An amazing 22 GoodGymers including 2 new runners, 4 tourists and lots of returning faces ran 6km last night to help stack, sort, shift and snip at Ealing Foodbank!

• Anna and Nikki came to GoodGym for the first time last night, big welcome to you both!
• Louise came all the way from Lewisham, Arran visited from Richmond and Andrew came from neighbouring Hammersmith and Fulham.
• We also had regular tourist Chi on his travels (does he have a home?!) who blasted tunes for us on the run yesterday evening!

Lovely to see you all!

After starting with a quick warm up we trotted off down to Ealing Foodbank in Hanwell to help with lots of different tasks across the site. Pumped up by Chi's tunes blasting from his running backpack we had a speedy group out at the front, regrouping and doing squats on the turns. With everyone safely onsite we got cracking as there was A LOT to do last night!

Team work makes the dream work!

We split ourselves into two groups, team outside were tidying up all the grounds surrounding the hall, litter picking, trimming and weeding. You guys did a wonderful job clearing five massive bags of garden waste and 2 bags of litter! The other team worked tirelessly inside trying to weight, sort and stack as much of the harvest donations as we could in the short time window we had. Between us we also bought along a few donations from our team too so it was great to see where it all goes and be a part of the process to help those who need it most! Our donation weighed in at around 10kg but we weighed nearly 250kg of donated goods in total.

That's a lot of good right there!

We didn't get everything finished last night as there was so much to do but Hilary from the centre explained that they had been really short on donations until recently so having too much stock to sort was definitely a good problem on this occasion!

Before we knew it time was up, so just a short jog back down to Ealing Broadway for some stretches and goodbyes. It was so great to see so many of you out last night and we'll be back at The Foodbank again soon as donations ramp up towards the festive period.

Until next time!

14 runners met last night to clear a huge patch of brambles on behalf of Ealing Transition Community Garden!

Lovely to see lots of regulars and some returning faces but we also had one new runner with us, welcome to Emily who got stuck straight on her first GoodGym task!

We started our evening off with a short run through the parks, we'll soon have to say goodbye to our beloved Walpole and Lammas for the year as the nights quickly draw in so we took the opportunity to squeeze an extra lap before the task while we still had the last of the fading light. And beautiful it was! There's something so lovely about catching the final bit of sunset when the parks are empty, very therapeutic! It was a great opportunity for the group to open up and run at their own pace with both mile and half mile loop options to suit everyones fitness level too, ah I do love a bit of Lammas!

A ramble for a handful of bramble

We then met Vanessa in the community garden which is situated at the top of Lammas Park, she was armed ready with all the tools we needed to tackle the big patch of bramble we had in store! Double gloving was advised and we all grabbed our weapon of choice and got snipping! Working in little teams it was time to shine with our head torches lighting the way task at hand.

It didn't take us long before the patch was clear and all the remained was a huge pile of briar, a great centerpiece for a triumphant victory group picture! I'm sure we'll be back again next spring as these brambles don't scare that easily but we can rest safe in the knowledge that we've tackled them as best we can this year. Now the garden is a safer space for the groups of children that come in and use it as an education space, great work everyone!

Witness the fitness

Just a short jog back and a quick stop off to get our hearts racing and legs burning with a brief fitness session. We had lots of options and variations for everyone to work at their desired level and we kept all the half marathoners safe ahead of this Sunday's Ealing Half race! So all the remains is to say good luck to everyone running on Sunday and I'll see you in the pub afterwards!

Knock, knock. Who's there? Hydrate. Hydrate who? Hydrate you 10 out of 10, Hounslow!

Ahem. Last night's sterling effort from Hounslow saw 12 runners tackle a local resident association's rubbish problem, run just over 5k, and smash out some conditioning exercises along the way.

First we cheered our lovely new member Hardip who joined her for her first run last night. Great to have you with us Hardip!

We also said a big well done to Remy who nears her epic goal of 24 half marathons in one year by smashing a cobbly Lancaster course at the weekend (way to go!) and reminded everyone to sign up for the GoodGym Christmas party on the 8th December.

During our dynamic warm up we found out what everybody eats on Christmas day, or the celebration day of their choice. Yes, there were a few turkeys, but there was also duck, goose, a veggie alternative, pigs in blankets, pasta and a chinese takeaway. Delicious.

Then it was time for the run. Our first stop was 2.5k away where there was a pile of litter pickers, bags and gloves waiting for us. The local residents were fed up with their roads being covered in rubbish, and we had been given three areas to tackle. We split the group into two, and got stuck in.

Working hard in our red and black tshirts it seems like we were a pretty good advert for GoodGym, as several people stopped to find out what we were doing and say thanks, including one women with three amazing dogs that we all decided was a very good reward for our work. Five full bin bags and a whole load of cleaner streets later, we returned our litter pickers and set off back for home. There was some nice sprinting along the way, and only that pesky train could stop us in our tracks.

5k later we were back at our starting point and stretching out all our hard work. Next week we're beating the cold at an indoor task with a nice 6k run in total. Sign up here to spend your Wednesday the GoodGym way!