Last night we had 16 runners embrace the light evenings and join us for a clean up down on the canal on behalf of the Canal & River Trust. This included Danny from Brent who visited us on his GoodGym tourism trail and one brand new GoodGymer Georgia, who despite claiming not be be a runner at all smashed it and kept up right at the front all evening!

We started our run by utilising the parks on the way to the canal in Hanwell and performing some group sprint intervals in file formation through the beautiful Walpole and Lammas parks. After that I found the group were feeling pretty speedy last night but I encouraged everyone to go at their own pace with regular regroups along the way so we didn't loose anyone en route. I think everyone had a great workout on the way down as we were all pretty warm by the time we arrived which with all the recent cold whether felt pretty nice for a change!

We were welcomed by Jack and his van full of tricks and this time he had some more litter picking tasks for us to complete. His pre task check along the stretch we work on had unfortunately confirmed that the loch we spruced up on our last visit had once again been subject to a party or two and needed some serious attention! He also had the infamous bat detector to hand to see if we could find any activity this time round after failing to find anything last year.

Loched and loaded...

Loaded with our equipment we headed for the loch a little further down from our meeting point and with the towpath being a little muddy from all the recent rain we stuck to the path inside the park on the way there, keeping everyones feet relatively dry for now...

Special mention this week to Ronan who joined us back at GoodGym after being injured for a little while! It was great to see him back and as a treat he was on bat patrol while the rest of the group split up to cover as much ground and litter picking opportunities as possible.

The evening proved to be not very fruitful in bat activity although Ronan thinks he heard a few maybes, but what we lacked in bats we more than made up for in litter picking! A huge pile of bags collected between us and this stretch of canal and the loch looks a much nicer place for a spring stroll!

The walk on the towpath back to our starting point proved to be a little muddier so apologies to those wearing shiny new trainers on the run (sorry Jenni!) but everyone did amazingly well so a big thank you for coming out last night!

After the run we all headed to the pub for our monthly social and this week we also celebrated my 50th GoodGym deed with cake and a couple of drinks!

It's been an amazing journey and I can't wait to complete the next 50!

Happy Running!

It was a FREEZING cold night but that didn't stop 16 of you coming out to run and help out at Hestia!

This is a hostel for single, homeless men, which supports and empowers service users, to develop their skills, promote their independence and make a positive contribution in the local community, with the ultimate aim of moving on positively and avoiding repeat homelessness.

Such a good cause!

We were joined by lots of people coming along for their second run which was great to see and we also had two brand new GoodGymers with Imogen and Juliane running to do good for the first time!

There was also a special t-shirt to give out this week with local missions legend Michael Kidd receiving his wings and getting his 100 good deed milestone tee!

Well done Michael!

We started as always with a quick warm up on the green which we definitely all needed on this winter evening, a mix of lunges and drills soon got us feeling slightly less like ice cubes and we began our short run up to the hostel with promise of a slightly longer run back featuring a few sneaky hill reps if they were lucky!

We had a real mix of tasks to do tonight and we split into 4 teams across the site to get everything done. We had team kitchen, team wall painting, team bathroom painting and erm... team toilet?! We quickly re-branded this to team bathroom, much more glamorous!

A few paint mishaps couldn't dampen our spirits (cleaned up after of course!) and after just under an hour of painting, scrubbing, polishing and mopping we'd covered almost all the tasks on the list. The cleaning of the paint brushes held us up slightly at the end which meant there was no time for hill sprints en route back (a tactical decision from the team I feel!) so there will be plenty on another run to make up for it next time!

A quick stretch at base and we were done, great work everyone and hopefully see you all on the next run!

We stacked up the good deeds and the shelves last night as 27 AMAZING runners came out to help at Ealing Food Bank. This included 9 lovely new additions with Sophie, Aurelia, Jane, Vicky, Chris J, Chris B, Gemma, Perrine & Mohand all kicking off the new year in style by beginning their GoodGym journey. Welcome everyone!

You butter believe it!

With everyone full of beans (and in some cases peanut butter) and ready to raise their pulses (literally) we started with a quick warm up and fitness session on Haven Green. We began with some simple drills before turning up the tempo with some running circle drills before seeing how far our legs could curry us to the task.

A lot of the group had bought donations down with them to give on the night but fortuNUTely the many jars of peanut butter we had for offering hadn’t weighed us down too much and we made it to the task ready and raring to go! We were met by the lovely Hillary who after the initial shock of the number of us gave us lots of different tasks to do around the warehouse! With such a large turnout we were crammed in like sardines and soon it was a feeding frenzy of shelf stacking, food sorting and cleaning in every aisle.

The time soon came to make like a banana and split and we headed back to base for a quick stretch and debrief on the nights events.

Hopefully the extra puns littered throughout the report have whet your appetite and given you food for thought for next time when you could have your pun in lights on the report.

A special mention to Michael Kidd this week for leading the run and helping co-orindate the task, also his 99th good deed with GoodGym so next time we get to present him with the BIG 100 T-SHIRT!

As always a massive thank you to everyone who came tonight and hopefully see you all next time!