Run report by Ben Cooper!

22 green-fingered runners ran 4km to bring back some nature at St Joseph's Primary School!

Tonight’s task saw us make a return to St Joseph’s Primary School – Neil’s place of work. Give Neil a cheer for setting it up.

Matt and Deb were making their debuts, and thankfully the rain held off for them as well. And Imogen also made a comeback.

The group was further enhanced with the presence of new trainer Ben A, from soon-to-be GoodGym Cardiff. Ben had been to Wandsworth, on Monday, and Barnet, on Tuesday, before finally landing the royal gig – Greenwich. You know you’ve made it, when the starting point is in a World Heritage Site!

Proceedings started on fishy note, and no I am not referring to the smell of Ben P’s hairspray. Sarah, GoodGym Greenwich Trainer, asked the group what their favourite sea animal was. It seemed to stump our resident medical student, Amy. Obviously, she is more at land with working with humans (we hope).

Before Sarah closed the intro, Ben P stepped forward and said he had something to say. Sarah admitted an audible gasp - ‘What was this usurper doing!?’

HAPPY 50th GOOD DEED!

Alas, it was our esteemed trainer’s 50th good deed, and unknown to Sarah, a small clandestine group had been planning some festivities as we couldn’t let the occasion pass without acknowledging it aka ritually embarrassing her.

When I say, clandestine group don’t think ‘meeting under the cover of darkness, in the Old Royal Naval College Undercroft, wearing red robes and chanting’ but rather Alex setting up a separate messenger group.

Unfortunately, most shops have not yet seen the potential growth market of stocking 50th good deeds products, so we plastered Sarah with a 50th badge and helium balloon. Hope we haven’t given you a complex about how old you look. ;-)

The temperature was dropping so Ben A took us a few warm-up dialling up the exertion knob from 1-5. Ben A’s use of the word shimmy also piqued people’s interest with style points going to Brin for his interpretation of a shimmy. Watching him reminded me of the famous French-American fencer Maitre Michel Alaux.

Setting off we resembled some sort of weird hen/stag/birthday/running group mash-up with Sarah in her full regalia. A short run along the river; we do like to show off our * cough * royal borough when other GoodGym tourists come to visit, and we were there.

Headteacher Mouquet informed the group that 1 in 5 school children don’t have a house garden. Hence, the importance of connecting children back to nature. Putting the green back into Greenwich as we always like to do, we got straight to it.

Gareth had kindly brought some spare pair of gloves, although Charlotte and Mridula looked dubiously at them - Black and latex. More fitting for handling corpses than carnations.

Isabella, Linda and Marta picked up the paintbrushes and started painting the fence green. Marta did some touching up of a few plants as well for good measure.

Working on their hands and knees (Sarah is a hard task master), the rest of the group split up into lines do some planting – lavender, carnations and pansies. Alex was assigned the chief compost bag ‘shakey’ ‘shakey’ distributor.

Overhearing a few conversations did expose a perhaps worrying lack of gardening knowledge in the group. For example, ‘we need something to dig a hole’. The top answer you were looking for was a spade, and another conversation debating the difference between a trowel and a trident. From my little knowledge of Greek mythology, I am sure Poseidon, God of the Sea is not pictured with a trowel.

No sooner from fence we had came we were compotted. Great work everyone! It’d be great to see the look on all those children faces when they come into school and see plants painted green. Ha ha.

Then we offshooted back for our fitness session. But not before the obligatory group photo. Ben A even cajoled Sarah to get in the photo. No hiding this week boss.

Ben A led the fitness session. We did some speed interval training around the quadrant (we have quadrants in Greenwich) running at 50% halfway, and then cranking it up to 100%.

Everyone pushed hard and there was still time to play a game like British Bulldog but more in keeping with the fish theme, called Fishy Fishy.

Ben A: "Fishy, fishy swimming in the sea" All: "Sharky, sharky you can't catch me"

Ben A was a shark swimming around trying to catch the fishes. There was also a curious seaweed dance that Ben A briefly showed us. Expect and hope that comes out at future GoodGym Cardiff socials!

With sharks circling, some fishes were swimming too fast and Jo got caught in some cross streams. Jo hope your knee is ok.

Appetites found and how – thanks Ben A, we embarked to the Cutty Sark pub for our monthly social. Alex had secured the Crow’s Nest room, at the top of the Cutty Sark, with great views looking out on the river. Pure Bliss. And Sarah got up the stairs spritely for someone of her rapidly increasing years.

And with most people picking the fish n chips option, the fish theme just wouldn’t go away. The injured Christian also joined the group for the meal bringing some much missing decorum to the evening.

Ignoring Sarah’s 50th get-up, perhaps the oddest sight of the evening was seeing Brin drink out of something other than his now legendary water bottle. However, the change in receptacle clearly seem to knock him off course as he couldn’t seem to find his words at points.

Festivities included Ben C delivering a short quiz titled ‘Know your Place’, testing Sarah’s GoodGym knowledge. Evidently, Sarah does write all her own puns as she demonstrated nearly perfect recall when called on to complete the pun phrases.

Ben P, who had been covertly collecting signatures for Sarah’s card throughout the whole session, presented Sarah with her card which had some great group photos from previous tasks splashed on the front.

And Vickie, designer and socks/trainers combo trendsetter had made Sarah a little artwork.

Following the food, the kind staff, at the Cutty Sark brought, out a cake as made by Mridula. This cake had criss-crossed it way across London from home to work and to its final resting place, the pub’s fridge. Co-worker Helen confessed she had opened the fridge, at their workplace, to admire said cake but she wouldn’t be drawn if she had licked the icing or not.

Whoever, buys the movie rights to Mridula’s anecdote about getting the cake to the pub has got a sure-fire blockbuster on their hands. (PG12 owing to lots of mild peril scenes and rude innuendo about buns.)

Thanks for visiting Ben A! Car-you-diff Ben A some love here. On tonight’s evidence, GoodGym Cardiff is going to go swimmingly!

Mridula have a nice holiday. You can find a link to the cake recipe here.

Lastly, like the Murder on the Orient Express, a lot of people had been complicit in arranging Sarah’s 50th celebrations in the full knowledge that Sarah might beast us extra hard the next week, but we wanted to do something to show our appreciation for all our trainer does.

Next up for the big five-o is our Social Sec, Alex. Don’t worry Alex, we’ve already got your red mankini on order! It will hang nicely next to your blue and purple ones!

Four of us paid another visit to Ealing Road Baptist Church last night. After a 2.5k jog we met with Roger outside the premises who was wearing a new hat and explained how his wife often hides the hats of his that she doesn't like. I don't know why I included this in the report, it just seems funny :-D

So, to work...

Graham and Alicia set about emptying two large cupboards of various tinned food, packets of pasta, biscuits, tea, a dodgy perfume set and some strange biscuit/cream cheese combination that looked a bit scary.

While at the same time Andy and Simon carried some chairs upstairs and then organised a bookshelf.

As usual we got loads done in a short space of time and had a little while for Roger to offer us various items of food that were unsuitable for the food bank, such as out-of-date mince pies, which we sampled for a bit of fuelling for the journey back.

On the way home we stopped for a mini "leg-buster" challenge. A short lunge walk, followed by five squat jumps up and down a kerb and then repeat twice more. Gets you to just about the point where you don't want to walk any more. Ow.

That's it, I'm off now. Thanks for having me GoodGym Hounslow. It has been great fun and I'll see you at Gunnersbury parkrun on the 4th March

Ana from Wandsworth is taking over next week. Sign up here

Simon

12 Goodgymmers run 5km to Emmaus Colchester to sort their clothing display

Colchester GoodGym Gang gathered on a mild but drizzly evening which was to lead to a satisfying mission at the Emmaus Warehouse. This evening we were joined by Kirstie for her maiden GoodGym adventure. Angela welcomed and briefed the group on the running order for our session and after our warm up routine, the ‘Tremendous Twelve’ headed out on our way through Kings Meadow.

The rain which arrived late afternoon made for a slippery run through the paths coated in Autumn leaves and dodging the puddles in the dark added to the fun. We made our way up North Hill, re-grouping by the elephants at the top, then continuing on towards Emmaus. John and Paul who both work at Emmaus during the week explained the layout of the warehouse, leading us through an Aladin’s Cave of furniture, books, pictures and more. To say it was like a scene from Cash in the Attic is an understatement and it would have been no surprise to have had David Dickenson pop up!

We climbed the stairs to the upper floor where all the clothing, shoes and accessories are stored. Our prime aim was to help create a semblance of order which would result in a clothing section which looked appealing and inviting for customers to shop. We had our work cut out when faced with many piles of items and bags of mixed clothing which needed sorting into Gents, Ladies, Kids as well as those pieces which were never ‘gonna cut the cloth’ and would be destined for the reject pile.

To tackle our mission we worked in two groups, one group doing the initial screening, the other tidying and sorting the existing hanging rails. A few of the group couldn’t resist modelling some pieces, Tav taking a shine to a blue dress and Steve was drawn to a floral shirt. Helen did well in getting a hold on the footwear area. Together we made an impact, agreeing that a return mission would be beneficial.

The return leg to Leisure World included a ‘Hump Day hill drill’ workout. Angela gave the group tips on the best technique to tackle this and Tommy and Tav enjoyed a competitive race to the top. All in all this was a thoroughly enjoyable mix of running and retail medicine. What’s not to like? We covered a 5k distance overall but knowing we’d made a difference together, sent us on our way home smiling that we’d done well. Same time, same place next week GoodGymers to blitz the leaves at St Leonards. Sign up here

Run Report by Sue Foley