Just because the task cancelled, doesn’t mean we stop… oh no,.. this week we helped ourselves… by getting fitter and stronger and spreading the Goodgym name across Lambeth to recruit more members for the New Year.

Inspired by the speed of you all, Maya has written a lovely little account in the style of Usain Bolt… and if you want to sponsor her then you can do so here http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/StHildasEast

"Heer me naw. Looads a people be commin to da run in Papa park, Brixtan. Big up da team for cummin along on a daak coold wintas evenin. Both da task we was gunna do be cancelled last minate, so my main gal Rebecca be puttin us tru our paces and takin us to da common in Claphaam. 1 mile we ran der, each wid a flyer spreddin good wurds about da good gym cru. Owa job was to try convince udda runners to join us on owa weekly tasks. Wen we got to da ponds in da common we den had to do a sprint man, yeh, around da pond wid d geese n everyting. Rebecca timed us and den we tried to beat owa time da second time around. It wos tuff ya kno? Dis was followed by circuits in da park wich reminded me of da good ol days wen we did dees everi week man. Owa run back was pritty smood, and to mek everyting betta we den had tree cakes to gorge on innit. Testee! As if dis wernt enaf, sum of da cru wen down to da rhum baa to warm owa cockales afta. A wandaful time was ad by all".

Holland Park Estate by Jenny.

Another great turn out at Papa's park this week, despite it getting ever colder and darker - good stuff! Before we got going we had a big round of applause for Katie who has hit 100 good deeds, and she and James were presented with their, erm, "prizes," which included some vital 1930s tips on how to be a good husband. Do share, James.

The group split in two for the runs and tasks, although it sounds like all the runners were doing something green-fingered. The faster group ran a total of 4 miles to St Bede's church, where they helped keep the flower beds looking lovely; those of us on the more sedate 2 mile run went to Holland Park Estate and also spent our evening in flowerbeds, pulling up weeds and getting the soil ready for a lot of fresh new plants.

Probably the most impressive feat of the night was Rebecca's bulk buy of a variety of torches for only £11- absolute bargain!

Having been told there would be cake on our return, I definitely ran quicker on the way back- and it didn't disappoint. Thanks Becca and Katie. I'm going to dream about chocolatey pastry goodness tonight. Another fab Tuesday night session- well done everyone!

St Bede's Church By James

Mulch ado about nothing

25 of us mulched our way up to St Bede's Church near Streatham Hill. They'd received a delivery of mulch and needed it spreading on their flowerbeds to release some bacteria-y goodness into the soil. We split into mulch collectors and mulch spreaders and got to task, enjoying the fresh aroma of newly ground mulch. Special mentions go to Elise for her gracious technique of throwing empty mulch buckets over a wall for them to be filled again, and to the various wheel barrowers transporting the mulch from the pile to the beds, many of them runnning while doing so. Once we'd coated the beds in double layers of mulch, we mulched on back down the hill to Papa's park.

MULCH LOVE

Last night around 40 goodgymers said “no deal” to the cold and dark conditions and made their way to Papa’s park for another Goodgym Lambeth session. The elements didn’t put folks off as we had loads of new faces all wanting to get involved, cracking stuff. Before we set off we gave James a big round of applause for completing over 100 good deeds, James is one of the original members of GoodGym Lambeth and is an all-round top guy and between visiting his Coach Keith and pounding the streets of Lambeth he has amassed many a mile and more importantly contributed loads to local projects and tasks have we done in Lambeth, well played sir, well played.

After the introductions we all ran around 2 km to Myatts field to meet Guy from Streetscape. Streetscape is a great local project that gets young people into employment through learning horticulture skills, as they are busy learning new skills their yard often gets cluttered with bits of woods from jobs they have done and that is where we came in tonight.

As some of us arrived slightly early we did a lap of the park only to be welcomed by the rest of the group forming a human tunnel to welcome us in (I bloody loved that by the way!!). Then split into two groups one with Rebecca and one on the task. The task was simply to get all the off cuts of wood in the yard and load it into the truck. Now a big shout out goes to John Hunter who did his best impression of a lamppost by shining a light on us throughout the task and was vital so we could see what we were picking up and helped loading it in the van. At first the pile of wood looks pretty daunting however in true goodgym style we packed it to the rafters and managed to get it all in there. We even had some time spare to load some bits of fence and even a bench, which was expertly shoved in by Guy at the end.

Half way through the groups swapped and the non-task group were faced with Rebecca’s circuits. Now I don’t know about you but my legs have certainly been feeling it today. This was because we were put through our paces by doing 25 squats and burpees followed by 20 lunges on each side, we did three sets of these reducing each by 5 each time and at the end to mix it up we did another lap of the park. In a word ouch (but a good ouch none the less.

Safe to say by the time we made it back I was spent however Sarah’s homemade millionaire shortbread that welcomed us back was a definite great way to end another cracking Tuesday night.

Tom