What a lovely Bank Holiday Monday at Goodgym Bexley. We done our usual 18.45 / 19.00 sign in and chatted on the warm weather, and weekend we had all enjoyed whilst waiting for everyone to turn up. After our warm up (which didn't take long in the humid heat) we headed out to beautiful Danson park to enjoy our run. On arrival we split up into two teams Eileen taking the stronger runners up front whist Caroline and I looked after the back runners. This is what's so great about our Goodgym runs. No one is ever left behind, and we always improve on our running, running technique and fitness every week. If you have never run around Danson park you have to put it on your local bucket list. It truly is a beautiful place not matter what the weather. You're always guaranteed beautiful views and wonderful wildlife on the lake. Any way, I soon got everyone back to reality by putting in an awesome sprint session. The excuse, it's Bank Holiday Monday Tim didn't wash with me 😂. I had come shuttles on the menu, and it was going to be served 🙌🏻, and served it was. With everyone now sweating a lot 💦 we took the time to have a drink and talk about getting everyone up onto the Team Goodgym Strava and Runnkeeper apps, getting people mission and coach verified and all the Goodgym running events that are going on. With everyone now refreshed it was that time again. We moved off running through the park and back up towards Crooklog sports centre. Arriving with smiles and great sense of running achievement it was time to draw the evening to a close. But before we did, we wanted to congratulate Susan and Sarah for smashing their first 10K race at the London Vitality Run earlier that morning and Eileen for being accepted for becoming a Goodgym Run Leader. You're going to be a real asset. Well done 👊🏻😁 Next week Bexley Goodgym are heading out to help a local Charity sort out donations for their shop. So if you're looking to improve your running, get fit and also do good for your local community, sign up, come along, and join us.

Two tasks on this lovely summer evening in Islington.

One group popped up to Whittington Park. Aidan describes:

We arrived at Whittington Park after our longer run down Holloway Road. Our fortnightly task awaited us with Martin ready with bin bags and gloves.

The majority of us tackled the 1 o'clock club's garden as we need to keep up our good work of maintaining a weed and nettle free garden for the kids who use the club.

There was also the task of de-weeding the entrance of the main building, keeping it looking great for everyone!

After working hard for twenty minutes what better way to treat ourselves than with some circuits. Everyone got a chance to pick an exercise for everyone else to do whilst they went on a short lap of the field. Although some of the ladies did get a bit lost along the way! We had all the classics; press ups, sit-ups, planking and two types of squatting for good measure. All before rejoining Holloway Road for our run back.

Aidan

The other group travelled to Barnsbury Community Centre. We've spent a lot of time over the last year helping create a wonderful garden in the disused space behind the centre and we're now just putting the finishing touches to the project for their grand launch on 25th August.

First job was to get gloves out the storage cabinet. Simple, right? Nope. A combination of stupid rain and then stupid heat meant the combination lock for the cabinet had seized up completely. Despite the best efforts of Caroline, Patrick and a pair of pliers it remained stuck. Not to worry: we'd just have to be extra careful.

We spent 25 minutes carrying old pallets and broken bits of wood round to the estate's waste disposal site, having a thoroughly good weed and watering plants. Nice work.

Following the task we played "Dice of Doom" with Simon's new giant foam dice: everybody had a chance to throw the dice and determine the activity that had to be performed for 15 seconds. There were alternate squat thrusts, running high knees, start jumps (LOTS of start jumps), sprints, dreaded burpees (boo) and the elusive jogging on the spot. We then played a game that Caroline made up. Nobody was quite sure what it was.

Back at the pool we had a free stretch, a biscuit and voted on the proper way to eat scones: jam then cream, cream then jam, or Claire's suggestion, butter, jam then cream (which is apparently the traditional Cornish way of doing things)? Jam then cream won by quite a large margin. Some people were disgusted at this - especially Steve - but the people have spoken.

If anybody wants to make scones for next week maybe we could put it to the test.

xxx,
Simon