It's a well known fact that nothing keeps a GoodGymer away from a mission. Whatever the weather, whatever the task, whatever the time we will be there to help! In fact, we are such a committed bunch that we will even come out on our birthdays, for a bit of Saturday morning chair chucking. Happy Birthday Laura and well done for remembering the badge Caroline, we are certainly getting good use out of it! As well as the above duo, Claire, Rob and Samia met on the grassy bit for 8am(ish) and set to work setting up the mini gazebo along with a very precise bit of chair chucking. It was all HAMds on deck. When the gazebo was up, the sides needed to go on and of course the never ending birthday bunting, which went up and down, round and round, over and under, through a tree, down the tree and back into the gazebo, until we finally reached the end! Next up was the kids area and setting out all the arts and crafts. We all agreed that it wasn't Guy Fawkes night, mother's day was so last week and it was way too late for valentines cards, but as there were no Easter pictures we settled for some season neutral options. Along with colouring pens/pencils and the cross stitching section, (only £2 a go) and the table cloths this section was now complete. Well PARADE team. Samia met with the real Jean Jeany, to discuss a future mission later in the year, which we hope to get on board with without too much Van Damage... Another successful set up mission done, see you at the set down, 2pm not 3!

First on the agenda tonight - Mark's warm-ups just got whackier!

GG Panto warmup! Oh no it's not! #Christmas #festive #running #goodgym #fancydress pic.twitter.com/lM6ooytAC6

— GoodGym Kingston-upon-Thames (@GoodGymKingston) December 19, 2018

Big welcome to Claire on your first run!

The weather outside was frightful but the run was so delightful. However, as the saying goes, if it's not raining, it's not training! Our aim was to hit the big yellow and sort some Christmas goodies for those grateful of extra help during this festive season. Unloading sacks linking them up for delivery by the BIG man.

Some of us had no ideer of the route but it was treemendous fun running with a Christmas tree while trying to keep up with Rudolph and the rest of the Goodgym elves. Like the star leading us to our destination, we spotted the glow of the yellow storage boxes shining ahead and let out a sigh of relief after the stopping and starting of traffic light waiting and weaving after surfacing from an underpass maze.

Never have I been so glad to ‘run’ into Goodgym runners as on a soaking wet cold night as tonight. On a dark corner off Tolworth Broadway literally a flood of lights like welcoming lighthouses shone brightly and an array of Santa’s, Xmas trees and Rudolph’s greeted me. The onward run to the bright lights of The Big Yellow and the food bank wasn’t nearly so bad in the rain with lots of cheery Xmas chat with fellow runners...

The task was simple. Put food in the right boxes. Finding the right boxes was less straight forward it was like Piccadilly circus in rush hour with runners running in circles trying to find the fruit box then the baked bean box and what the heck classes as special product?!

Piccadilly Circus in the rush hour!#volunteering #lastrun #christmas #2018 #foodbacnk pic.twitter.com/SvE9Mdb4ch

— GoodGym Kingston-upon-Thames (@GoodGymKingston) December 19, 2018

Last but not least, put all the cereals in date order in the speediest of fashion, with 3 minutes to spare!

Job done where's the pun (And PUB!)

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good run

*(Run report written by all GG Kingston runners tonight - in the pub!) *