Tonight it was round 2 as we once again met Nicola from A Mile In Her Shoes to help sort kit donations. We had 12 lovely runners including one newcomer Emily, big welcome!

We mixed things up tonight and did a hill session before the task by running over the the infamous West Walk to complete a few reps. To encourage/bribe the runners I promised prizes for the first person up the hill each sprint rep. Michael K and was first over the line on attempt number one and looked like he'd really worked hard for his haribo reward and second time round Tim bounded to victory to claim the treasured red GoodGym laces. Good work from everyone all round!

We then jogged down to The Kings Arms (a massive thank you to them for hosting us for the past two weeks) to start on the new batch of donations to sort. We had a few different things crop up this evening including an array of running knickers with delightful motifs printed on the bum, unfortunately not very useful for the charity but a good source of entertainment for the group!

Again even though there was a mountain to sort through this evening we got it all done and everything is now ready to be given out women who are finding their feet through running with this great charity. We will continue to work with A Mile In Her Shoes in the future but if you'd like to be involved more in the meantime head over to their facebook page and think about popping along to their free fun running fitness session on 16th December.

Last but not least a little shout out for Michael C who looked after Hannah on the run tonight as she is a little injured, it's lovely to see everyone working together and looking out for each other.

Great job tonight everyone, happy running!

Headtorches were donned and black cats were met as Lambeth carried out two tasks and loads of work at the Portico Gallery and Hillyard extra care home! Plus BREAD WEEK in Bake Off

We had a new task this evening, supporting Hillyard House extra care home. They support older residents who may have mental health or physical difficulties to live out their old age in a fulfilled way. The site has a lovely garden and GoodGym was tasked with creating a SECRET GARDEN towards the back of the site. We had to sneak around behind some shrubs and then clear an area that would be hidden from view by hedges. Residents will be able to explore this new garden and hopefully enjoy the peace and quiet. Armed with saws, secateurs and all manner of other garden implements, we set about this fun task. Soon, huge branches were appearing from the undergrowth and the compost pile became a mountain of old shrubbery. Rebecca Nellis got seriously busy sawing down an old tree and in 40 minutes we had cleared a massive area and swept up for good measure. The task leader Jenny was just delighted, as were some of the residents who came out to watch our work. We ran the 1km back to base and did some strength work before stretches.

The second group took the 8km round trip to the Portico Gallery. John Hunter tells all:

14 of us went up to the Portico where another member of John’s family empire, Sholto, was deputised to instruct us on moving piles of florist’s tables from one bit of the yard to another. After we nailed the table task, it was onto a Portico stalwart - the soggy tarpaulin. We made a human chain to do this. Passing this down the human chain made everyone sad, but then Methusulah the cat came along to visit each person in the chain like at a wedding or funeral, except it was definitely more like a wedding by the end of Methusulah’s visit because everyone was so happy.

Sholto said “I am happy because that would have taken me all afternoon to do that”. And he was happy too.

Sadly John H's camera went into meltdown so the lovely snaps got lost, but here they are described in words:

1: A variety of people looking sad because they got dripped on by the tarpaulin

2: Elise werking the “I’m not currently doing anything” look

3: Elise carrying a bit of fence

4: Sholto standing proudly by his work lamps

The brilliant Jack and Beth also completed a mission with the run time - clearing a garden so an older person can enjoy it. Brill!

On return to base, everyone enjoyed Katie's Bread Week offering after Flo really screwed up her Captain's Treasure Trove last week. OH FLO! We tucked into some delicious cinnamon buns and headed off into the night. TOP WORK.

It's our birthday

This week marked the 1st anniversary for Goodgym Hammersmith & Fulham. The group has perform over 50 good deeds in one year. And one runner has been to every single one! Our Taskforce member Jason

Weed sort out the problem

After a briefing and a warm-up, we headed off to Askham Court, a council owner sheltered housing property for the over 60's to help weed a big overgrown flower bed.

Upon our arrival we were met by some of the residents who help direct us to the task in hand. The gang grabbed the gloves, tools and bags and quickly got to work. They had to tackle a tricky combination of brambles and bindweed to free the lavender and roses.

After packing up and saying goodbye to the residents we headed off back to base.

Will take the long way home

After 2 km, Will took a fast group on a long route home and I lead a direct route back.

After a warm down, we head off to Draught House for a birthday dinner. Party hats were worn, balloons inflated and a tasty dinner eaten.

5, 6, 7, …14 steps (That's what it took to build a table tennis table).

Wake me up*

After a warm-up we set off on a riverside route to Transforming Lives for Good (TLG for short). Our run to the river was almost as long as the queue to see Evanescence* at Hammersmith Apollo.

Deborah and James greeted us once we arrived and gave us a rundown of what TLG do. They provide support, care and education to children in need. The TLG school we had come to help out at offers holistic 12 week programmes to help excluded teenagers aged 11-16. These centres are a lifeline, giving them the chance to catch up on missed qualifications, raise their aspirations and provide building blocks for a better life.

Divide and conquer

Our tasks for the night were to put together a new ping pong table and clear a store room of old furniture. A team of four took on the table and the rest quickly demolished the other.

Keeping out of mischief

Both Deborah and James were blown away by the speed the store room was sorted in. James then set about finding other things for the team to help with. This included fixing a shelf to a coffee table and starting to organise another cupboard.

I had planned to take this group off for a fitness session, but suddenly the table tennis team needed extra eyes and hands to find stray screws, washers and attach the table top securely.

Finishing later that usual, but with a brand new ping pong table finally complete we dashed back the short way to home and had a warm down.

Thanks to Debs and Jo for your GG touristing, it was lovely to have you along!

Happy running,
PSB out.

I'm back! After three weeks in Cyprus, I have returned to GG Barnet, just in time for one of my favourite tasks: pond building at Archer Academy.

This week we were joined by GG newbie Louis, who came along with Phil – giving me an excuse to hand out some limited edition GoodGym laces. Give them both a cheer!

We gently jogged down to Cherry Tree Woods for a quick warm up including some high knees and some stuck in the mud. After some confusion regarding stuck in the mud, I realised it's been too often since you all played playground games and we'll clearly have to play more often to refresh your memories.

Heather wanted a slightly longer than 500m run to the school, so after a vote, Damian lead the gang through the woods and around to Archer Academy for a slightly extended run of 1.5km. Amanda and I held up the rear with our matching knee injuries.

We were greeted at the school by Maaike, who gave us a quick brief on today's task – filling the pond with water, clearing the old fence and dead trees, building hedghog houses and litter picking – and a quick safety run down. Then we collected our tools are got to work.

In typical GoodGym fashion, everyone was hard at work right away, splitting into teams to get things done. The hose could reach all the way to the pond, which meant nobody needed to be on water carrying duty and everyone could focus on the other tasks.

After 40 minutes of wire carrying and cutting, metal shifting and twig snapping and bundling, it was time to tidy up. Maaike was super happy with how much the team got done especially compared to how slow the 15 year olds work. Take that, kids.

Once all of our tools were back where we found them, we headed on to the astroturf for 10 minutes of conditioning work, starting with burpees and shuttle runs. There was a fair bit of flailing around and extended periods of time lying on the ground, but also lots of burpees and running. We then moved onto some core work. I was about ready to let everyone rest when the team told me Ana worked them so hard last week their abs hurt for days, so I figured they could work through a couple more exercises. Everybody loves V-snips and alligator crawls, afterall.

We then said our goodbyes, with Maaike promising to join us next week as we run to Martin Primary to do good. You can sign up here. It's another short run and garden work.

The Barnet Biscuit of the Week this week was the trusty chocolate wafer.

Jody is organising a massive game of ultimate frisbee this Sunday at 12pm in Regent's Park and everyone is invited. See the details here.

And Joel is running his fitness for all sessions from the Phoenix for the next four weeks. Sign up for this week's session here

See you next week!

Barnet’s do-gooding, get-fitting biscuiteers were in fine fettle last night after smashing a brilliant task in record time.

After a slightly delayed start (sorry team!), we said congratulations to those that had done Park Runs that week, and to our Barnet heroes. Well done to Hazel, Damian, and Madeleine for topping the distance, good deeds and cheers league tables. Give ‘em a high five, Barnet!

Before we set off for the run, we did a headcount, and discussed one of the capital’s most pressing issues. Apparently there are some definitive rankings of Londoners’ favourite tube lines. According to the statisticians, the most popular line is the DLR, followed by Jubilee, then Victoria. But Barnet disagrees, and had some good reasons to back up their faves. The winning tube line, by a long way was….drum roll please…the oldest of the deep-level lines, the incomparable Northern line! Of course it was. Reasons included, ‘because I’m Northern’, and ‘because we can see it from here’. Fair enough.

With that decided, we set off for Northway Gardens. It was a lovely run there, covering part of the Bishop’s Avenue and having a good snoop at the giant (empty) houses as we went. Damian knew the route like the back of his hand, and after no time at all, we arrived to see Brian the gardener waving at us from his car. Which, when we got closer, we could see was filled to the brim with bags of compost (and a couple of bits of wood). The GoodGym fates were smiling upon us last night, because would you believe there were exactly as many bags as there were runners? Crazy stuff. Taking one bag each (and a wheelbarrow), we emptied the car and set off for the gardens a few minutes away. Compost unloaded, there were a few other jobs to do, such as de-bulbing daffodils, emptying compost bins, filling pens with leaves and shifting pots. All of which was done quickly, much to Brian’s approval – and we even got a few gardening tips and a bit of history on the garden itself, which is run entirely by volunteers and is beautiful.

We took advantage of the lovely surroundings to do our fitness session next to the garden. After a quick core blast and sprint session, we finished off with a game of British Bulldog. Apparently this was banned in some schools, but in Barnet we laugh in the face of rules, and launched into a very speedy game that saw some super-fast sprinting and tricksy footwork. On the run back, we took advantage of the red lights to have a squat challenge, seeing who could hold it the longest. The team obviously has glutes of steel, and outlasted the traffic lights, before finishing off the run with some stretches. Baking Queen Hazel treated the group with some delicious cookies and brownies wrapped in their very own little sweetshop bags – so cute! Next week trainer Pennie is back to lead you through the streets of Barnet to do even more good for the community. Be there or be square:

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/gg-barnet-helps-archer-academy-create-a-cool-space

36 brilliant runners moved loads of garden waste for gardening social enterprise Streetscape before saying a sad goodbye to Vicki

It was finally a mild enough evening to meet outside at Papa's and this was good news as our numbers were big this evening. Katie would like to think it was due to her superior run leading skillz but in actual fact it was due to many folk wanting to say goodbye to Vicki. Our favourite New Zealander is heading back to live Down Under and, after three years of pounding the pavements across many London boroughs, we are all sad to say So Long.

Vicki managed the great task of earning her 100 wings last week and whipped off her top as soon as her t-shirt was given to her. Thankfully / sadly (delete as appropriate) she had another top on underneath. With wings newly donned, we were off to the basketball court with Beth for a lovely warm up.

We split into two groups, Tom Benson's group ran down the right side of the road and George and Elise's group ran down the left, so that we didn't mow down all of Lambeth as we sped the 1-mile towards Myatt's Field. We have been visiting Streetscape for over three years now and it is always a physical task. There was loads of garden waste that needed moving onto a bigger pile of garden waste at the back, to make space for more garden waste.

Move this garden waste onto that garden waste, said Alex

We also learnt from Alex that 75% of the unemployed young people who enter the Streetscape programme find employment upon graduation, which is a pretty awesome figure. Of course this is something that GoodGym wants to help, so we kept in our two groups and Tom's group went into the park to do some strength work with Katie and George and Elise's group got stuck in moving some gaden waste on top of other garden waste.

After about 12 minutes, the groups swapped over so that everyone got stronger bits (ankles and core to be exact) by the end of it and we had cleared a massive space ready for MORE garden waste!

I can't wait to receive more garden waste! Said Alex

And with our good deed done, we whizzed off into the night and George took us through some lovely stretches. We then presented Vicki with her leaving gift, which was a school-style tea towel with our faces drawn on it. A brainchild of the Lambeth crew, Tom Benson had set about getting input from all the Boroughs that Vicki runs with. Polly had made the lovely GG border and Emma had been kind enough to make all of the backgrounds the same shade of white. A true team effort and also an interesting psychological insight into the minds of each GoodGym artist.

Wow guys I love my tea towel! Said Vicki 'Now let's hit the pub!

We all know Vicki loves a drink and so how could we say no? Off we went and some people even had some food! Great work Lambeth and we shall miss you Vicki. We look forward to shots of you wearing your GG wings on the other side of the world.