Eighteen wonderful Westminster GoodGymmers ran 7km tonight to help One Big Family Victoria, a brilliant charity for homeless people here in Westminster.

We gathered in our usual spot at New Balance Oxford Street with an incredible 6 (SIX) first time runners. Michelle, Aoife, Sam, James, Olivia and Rhys. Incredible. Sam even brought her documents ready for checking.

It was also Gabrielle's 50th good deed!! Amazing. A black t-shirt will be on it's way to you. Make sure you give her a cheer!

After a quick brief for our newbies, we had a short warm up and number circle before setting off.

It's a longer run than usual down to Victoria, so we tried to keep a good pace. A tricky thing to do down New Bond Street, Piccadilly, and Green Park, but our team did brilliantly and we arrived at our destination exactly on time.

One Big Family Victoria are using a basement youth club to do their work, so we all filed in and Mike was there to give us our instructions. The majority of our team, 11, helped in the kitchen. Here they formed a production line to spread margarine (or jam for a vegetarian option), grate cheese, put sandwiches together with ham, then bag them separately for the people the charity will be helping. We also had runners on breakfast duty, bagging pastries. Once all that was done, the runners speedily turned to slicing some delicious looking and enormous cake before bagging those up too.

The rest of the team helped in the main room. This involved filling the large water heaters ready for teas and coffees, and sorting through a variety of donated clothes to separate the most useful items and also divide into genders. Bizarre t-shirt slogans aside (and not all suitable for sharing), the work passed quickly and soon there were large neatly folded piles of clothes ready to be handed out.

25 minutes passed rapidly before we tidied up and filed out. Our task leaders were delighted with everyone's efforts, which save the volunteers loads of time.

From there, I led the group back to base, with Nina kindly back marking. On the way we made a brief stop for some extra running in Green Park. Using the lamp posts as markers, the runners could either do some interval running, or versions of progressive running over a 300 meter (ish!) stretch. Everyone upped their pace brilliantly and we made sure we caught our breath at the top for a moment or two. From there it was a quick run back to base. After a stretch and a round of applause we were done.

Well done everyone and I hope to see you all again soon.

14 GoodGymers ran 7k around Central London to do as much good as we could.

After our task had cancelled w had to make the most of the warm evening so embarked on something a little different!!

After welcoming to the fold our amazing GoodGym first timers we went through the Good List!!.

On the list we were challenged to do as many of the following as we could in 90 action packed Westminster minutes!!

~1 piece of rubbish per k run ~Speak to 2 homeless people ~Help 1 out of towner with local knowledge. ~Make someone smile ~High five/ fist bump 10 people ~100 lunges ~50 press ups ~50 squats ~5 minutes of planks

We set off with purpose racking up high fives straight out the store on our sightseeing tour around town. After a nice warm up we got to Green Park where we mobilised then lower body and core stabilised with a eclectic range of lunges, planks and skips not to mention a few press ups!

With our body turned we went to help out some out of towners outside Buckingham Palace by Creating a GG photo both, then taking pictures for everyone who wanted, plus some helpful London walking directions!! Creating a lot of smiling happy faces!!

Rounding into St James Park we got little picking clearing up the streets nicely. After a little debate about the Churchill War rooms we replaced the now silent Big Ben Bells with some singing and a big Bong!!

Heading into the River Thames we litter picked, created a finishing line ribbon that turned into a limbo pole, and powered through to Embankment where we hammered out a the second half of the physical challenge, planking, squatting, and press upping the reps away!

A burst along the Strand, Trafalgar Square and dropping some serious pace is up St James's brought us back to base having completed our task to spread the GoodGym love and get fit in the process!!

After a lover key drama 7 of us headed out to Chipotle for a very well deserved refuel and said a sad Goodbye to Ruth and Felicity as they head off on there next adventures!! Thank you both for your energy and enthusiasm every Wednesday!!

I am away next week, Damien will be leading the charge to One Big Family homeless charity!

See you in a couple

Smooth Running

Joel

6 battle hardened GoodGymers ran 7k to One Big Family in Victoria to prepare food for the homeless food run tonight!

On a day when the rains came to town in a big way and street swimming was a more common sight than running. We danced around and thundered through the many puddles on the 3.5k route through Mayfair, St James's, Victoria and onto the Ebury Estate youth Club where we met Mike and the team.

After washing up we donned plastic gloves and got to work, we had Francis and Chris on the sandwich production line, buttering, cheese sprinkling and ham placing in unison!! Natalie and Sophie were bagging slicing and dicing some delicious looking fruit pies which Martin and I were on doughnut and pastry duties pairing and bagging the treats at a speedy rate!

40 minutes of furious action and a sprint finish on the Sandwich production line with a few extra hands we completed the task ready for the 6 loafs of sandwiches, and 120 treat options to be distributed by Harley on the One Big Family delivery bike to the local homeless community on Wednesday evening.

A wetter and wilder 3.5k taking in a little cross country running in Green Park brought us back to base a lot soggy but having made a huge difference to the homeless community in Westminster!!

Thank you so much for braving the conditions!! Hope to see you all again next week!!

Smooth Running

Joel