16 fantastic GoodGymers ran 9.58km to help raise awareness for WAND

We started the night off with the usual welcome speech. Including details of the social next week at Queen’s Head and of course the week’s task. This week, we were back to Wand’s office in St Charles Hospital pick up flyers and deliver in nearby estates Raymede and Dalgarno.

A spring in our step

It was a treat to start the run off with a warm-up in the daylight - Spring had finally arrived. Then we headed up north as a one big group and everyone happy at the same pace so we only had the traffic lights for stops.

Once we got to the hospital, Jerusa welcomed us at the office and gave the group a little overview of WAND’s amazing free services for women. More on that here. We would be helping raise awareness through delivering flyers about their services and multi-language mental wellness service.

The runners managed to cover all of 17 floors in the Raymede tower in no time. So then we headed to quickly over to the Dalgarno. Getting access to the buildings slowed our process at this estate, in spite of that the gang manged to delivering where they could. To check no one was still roaming the estate we gathered together for a headcount before setting off on the return run.

12 fabulous Hammersmith & Fulhamites ran 4km & gardened for Maystar Estates

Welcome to newbies this week - Ele, Georgia, Amber and Anders - lovely to have you along and join the GG crew!

In the news this week:

1. It's GG Monthly Drinks this Thursday - we've got a pub booked in this pub - link.
2. The GG Olympics has been announced for Saturday 30th June at Parliament Hill Track - represent H&F at an array of events.

After a quick intro and a dynamic warm up we headed into the night, bouncing off the main road and into the backstreets. We met Pauline from Maystar Estates - she explained that they now have to look after their gardens and deliver activities alone because of council cuts.

We were eager to get started, armed with tools we did the following:

• Cut back a bush - bagging up all the debris
• Weeding and cutting the grass back (by hand) in one garden
• Hanging up a new clock!
• Weeding, trimming back and cutting back a small tree in another garden.
• Pulling up and cutting back dead roots and ivy

With 25 minutes of hard work we'd made a huge impact; something many of the communities residents would not have been able to do alone. If you think about it we achieved nearly 6 hours of work between us in one Spring evening!

File Fun!

After doing squats, star jumps and squat jumps to warm up again we headed west to the river for our extended run home. Once on the towpath we played the Indian File game - with one person sprinting at all times - everyone did amazingly!

Upon arriving home we stretched out and chatted about the GG Olympics!

Sign up next week here, Polly will be back!

PB out.

A fabulous nineteen runners met in Hounslow to tackle a plastic problem on the shores of the Thames last night before taking on a tough fitness session by the river, and managing not to fall in. Nice work!

We kicked off a great night by cheering some great GoodGym tourism, lovely to see you guys from Ealing, Hammersmith, Richmond and Wandsworth! It was also well done to Andy who ran his way to a great PB at the Hampton Court Half, and a big round of applause to all your fabulous people who have been doing missions and other good deeds.

During our warm up, where we seemed to attract the interest of a lot of passing cars for some reason, we talked about what cheers us when we're totally fed up. Happiness for us comes courtesy of GoodGym (of course), work, red wine, our bed, food of any kind, and ALL THE CATS. Feeling suitably cheered, we set off for our run down to the river.

It was a beautiful route, and with a couple of stops for squats, we made it down there in good time to find Anu waiting for us from Active 360 under Kew Bridge. She told us all about the exciting things they're doing to highlight the disgusting problem of plastic pollution in the river, which is not only terrible for the environment but can also find its way into our food chain. The guys there are collecting plastic bottles which they will turn into a raft which an olympic rower will sail down the Thames to Westminster in a bid to bring the problem to public attention.

That's where we came in last night - our job was to tackle the foreshore in Kew, and to collect as many plastic bottles and other nasties as we could. Fortunately for the environment there were very few, which meant it wasn't a massive task for us, but we still managed to uncover some pretty grim finds including a robot foot, several lengths of packing plastic, and many cans. Shout out to Jo who waded out to the far reaches of the shoreline with her special mud boots and came back with a full bucket!

Half an hour later we declared the shore there a plastic free zone, and waved goodbye to Anu and Paul, who we will hopefully be helping out with their war against plastic in the water during the coming weeks and months.

We headed to a nice stretch of walkway further down the river, and set about smashing a tough fitness session which alternated sprints and recovery runs with strength exercises such as tricep dips, squat pulses, supermans and planks. With a bit of extra 'support' from passersby and a couple of intrigued dogs, we worked our muscles hard, before finally setting off for the last leg of the evening, with the pub acting as effective motivation for some.

Great work tonight gang. Next week we're off to an independent arts theatre charity to do a spot of weeding. Sign up here - it would be great to see all your excellent faces there!

5 GoodGymers crushed 60 minutes of Running fitness action in Green Park!!

A top session this evening really getting the legs going as we put in a top shift primarily focusing on Up Hill running!!

Locking in our running form keys for evening with Knee drive, arm drive and forward leaning with steel like core a must!!

Drills and Hills on tap as we practiced then implemented great form and magnificent effort. Running in the moment and Bravely to explore our top end speed coming down the hill and in some high quality strides!

Finishing strong with 2 fast Hill repeats and some core conditioning rounded off a great workout!!

Thanks for coming along and working so hard!

Hope to see you next week

Smooth Running

Joel