12 Great GoodGymers ran 4.5k to St Andrews Youth Club to clear stuff, clean stuff and play some games!

Great to have a super crew to nip through London Town with tonight, managing to negotiate a few hundred thousand Christmas shoppers while gazing at some of the most magical Christmas Lights you could see.

Running South we made our way through the enchanting St James’s park and along the 2 and bit kilometre route to St Andrew’s youth club at 151 years young it is very much still going strong.

Always puts a smile on my face to walk into the club and feel the energy of Westminsters youth being directed into such positive pursuits!

With a big truck coming along tomorrow we first cleared the last of the heavy stuff that will be making space for more activities in 2018. With the garage full to the brim with stuff to go some of it from so many years ago that the dust was piling way up high.

With the garage filled half the group. Made their way up to the boxing store to lift, shift and tidy the boxing store cupboard. Making it so much easier for the boxing groups to access and use the kit on their next session.

The rest of the group made there way down to the gym and amazing to see it looking so good!! A mini makeover has taken place with the January fitness drive the target to try and raise some vital funding to keep St Andrew’s thriving. A deep clean on mass got the gym that extra sparkle and we even got to hear from ** Tom and Adrian** about the amazing work that the youth club does, the history of the club and two amazing and uplifting accounts of how the Youth Club has helped them both from young children to grown adults. Awesome to feel the passion and love that they both spoke with about the Club.

With a few minutes left we took the chance to play some games with some of the youth club members. Great to be able to have fun playing table football, Table Tennis and pool having fun and building great community relationships. Alex even capped off a stunning performance to hold his nerve in a titanic pool battle that will live long in St Andrew’s folklore!!

Saying our Christmas goodbyes and look forward to many more great projects in 2018 not to mention the Epic Kinball Summer showdown!!

A swift run back up to Oxford Street with some more Christmas light action on Old Bond Street rounded off an uplifting evening!!

Thanks for coming along and hope to see you all next week!

Smooth Running

Joel

16 Westminster GoodGymers ran 7k to One Big Family Homeless Charity in Victoria to make the food for the evenings Soup kitchen.

On a beautiful Spring evening we welcomed a flock of Goodgym Newbies for their maiden outing.

After a introduction in the New Balance store we headed South through the sights, sounds and many many people who were out and about in Central London.

Weaving our way past Palaces and through parks we made our way 3.5k to Ebury Estate where we met up with One Big Family legend Mike!

A quick wash of the hands and we orchestrated an efficient and compact production line producing 3 loaves of Jam sandwiches, 3 loaves of Cheese sandwiches, 36 buns of Vegetarian Ham, cut up 150 slices of pizza bread and 50 slices of cake. All bagged up, allergy dotted and stacked up in 25 minutes!!

A quick wash up and we were off back through the slightly quieter streets back to base. Picking up the pace at the front and maintaining a steady rhythm at the back smashed through the first 2k of the run back before ** Unleashing Fury** on the Green Park drag with some powerful 500m efforts from everyone all the way up the slope to the gates of recovery!!

A relaxed jog back from there was well earned and a stretch and a clap and we were done!!

Great effort tonight! Hope to see you along for the run next week! Be great to have you along to the Special Easter Egg give away where we will run around town handing out Spring cheer to the homeless and youngest kids at St Andrews Youth Club. If you are able to bring along a donation or 2 no matter how big or small it will be great!!

Smooth Running

Joel

18 GoodGymers ran 3k to Rhythams of Life Homeless Charity to sort, order, lift and shift 3 tonnes of donations

Starting with a flurry of DBS checks to get stuck into Missions and Coach runs we set off on our bob and weave run from Oxford Street to Rhythams of Life in Leicester Square.

1.5k of forward running with a couple of cheeky back street weaves and a whole lot of lateral dodging we arrived at the amazing building that houses Rhythams of Life to meet Farris.

After a couple of minutes of heart stopping wait for me we went in to tackle the monster pile of donations that we needed to sort, order, lift and shift.

The task was a monster and almost hard to see how to start but we did and smashed a GoodGym size dent in it!! Sorting everything from toiletries to Suits we had our work cut out and we labelled our way to success using every second of the 50 minutes we spent there!!

The final flurry to move all the ordered and labelled clothing down into the basement so we can dominate the second half of the Clothing Mountain next week!!

A big thank you from Farris, a dose of hand sanitizer and a team picture and we were off on the 1.5k dodgems run back to base!

Arriving back dead on 8pm a quick static stretch out and we were done!!

Be great to see you al again next week!! So please sign up and come along to tackle the clothing mountain!!

Smooth Running

Joel

10 pumped up Westminster GoodGymers run 8k and moved 10k to deliver 350 flyers for Open Age charity to promote their over 50's Dance Mix class.

Spring is pretty much here!! On a mild and dry central London evening we prepared for action and discussed game plans in the almost tropical New Balance store. Heading out to the North West of the borough keeping to the quieter pedestrian roads we timed the crossings to almost perfection heading out under the Westway Flyover. As we approached the designated area we split into pairs and tried our hardest to negotiate the tricky entry systems in the flats while continually posting flyer after flyer into all inviting houses and businesses. Working our way all the way out to the boarders of the borough we decided for the last 10 minutes we would push the pace and cover Little Venice in Dance Mix glory and dominating a last flyer push as we rounded off a successful dose of flyering.

Heading back with an extra 2k of flyering movement in the legs we stuck together until we were clear of the flyover then anyone who wanted to push the pace had free license to roll on strong! James, Howard and Chris all upper the anti and sped the last 3k back at an impressive rate before looping back to join the rest of the crew and add on a bit more distance to the evening.

Some top running by everyone bagging over 4k on the way back to go with the rest of the evenings efforts! Well done Team.

Look forward to seeing you all again next week for another fun filled ** Running Adventure!!** sign up here.

Smooth Strides

Joel