Despite heavy showers earlier in the evening - and the prospect of more to come - 16 dedicated GoodGymers joined our weather-proof trainer, Beth, for our weekly Group Run.

Beth welcomed first-timers Sarah and Lucy and congratulated Johnny on completing his 150th good deed as a GG tourist the previous evening and his 200th parkrun at Kingston at the weekend. Well done Johnny!

As usual we started with a warm-up and some new exercises evoked quizzical looks from passers-by as we first hopped on one leg then later scurried sideways like crabs along the pavement. Nicely limbered up, we set off on the 1km run to our destination at Loris Gardens. This is a community garden which is regularly maintained through drop in gardening days organised by Hammersmith Community Garden Association, with GoodGymers providing some extra help a few times a year.

Splash and Dash

Happy that the rain was holding off for our run, we splashed through the puddles and weaved our way through pedestrians with Lucy back-marking so that no-one was left behind. Not everyone stayed dry, however, as a car drove at speed through a giant puddle creating a tidal wave that doused us just as we were passing 🌊.

Just another brick in the wall

Breaking our journey for the obligatory wall sit, we were soon at Loris Garden and getting kitted out with gardening gloves, trowels and weed forks which had been provided for us to use. Our task was to weed the brick path and brush sand into the gaps between the bricks. Everyone cracked on with the task and it was great to see our red t-shirts dotted along the path.

Sand and deliver

Despite the instructions on the paving sand saying to use it in dry conditions, we went ahead and applied it into the freshly-weeded path. And what a transformation! Sadly there was only half a bag of sand, so we didn’t get as much done as we would have liked, but at that point the weather intervened anyway.

Here comes the rain again

It got very dark. It rained. Hard.

Most sought shelter under the trees*. Johnny cleverly used a garden waste sack as an umbrella. Catherine donned a lovely polka-dot raincoat which appeared from nowhere! When the rain eased a little we hurriedly cleared away all the equipment and posed for a group photo before heading back to base. A vote on whether to go back directly or incorporate a 1k time trial was inconclusive, but as the rain stopped we decided to do the time trial anyway and gathered at the starting point on Brook Green.

Ready, steady, go!

With Strava and sports watches set, the faster runners sped off on the one-lap route around the Green. Others took a more leisurely pace, and some preferred a core workout rather than a run. That’s the beauty of GoodGym – you can do things at your own level. From there it was a short run back to base for some stretches and a well-earned pat on the back for braving the elements to complete yet another good deed.

A BIG thank you to Sarah for the wonderful run report!

This week's news...

1. The GoodGym Olympics is this Saturday at Parliament Hill Athletics Track, if you aren't signed up to compete definitely still come along and support! The events start at 1pm on Saturday. There's also a veg and cake competition! The post-GG Olympics party is at The Vine, details here. Everyone can also get involved with the 1km 'race' known as "The Nationwide race", details here.
2. Next Thursday (8th) is the August GoodGym Social - location TBC!

Next week we're heading back up to Askham Court to lend a hand to resident, Mirko with some gardening and weeding work. Sign up here.

*But the heavy downpour did not stop either Sarah or Jonathan who carried on weeding regardless!

Tuesday evening = GoodGym H&F fun! The week had flown by and it was once again Tuesday evening, and another night of 'getting fit and doing good' awaited 22 GoodGym'ers. A big welcome to Zofia who all joined us for her first GoodGym run and to GoodGym tourists Amy and Ian - Ian came along to surprise Jeanette instead of running with his regular Tuesday GoodGym group, GoodGym Bromley - Adele I promise I haven't poached him...yet ;-). Lovely to have you all along, hope to see you all again soon. And of course, wonderful to see my ever present regulars, thank you as always for your enthusiasm and help!

Despite the rain falling earlier in the day, as we stepped out from the Better Gym and headed towards our regular warm-up spot we were greeted with a nice mild and dry night, hooray! The group formed a perfect circle as I ran through the intros and week's news...

Free to news

1. GoodGym Shindig 2019 - weekend of 19th July, in Ironbridge. Register your interest by 21st March.
2. Morden Hall Park - Trust10 Trail Run - Also on Sunday, meet at 8.30am near the White Bridge in Morden Hall Park. Sign up here. It is FREE - there are no admission charges at Morden Hall Park.
3. Putney Charity Pop-Up - The volunteer team at Putney food bank are running a charity pop-up on Friday between 10am-2pm, lots of great raffles prizes to be had if you are free!
4. Science & running with Jo Pavey, Martin Yelling & Friends - Wednesday 27th from 7.30pm, link is in the Whatsapp group, please let Sarah know if you are going and she may be able to sort some popcorn for her fellow GoodGym'ers!

AND a big well done to Helen and Sophie who smashed the Hampton Court Half at the weekend - PB's all round!

Wow. So much news!

More school you

With the name, number count and short pulse raising warm-up completed, with extra kudos paid to Martynas for his brilliant sprinting on the spot technique, we headed off on our short 1.5km run to our task tonight at Flora Gardens Primary School. With one quick wall sit completed en route, it wasn't long before we arrived at the school gates and were buzzed inside by the school's Business Manager, Jeanette who was waiting for us inside the school's 'The White House'.

In 'The White House', Flora Gardens Primary School run a before- and after-school club where meals and snacks are provided so that no child goes hungry. Unfortunately like most schools, they were facing tough financial pressures so did not have the Monet to pay for full price paint and professional redecoration of their school buildings. Thanks to Community Repaint, a brilliant scheme that redistributes leftover paint into their communities at around a third of the price, Jeanette had managed to source around 60 litres for under £150 and for the second time, the many helping hands of GoodGym runners to help revamp some white rooms. What a steal!

This was our fourth visit to Flora Gardens Primary School and it was lovely to see the main room that the team painted on our last couple of visits looking bright and fully functional - Jeanette had included a nice little feature and thank you in the school's latest newsletter which was really lovely, check it out in the Whatsapp group!

Someone like blue can green on me!

Tonight there was more painting on the agenda, and the task was to paint the following rooms: the toilet, the smaller room next to the kitchen and Jeanette's office upstairs in either the green or blue, or more specifically, 'Gilbert Green' or 'Heavenly Horizon' colour. As before, half of the group quickly armed themselves with paint brushes and covered up their valuable GoodGym tees and sportswear with the free oversized L'Oreal t-shirts that Jeanette kindly fetched - the t-shirts are normally used to protect the children's clothing when they do arts and crafts.

Sprinting at the speed of white

While half of the group were painting away under the watchful eye and camera lens of Jason, the other half made use of the playground area outside for this week's fitness session. First up, the group ran eight laps of the playground to get the blood pumping and pulses raised. On these eight laps there was some excellent short sprint work and perfectly executed indian running, or crocodile running as I have renamed it! Now that everyone had noticeably red faces (this is more assumed since it was dark!) and heavy breathing it was time for some 'child's play'....

Dodge in the dark

British bulldog, a classic playground game which was later banned in some schools due to overly 'foul play' was tonight's first game, the nice friendly version where only a gentle tap was permitted by the bulldog, and 10 jumping jacks were given to those that were caught. The first group managed four waves past the bulldogs with Will, Jonny and Amy the last standing, while the second group managed a massive seven waves past the bulldogs with Matt, Eloise and Sapphire the last standing, impressive effort! In a slight Gladiator-esk version of bulldog gauntlet, those that were last standing then guarded their 'home area', despite a couple of slips and slides thankfully no injuries or fallouts occured!

Squatshots

Finally, was a quick 2-minute game of 'shot up, shot down' with 29 red plastic shot glasses. It was Team Up v Team Down, who would emerge victorious? There were some interesting tactics and battles that occurred with shot glasses quickly being up then down or vice versa, shadowing of others, naming no names (Rowena!). All round it was a highly competitive game which provided a great quad workout. In the first match-up it was a landslide for Team Up, and in the seoncd match Team Down pipped Team Up by 4. Awesome shot work all!

Forget me shot

With the rotation of the groups seemless, the walls were quickly transformed from their original white colour to a fresher and brighter blue and green colour. Paint brushes were quickly cleaned and the tidy-up operation in full flow when the first painting group returned from their fitness session. I admired everyone's handywork and was amazed at the incredible transformation in just 45 minutes, the phrase "many hands make light work" felt very apt!

Pulling out all the shots

Before we said our goodbyes and thankyous to Jeanette, the group put together our '24' photo to represent our launch area number in celebration of the 50th GoodGym area launch in Solihull tomorrow. With some excellent props: red plastic shot glasses, paintbrushes and of course a ladder, in order to gain the best vantage point, the group posed for a fabulous group '24' photo - definitely cover photo worthy, big thank you to Sarah and Sapphire for leading on the artistic direction and to Jeanette for kindly providing a ladder.

The magic 24

Task, group '24' photo and fitness session completed, we said goodbye to Jeanette and headed off on the final part of our run down through Furnival Gardens, along the towpath and back to base - with a couple of bonus pistol squats thrown in when we regrouped. Everyone ran a strong pace back and aside from a couple of quick stops for the traffic lights, there was no stopping everyone! There was a closely fought sprint off between Matt and Jonathan on the final stretch that may have needed a photo finish. Back at base we all regrouped and completed a quick cool down and stretch off.

Cool down and stretches complete the class were dismissed to enjoy some delicious and moreish homemade banana bread (1 of our 5 a day?!) made by "the baker man, Johnny", in early celebration of all the 50th good deeds that are coming up in the next few weeks! Thanks as always for the baked delicacy, Johnny!

Next week we're heading up to White City Adventure Playground to help them with a range of painting and environmental jobs, sign up for next week's GoodGym x Earth Hour run here. Have a fab week and good luck to all those who will be running a parkrun on Saturday or the London Landmarks race on Sunday.

Thank you very much to Jason for the wonderful array of photos and for backmarking!

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!