Finally, Group Runs returned. The regular, week-in week-out guaranteed session providing a dose of fitness and chatter. It will take time and patience to build them back up to their former state, but am keen to give it a right good go.

New runner, India joined us for her first session in Newham, having completed tasks in other areas. She also works for Expressway and was the driving force behind us having a base there. Big thanks to her!

We did some covid secure high knees, from afar, no patellas were caressed nor fondled. RWQ was: "Name one positive thing to happen to you during the pandemic?" Realising how important the GoodGym community was and is to you, becoming overly adept at packing food parcels into black cabs, cherished moments with close family, developing highly transferable rubik's cube skills, expanding cooking repertoire, horticultural based satisfaction and finding awesome house-mates. It's useful to inspect the silver lining now and again.

Then onto a baking 2.4 ish mile to help Emma from RDLAC, it began with a lovely waterside section, under the old shipping cranes, then quickly became more industrial. Upon arrival we underwent a surprise stretch from Emma, she's a qualified masseuse, so all were safe under her muscle lengthening supervision.

Quickly to work, tugging out thistle and bindweed mainly, to unveil a rather sumptuous assortment of plants growing under the vigorous weeds. Think we managed about 30mins - but the impact is there to see in the before and after pictures.

Upon our sweaty and radiant return back to Expressway we indulged in some home-made cake by the man himself, Eugene. It went down as could be expected, bloody well; a soft, moist glucose based delight.

Next week, we roll over to Cody Dock, sign up here

Till next week

B

It was all Gogh, Gogh, Gogh again as 24 GoodGym'ers ran 3km to white up a room!

On an unseasonably warm and Spring-like February evening - the kind of weather where everyone quickly locates their GoodGym t-shirts and shorts! - a fantastic 23 smiling GoodGym'ers greeted me at the Better Gym to run and do good. A big welcome to our 2 runderful new runners Libby and Sarah who joined us for their first GoodGym run, and welcome back to self-professed 'fair weather runner' Luis. It was also lovely to see so many runners back for their second and third runs, and of course my fab regulars - thank you all for coming along!

With everyone present and correct we all headed outside to our warm-up spot where I ran through a quick intro and round-up of the week's news.

News, news, news

1) Community Missions - Up for a weekend community mission? No DBS check is required for a community mission.

• Sat 2nd March from 12pm - help sort food donations for City Harvest in Acton, sign up here.
• Sat 9th March from 10.30am - help finish sort clothes donations for St Mungo's Reconnection Post in Hammersmith, sign up here.

2) Sunday 3rd March - Long Runs - Tower Hamlets Run Leader, Simon is leading a 21km run along stages 6 & 7 of the Capital Ring. For all the details and to sign up, click here. There is also talk of H&F long run as well, keep an eye on the WhatsApp group for details!

3) Volunteering opportunities - If you volunteer for either the Adidas City Runs 1 hour on Sun 7th April or the Hackney Half on Sun 19th May, you'll have a great day out cheering on fellow runners and earn yourself some nice freebies that include free entry to a future race, a t-shirt, and possibly even some jelly babies!

The 'artist part was finding the way...

With the news and intros complete we did a name and number count followed by a quick pulse raising warm-up and some dynamic stretches, that of course included some 'shooing of the chickens' and closing of the gate, all in the wrong order! With the warm-up complete and Stravas set, we were ready to head off on our short 1.6km run down to our task tonight at Gibbs Green Tenants Hall, with Jason as always being the trusty backmarker. Along the way there was a short group wall sit to enable everyone to re-group as we headed down off the main road. In a complete déjà vu of our last run to Gibbs Green Tenants Hall I took the group on a minor 'scenic' detour around the back of West Kensington tube station - don't say I don't treat you all to the sights of H&F team!

Water great place to come

It wasn't long before we arrived at Gibbs Green Tenants Hall and were warmly welcomed in by Sara and Peggie. Sara and Peggie had kindly provided water for the group which was gratefully welcomed. As the group rehydrated Sara briefly explained the vast range activities and engagment events that are provided at Gibbs Green Tenants Hall for the community – this ranged from low cost yoga to providing meals from surplus food.

The walls are all white now

Two years ago the group had visited and transformed the green walls of the main hall from green to white, however, over the years the space has been incredibly well used and as result was bearing some very visible dirt, scuffs and stains that needed a bit of GoodGym painting love. Tonight's task was simple, but big, repaint the main hall area walls with a nice fresh coat of white paint. With Sara and Peggie providing a wonderful selection of rollers, paint brushes and trays, the team quickly divided up and began distributing the white paint into the trays ready to tackle the big painting challenge.

Blinded by the white!

Many went up ladders, under ladders or even stood on chairs to ensure that no hard to reach spots were missed. With so many pairs of hands quickly and efficiently painting the walls and skirting boards, it wasn't long before the area that Sara and Peggie had originally prepped with ground sheets for us to paint, so as to protect their newly washed and cleaned floors, needed to be extended out a lot further and wider.

As always the half an hour quickly passed, and not wanting to leave the main hall looking unfinished the group pushed on for a few additional minutes until most of the walls were all completed, and there was no paint left to paint with! With the painting completed, equipment washed, and everyone fed and rehydrated the group posed for a fabulous 'jazz hands' group photo with the ever smiling, Sara and Peggie. We all said our thank yous and goodbyes as we headed outside to the nice grassy area for some quick fitness-based games. After enjoying the Sally squats so much a few weeks ago, Tom had requested more squats and so as to be fair to the whole group I ensured that everyone got to do lots of squats tonight - big thank you to Tom!

Off in squat pursuit

We started off with a fun but tough game of championship knee tag, with lots of squat action and good tactical game play on display - well done to those who were victorious! Next up was a game of squat, squat, goose, where it transpired that many had never played the childhood classic of duck, duck, goose - what madness! After ironing out the rules we had a quick few rounds, all of which were very closely run. With the squat fix not quite acquired we finished off with three exercises to improve our strength, flexibility and balance: pistol squats, alternating supermans and squat thrusts. Great effort all!

Fitness session complete we all began the short run back to base for a cool down and stretch. Cool down and stretches complete we all headed off home our separate ways, with some going via the pub for the monthly social. Excellent work tonight all, hope you all had fun and hope to see you all again soon!

Next week we're heading back to Flora Gardens Primary School to continue our big painting challenge task, sign up for next week's run here. Have a great week!