Six GoodGymers, Agathe, Katie, Nadia, Rebecca, Wayne and Anne met at the Leisure Center last night. It was still light and mild, but some of us were cautious and wore an extra layer of clothing and a torch. These were useful during and after the run as it became dark and chilly! But bonus points for the optimistic runners who made us believe that spring was really with us!

Well done Wayne who had already run about 10 kms with some hill training just before meeting us at the Leisure Centre. It was great that Rebecca, despite her heavy schedule, managed to run with us. Katie has resumed her regular training with the aim of completing the upcoming Martian Race.

We started the session with a warm up and a group photo. Nadia and Anne guided the group to the planned 5 kms route as they had already done it with another running group. We all ran at a comfortable pace allowing us to chat and catch up with news.

Agathe impressed us all by completing the session without walking at all. Agathe cycles everywhere, but running is new to her.

We hope to see you at junior parkrun this coming Sunday. Or you might prefer helping out WEAct making Woking a healthier, greener place for us all? We will remove brambles and thinning out holly shrubs? See the diary for more details.

Happy running to you all.

St John's Lye Heathland 🌳

This was our 2nd task of the day and once again we would join up with WeAct 🌍 to assist them with expanding the heathland by removing invasive saplings.

Wayne, Karen, & Adam were coming straight from Junior park run. Wayne drove to the Lye as he had to get away earlier than the rest of the team, Karen &Adam ran the 3k to the meeting point.

Anne & Agathe met along the canal at WWF an ran the 2.5k route. We all arrived at pretty much the same time. We met up with Charlie and his team after a brief of what we were going to do we walked to the heathland.

After a 7 mins walk we arrived to a shocking scene. There has been a fire over the last few days as WeAct were at the site at the beginning of the week and it was clear. The grounds were black with Ash and burnt grass heathland. Hayden from WeAct said it could have been started deliberately or was natural as it had been very dry recently.

WeAct had done some prep work already as they had cut and piled up silver birches which were over taking the heathland. We started to process them by cutting them back and making wild hedage fence. Anne, Karen, & Agathe were part of this team. Adam apart from running wanted an arm and shoulder workout 👊 so got stuck into removing some tree stumps Wayne was using his weaving skills to build up the hedge as well as putting in steaks to extend the line of the hedge fence.

While working away conversation started about Karen 3 week trip to Machu Picchu when she flys out on Thursday. Sounds amazing and we are looking forward to seeing photo's and hikes and following Karen on Strava 😊.

Withing an hour the hedge had grown and Adam was looking like the Hulk 🤣.

We have a few outdoor tasks coming up over the next few weeks with WeAct 🌍 which have been listed as part of Goodgym's Working in Nature partnership with WWF.

Sean Coxhead Inspiring Individual Award 2024 Trophy Presenation 🏆

This evening Woking GG celebrated all that is good and wonderful about our Anne 😇

Woking GG had reserved a VIP section at the Sovereign's and it was great to see such a good turn out. All our fantastic crew Adam, James, Wayne, Katie, Alys, Agathe, Maya, Rebecca, Kirsty, Lauren, Julie, Nadia, Luan, Caterina, & Sally Anne who was back in town for a few weeks as she was on uni break (Was great to see Sally Anne) and a lovely surprise for Anne 😄 it was also great to see Phil who joined us to celebrate Anne.

Anne has been with Woking GG from the very beginning she was there at the launch night back in 2016. She has seen many faces come and go but Anne has remained that constant face encouraging, supporting showing kindness to all that have joined. Her dedication and commitment has been amazing and it shows with over 300 good deeds and still going strong ❤️

Anne has taken on the roles as task force and now run leader, and continues to help others with organizing hill training sessions as well as tasks within the community.

Woking GG are very lucky to have her, Anne in her speech tonight dedicated her award to all her goodgym crew who she said also deserved the award but in our eyes Anne is a worthy winner of this amazing award as she also has all the attributes that amazing Sean had ❤️

🌳 Tree Planting Project 🌳

This morning Wayne, Anne, & Agathe teamed up with WE Act again as part of their bio-diversity 🌎 project to plant 180 tree saplings at the White Rose Lane Nature Reserve 😄.

Wayne & Anne ran to the reserve straight from Junior Park Run where we they met Charlie & his team. Ask a read of the risk assessment Charlie went through with what needed doing and how to do it, he gave a quick demonstration of how deep to dig before planting the sapling then putting a tree protector around it and finishing it off by tying it to a steak 🌳

We split up in two groups one starting each end of the pathway and we would all meet in the middle. We had 3 different tree saplings and we all got into a good rhythm. Throughout the task we had many volunteers, local residents and even the local councillor turned up to lend a hand.

Agathe who was not feeling 💯 arrived a little later and got stuck in. Wayne had to leave a little early but the team cracked on and got all the saplings planted.

It was a beautiful morning to do this great task. ☀️

There will be more out door tasks coming up soon, keep a look out.