15 amazing GoodGym-er ran 8km to help SMART a wonderful mental health charity put together a greenhouse and tidy their garden!

First time in covering in Hammersmith and Fulham, a few friendly faces after I'd attended a run last week and then...hordes...hordes of runners! Not quite like that, but thanks to Laura bringing along most of her team from work, Nick all the way from GG York and a few runners deciding this was the night that they'd make a return to H&F we had a brilliant team of 15!

Hordes!

Tonight we were helping at St Mary Abbotts Rehabilitation and Training (SMART), a charity right behind the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital that helps those with mental health problems through gardening, music and other such purposeful activities. After a quick introduction to GoodGym for our first time runners (welcome to Graham, Helena, Matt and Sophie) and a slightly odd warm-up (sorry everyone!) we were on our way with Jason leading the way with his rather more extensive knowledge of the area than mine and Nick backmarking for us. It was a nice run other than the North End Road being far too busy and full of bollards and sign posts that made running along something of an obstacle course!

Where’s the entrance?

We arrived at SMART, or rather we arrived at where Google Maps told us SMART was and were just about to set off on another kilometre of running to get the other door but Jose from SMART found us all and let us in! Phew! With that the team was split into three teams with one team tackling some general tidying and sweeping, another on gardening duties and the final team tasked with that unexpected task of putting together a greenhouse!

We had around 20 minutes to get as much done as possible and everyone got to work right away. The greenhouse team had a particularly tough task having to deal with actual panes of glass that needed to be slotted in the right places. With everyone at it we got all the tidying done and completed two full sides of the greenhouse and started on one of the ends. With everyone gathered to leave Jose told us more about SMART and thanked us profusely.

To cheer or not to cheer

With that we gathered for a group photo where everyone decided to show me just how happy they were (check out the two group photos) by really not cheering but we got there in the end. With that we ran back to the start point with some top help from Jason leading but also being our human shield against the traffic and then had stretch at the end where everyone pretty much went freestyle but managed all the stretches anyway!

Thanks so much to all of you for being top GoodGym-ers and for helping me out – hope to see you all again soon, you can sign up for next week here. Don’t forget the Hammersmith and Fulham social next week - join us after the run or come to The Blue Boat, Distellery Wharf, Parr’s Way, W6 9GD from 8.45pm.

Cheers,

Pritesh