It was a beautiful night in Ealing - perfect conditions for a spot of running and digging in Walpole park!

We started the night with a few bits of news and heard about the great running you guys have been doing. To recap:

• Well done to Harvey who after travelling to cross off 'I' last weekend is tantilisingly close to ticking off that full parkrun alphabet - only two to go!

• If you fancy a free timed 10k from Chiswick Bridge, then check out this race which is held every last Sunday of the month. There are even spot prizes!

• Up for the Shindig this weekend? There are still a couple of places left due to last minute drop outs. Email ed@goodgym if you fancy a weekend full of GoodGym!

After a some dynamic warm ups which got our heart rates up, we did a quick survey on London's best parks and it turns out you guys are mostly loyal to West London with answers like Gunnersbury, Richmond and Walpole - the location of our task for the evening!

It was a very short run, so after we got to the park we finished off the run with a bit of single file formation running to clock up the kms slightly. We arrived to find no lock - hurrah - and stuck straight into divvying up the tools and gloves for our task.

The job tonight was to prepare the bases of the beautiful avenue of trees - some of which are over 100 years old - to be spread with mulch. We measured out the area, and started to dig....or at least 'disturb' the ground as per instructions. Turns out disturbing the soil is quite tough going after it has been baked by the summer sun, but it sure was a great upper body work out. There were some interesting and widely varying techniques to be spotted, from the spade shuffle to the fork flip, but after some 40 minutes of going at it, the ground was looking much readier for the next step.

We returned our tools, and attempted to create a checkerboard effect group photo with our red and black tshirts (with success? I think so - check out the photo and decide!). We then jogged over to a nice corner of the park to do some pyramid running - alternating paces in incrementally longer phases up to a hard minute's worth of running. Tough going but you smashed it!

We finished off the night with another minute of planking and a run back to base. Next week you have Olivia back to lead a slightly longer run - enjoy everyone. Thanks for having me Ealing, it was lovely to see you - have a week of happy running!

Last night we teamed up with local running club The Ealing Eagles to help marshal at their inaugural Blondin Park Relays event!

For something a bit different we headed out to marshal for the evening making sure all the runners went in the right direction throughout the event and members of the public were kept safe amongst the stampede! Everyone had to run 8x800 in teams of two (4 laps of the park each) which sounded brutal and exhilarating in equal measures!

Not wanting to miss out on the running fun, we started at our usual location in Ealing Broadway and ran as a group through the lovely Walpole and Lammas before arriving at the park for our duties. Everyone was kitted out with lovely yellow official marshal bibs (a bit boil in the bag on such a mild evening!) and shown to their positions.

• Lionel, Sam and Kate took on some extra responsibility helping with the official finish times
• Harvey made sure no one trampled the lovely wild flowers on the tight bend
• Samar and Samina led people onto the path and made sure no-one got trampled
• Alex made sure no one ran into the bin!
• Callum and Michael held runners off running down two potential wrong paths
• Basia led everyone back around the third bend
• Jenni kept everyone heading towards the finish
• Elena directed everyone into the relay area and finish line
• Adam helped near the finish area, even doing a bit of babysitting so a couple could run as a team!
• Hayley took part coming in as third mixed team!
• Sophie and Tom took part and were in strong competition against each other the whole way
• Chris and Lauriane took part as team Les Aigles, repping GoodGym the whole way in their lovely red tees, they even helped pick up the signage after the event finished

We all stayed to watch the finish ceremony before heading back on our run to the start. Everyone was really delighted to have been able to support the event and thought it was lovely to be able to see lots of local runners giving it their all on a Tuesday evening. Hopefully it will be a yearly event and we'll be able to help again in the future!

Finally, a massive congrats to Jenni who completed her 150th good deed last night! Amazing stuff, we'll definitely be celebrating that one on the next social!

What a beautiful evening to run around the parks of Ealing to get fit and do good!

18 of us out in force including two new runners, big welcome to Louise and Paolo!

A bit of a hiccup with our task last night meant we could see the job that needed doing but the tools we needed had been locked away. Did that mean we just went home?! Hell no! Instead we did a great interval session in the glourious evening sunshine, we partnered up and around a set loop of the park did intervals switching between hard effort and recovery every time you passed your partner. We did 2x5 minutes and everyone looked suitably knackered by the end. Great work everyone!

So that was the 'Gym' part but what about the 'Good', we needed something to earn a good deed...

Improvised litter picking it was! We decided to get on board with the 2 minute street clean and all ran off in different directions around the park picking up as much litter as we could find. Parks in the summer attract a lot of extra litter as unfortunately sometimes people don't always take their rubbish home with them after enjoying a nice picnic. Not to worry GoodGym to the rescue! A good little haul was found and we all distributed it into the relevant recycling or rubbish bins.

Great job everyone, we earned the trip to pub afterwards! Thanks for sharing my birthday with me :)

13 runners, 6km of street pounding and hundreds of bitey red ants! All in an evenings work for GoodGym Ealing helping Trees For Cities.

In the mix last night we had Samina, brand new to GoodGym (and running full stop!) she smashed out 4 miles and got stuck in the the task at hand. What a great achievement! Much like the ants I hope she's been bitten by the running bug! We also had tourist, Jenny, from GoodGym Barnet join us for the evening, great to have you Jenny!

After some introductions and some warm up exercises (not much needed on such a muggy evening!) we weaved our way down to the canal where we met with tools and shown back to the spot we had started to clear a few weeks ago. There was still so much to do and many more trees to unearth so we all got stuck straight in.

Once bitten...

It wasn't long before we realised the stinging in our legs wasn't the familiar nettle sting we were all used to but we had in fact been joined by hundreds of bitey red ants! The key was to keep moving and not stand too still, all just adding to the exercise for the evening. Undeterred the group ploughed on and continued to unveil lots of hidden saplings now being given the space to continue to grow.

Although a little stingy at times, everyone really loves this task. It's great to see the difference we've made straight away and we all left knowing that we'd helped with a really important job that would otherwise struggle to get done.

Last night was a biggie! An amazing 21 GoodGymers came along to get stuck in with clearing space around the saplings planted by trees for cities a couple of years ago!

Joining us this week were two new runners Samar and Jenny who both did an awesome job on what was quite a long run and heavy task. Go and give them a massive cheer!

Much needed maintenance

After a group warm up to get everything moving after lots of us had been sitting at work all day, we meandered towards to canal where we were shown the mammoth task that needed doing. Good job we had our biggest turnout since January! The task this week was facilitated by our good friends at The William Hobbayne Charity who kindly came down and gave us all the tools we needed to get it done. We were told how so much time, money and effort is put into planting new trees but unfortunately the same amount of resources are not put forward for the maintenance so it was great that we were able to step in and help.

The thorny issue and a sticky situation…

The saplings planted a couple of years ago couldn’t be seen and were getting lost under a mass of weeds, brambles and general overgrowth. Our job was to grab some tools, don some gloves and get to work tearing it all away. As we moved through the mini jungle we slowly started to undercover the tiny trees so that they will now have a good chance at continuing to grow!

40 minutes later we had a few stingy arms and legs but lots of happy faces! We packed up shop and headed back to base for a stretch before heading to the pub for the monthly social (ah that’s why numbers were so high!).

We’ll be back in the jungle in a couple of weeks to finish what we started so be sure to sign up again then!

A little run but a massive good deed last night in Ealing as 12 of us ran to help Northfields Allotments dig plots for people in the community who were struggling to maintain them due to older age and recent spells of bad health.

We began by congratulating Harvey on his 8th marathon of the year on Sunday! He’s really cracking on through them now and we’re glad he had just enough in his legs to provide us with his excellent back marking skills last night! With the sun shining and a beautiful evening in store we whizzed through a quick warm up, head count and discussion about upcoming holidays. Sounds like a lot of exciting trips over the next year for our GoodGym members!

This is why we GoodGym!

After a short run through the park using some file sprints we arrived at Northfields Allotments (London’s oldest allotments!) to meet Tana who had arranged for us to help with two plots that had become unmanageable. It was immediately obvious how important this task was to be and really reinforced why we GoodGym! Mr J is a long-standing plot holder of 40 years and the allotment brings him so much joy. However after a bill of bad health last year he’s struggled with being able to manage it on his own and just needed a hand digging it over so he could get going with it again. That’s where we come in and we were delighted to be able to help with such an impactful task! We were also able to help another plot holder who’s had some recent health problems by digging a trench at their plot too, Mrs S was so grateful to receive the our help and hopefully we’ve provided the needed (wo)man power needed to help her maintain her lovely space!

The plot thickened...

We all worked methodically to ensure that we dug over every section and Mr J, Tana and his lovely daughter Kate offered us their top tips throughout. Working together we managed to get pretty much the whole plot turned over in just a short amount of time and when we were done it was clear just how much this meant to Mr J to be able to keep this land that’s such a big part of his life and wellbeing.

It was wonderful to arrive home to find such a lovely email from Kate thanking us for our helping hands. She said that it was great that we understood how much her dad an Mrs S love being in the allotment and that’s we’d given them such a boost to have the work done.

A massive well done to everyone involved in last nights dig!

18 GoodGymers ran, did squats and got in touch with their creative side last night in support of this years Hanwell Hootie Festival and The William Hobbayne Charity!

Not your average group run!

Last night we broke with tradition and did all our running before the task, meeting at our usual base at Bodyline Studios we kicked things off with a head count and welcomed new GoodGymer Roisin to the mix! We run did a few drills focusing on getting some nice high knees and glute activation (very good if you've been sitting all day!) before heading to Hanger Hill Park for some undulation training. Everyone had a go at taking on the loop in the park which gives you the ability to run a fast downhill, hard uphill and a recovery along the top before doing it all again! We also did a few balance and strength exercises before doing a recovery jog back to the start.

Now that's where we'd normally call it an evening but not tonight, now it was time to get crafty! It just so happens that the first Tuesday of the month is always our social in Ealing so tonight we combined our task with just that and headed to the pub to get creative! We had two big MDF guitars to decorate for this years Hanwell Hootie for their Wall Of Sound Installation where for charitable organisations, schools, and community groups will present their message about how they support the community and promote the great work they do! We are very excited and honoured to be asked to create one for GoodGym and we were also asked to help The William Hobbayne Charity create theirs as over the last year we have been so involved with them and lots of the projects they work on!

We are very lucky in our group to have lots of talented and skilled people who got the extra mile to help on some tasks and this week Lionel was a star! Our resident handyman and fountain of knowledge when it comes to DIY primed and prepped the guitars ready for us to release our artistic side onto! Another special mention goes to Daniela who had the most beautiful handwriting and made the William Hobbayne guitar look like a professional job!

Everyone had a part to play in the final products, all working together and using our different skill sets. There's just a few finishing touches I'll need to add on once the paint is dry but what a great result so far!

Next week we are back to the normal format, where we'll do some good sandwiched in between a run! Details to the right hand side >>>