This week we had some returners, plus we welcomed some new runners to King’s - Jack, Kelly, Simone, and Carrie - give them a cheer for coming to their first ever group run everybody!

We started our evening run with a warm up and some quick introductions to find out everyone’s best ever fancy dress costume, in true halloween style, before setting out on our run to help British Legion with creating their Poppy Appeal boxes.

After a 1.5km run there, we were greeted by Jemma, who split us into two teams and explained everything that needed doing.

The task: We got straight to work and it was a competition between the bag and box fillers to see who could get the most done in half an hour. The bag fillers were putting t-shirts and information into drawstring bags for the student poppy appeal collectors to pick up. The box fillers were filling Poppy Appeal boxes with badges, wristbands, poppies and more.

In the end it was the bag fillers that won after they filled an incredible 100 bags! Many hands make light work.

Once finished we made our way to St Paul's Churchyard for a spooktacular halloween fitness session made up of creepy crawlers, scared black cats, and of course some scary sprints (focussing on our backward arm drive to help set the rhythm) and then headed back to King’s for some stretches.

Great running from everyone today - see you next week, when we will be heading to a local school to do a stock take of their tools.

PS. Don't forget about the social and christmas party I mentioned!

Last night King's College London was overrun with GoodGym t-shirts and people looking to do good. We had a short but busy run, followed by a hands-on sorting task and finally a casual run back to base, but not before stopping for a quick fitness session.

For our first ever run at King's we were joined by five fresh faces, attending their first ever GoodGym group run - Sam, Daniela, Jessica, Bojan and Siying - give them a cheer everybody! We also had lots of GoodGym tourists coming to explore life here at King's (or perhaps they were just here for a cheap pint at the SU bar afterwards!).

After a quick introduction and hearing about missions and coach runs, we set off outside to do a short warm up and find out everyone's favourite hot drink to warm themselves up with when they're at home. Coffee definitely took top spot with our crew.

The run there

We headed out on our short 1.5km jog over Waterloo bridge, and due to all the road works it was slow going, but as soon as we made it over the other side we picked up the pace. On the way there we discussed how everyone first heard about GoodGym and showed off our GoodGym T-shirts to the passers-by, so hopefully they will join some group runs in the future. We managed to dodge all the commuters and arrived at Blackfriars Settlement, ready to get stuck into the mammoth task they had waiting for us.

The task

We were greeted at Blackfriars Settlement, a community centre and activity provider, by the lovely Eileen, who showed us into their activity room. Behind the closed door at the back of the room was a large storage cupboard, filled to the brim with cooking equipment, clothes, decorations, arts and crafts, plus so much more. Our task was to take as much as we could out of the cupboard, sort it all into piles of the same thing, and put it all back in an orderly fashion. It was a lot to do in 25 minutes, but we were up for the challenge. We bagged up all the clothes so they could be donated in a local charity collection, counted the cooking equipment and re-organised the storage cupboard.

Making our way back

We waved farewell to Eileen and Blackfriars Settlement, with promises we would come back one day. We battled Blackfriars bridge for our return journey which was quieter and more peaceful than Waterloo, and made it most of the way back to base before stopping for a quick fitness session. Runners need to work on lots of different muscle groups to improve posture and speed, which is exactly what we did in our speedy circuits. From planking to squats, we had a good workout, followed by a sprint along Embankment. With everyone feeling warm and sweaty we made our way up the steps at Temple and and back to King's for a cool down.

Whilst doing some stretches and talking about what we were planning for dinner, we found out we ran about 4km in total - a great first run at King's!

Great work on the task everybody - see you next week, when we will be heading to the British Legion to help make up some boxes for their Poppy Appeal.