorena , lovely to meet you and have you run with us and well done to Alice and Taki on her second run with Goodgym Kingston.

Although it was a super long briefing and a taxing warmup with 'What actual pressups?!' We still had some puff left to take on a scenic run to the Wayside Garden in Surbiton.

Once there we were greeted by Andrew of I.D Verde who gave us a brilliant gardening tutorial and instructions on tonights task.

We were asked to pick up all the litter, dig up all the weeds, pull down the ivy and even show some love to the other side of the road so Lovelace Road got some TLC where we took part in a therapeutic hedge trim and was claimed 'GOOD JOB Goodgym' by passers by : - )

All that was left to be done was to have two great group photos - one in the middle of the road (Beatles style) without upsetting a single driver and then a usual suspects pinned against the wall before we made a clean get away and a steady run back to make use of the stairs at Guildhall for stretching every muscle we have I think!

Great job all and looking forward to next week already - Keep logging those miles!