Another chilly night in Ealing saw 17 of us come out in the final week of January to support Hestia's Ealing refuge.

We started with a getting to know you (getting to know all about youuuuu) exercise. This involved throwing your shoes into a pile in the middle of a circle, yes bear with me, before hopping in and picking up someone else's shoe, finding out who the shoe belonged to and finding out a fun fact about that person. Basically a balance drill while getting to know more about other GoodGym members. Despite the cold feet I think it was a success!

📣 We also had a big announcement, happy 100 good deeds to Shan! Go and give him a HUGE cheer!

So after letting off the party poppers, we set off on the short uphill run to Hestia where a big task awaited...

Our mission for the evening was to do lots of sorting of old files into boxes for archiving as well as sorting out a couple of cupboards. Hundreds of files came down the three flights of stairs in a big human chain before the big sort started with groups across all the levels.

"I can't believe how quickly you work!" - Hestia staff

It didn't take us long to finish the task and before we knew it we were swooping back towards our start location for an epic fitness session to end the night. This involved HIIT exercises and circle sprints resulting in a great boost of exercise endorphins to round off the evening!

Until next time!

On a frrreeeezzing night in Ealing, 17 runners came out to help support The Log Cabin Children's Charity.

"I've got four layers on" - Chris

Big welcome this week to Laurine who joined us at GoodGym for the first time. You know the drill, give her a cheer!

We started promptly with a good warm up including the ministry of silly walks and a good old laugh at just how uncoordinated we all are.

We also got to know each other better by chatting through our worst jobs around the home. Mostly everyone hated the washing up (specifically washing up cutlery). Niche answer this week goes to Lionel who hates putting the cap on the toothpaste, I'm actually with him there.

Tonight's task was all about helping with jobs around the playground and garden and in particular one big task was trimming back the tree (or what we thought was a tree) growing into the main shed. Turns out it was a big old chunk of ivy and Lionel and Chris wasted no time in getting that bad boy hacked sheared right back. The rest of the gang weeded, swept and raked all around the site, giving staff there more time to spend on other projects. Boom.

Team work at the end saw us human train all the cuttings, leaves and weeds down to the composting area leaving us just enough time for a quick fitness session to warm up again for the run back.

We all agreed the hardest part of tonight was getting out of the front door but we were all glad we did for those sweet running endorphins. Also we're all now pretty smug knowing we've done something good and done a bit of exercise with our mates.

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So here's the update on the January Challenge, we’ve really made some awesome progress this past week and are now sitting pretty on 109 good deeds! Check out the rankings here. We’re trying to beat our numbers from last year and everyone who takes part makes a huge difference so get involved as much as possible in the next week.

How can you make a difference?!

Sign up for another group run or community mission - there are LOADS all across London and you can join any other GoodGym area, just filter on the right hand side to see what's going on - check out all the listings here.