19 GoodGym’ers helped clean up two local parks and an inlet on the River Thames as they litter picked a litter pick of this, and a litter pick of that!

Despite the dark evening and chilly air temperature, 18 GoodGymers REFUSED to let this be a reason to stay inside as they joined me to run and do good in Hammersmith and Fulham.

It was lovely to welcome along the ‘fantastic 4’, our 4 fantastic new runners, Analiese, Annabel, Sophie and Georgina for their first GoodGym H&F run - thank you all for coming this evening, hope you enjoyed it! And thank you to our two GoodGym tourists, Danny and Sian for joining us tonight. Give them all a cheer!

You snooze you news...

After a bit of wild-goose chase to find our well-hidden meeting point in the BetterGym, Sian eventually located the sea of red GG tees and Katie 'I'll meet you at the task' arrived bang on time!

With everyone gathered we all headed outside for the intros and a quick round-up of the week’s news:

1. GG Christmas party 🎄🎉 - Friday 6th December. Places are limited so make sure you sign up early! All the details are here.
2. GG Training Run - 13 Bridges Battersea - Tower - Sunday 24th November. All the details are here.
3. Eloise and Matt are running the London Marathon together for Barnardo's & Alice is running the Big Half for FORCE Cancer Charity - sponsorship links are in the WhatsApp group.

Plogging - a rubbish way to get fit or litterally the best?!

For tonight’s task we were going to be 'plogging' - the Swedish word for running and litter picking - in 3 areas for 10 minutes each, so we didn't get too cold! Following a quick name and number count we launched straight into the warm-up to get the blood pumping and temperatures raised.

With the warm-up and dynamic stretches completed, Andrew led us up past Barons Court towards our first plogging spot of the evening, Normand Park. It wasn’t long before we arrived at the park and had set about our mission to clean-up the park. With everyone rubber gloved up and armed with a bag, the group split up into groups of 4 and each focused on a different area of the park, so as to maximise our coverage.

Litter bugs us 🗑️

After 10 minutes there was the equivalent of 2 full bin bags of rubbish that had been collected by all of the teams. Sophie D found everyone's favourite tipple, Lambrini, Katie found a flat football and for Alice helped out by her new beaming headtorch collected an entire bag of fireworks, sweets and other bits of dumped litter. One-wheelie good final find was spotted hidden in the bushes by Lucy, a scooter missing a wheel! With everyone regrouped we once again followed Andrew’s lead down to the second plogging spot of the evening, Lillie Rec Park.

I'll litter you in on a secret, no one likes trashy! 🚯

Once inside Lillie Rec Park the group split into their 4 smaller teams again and headed off in their separate directions looking for more litter. The litter haul from Lille Rec Park was impressive, a bike lock, wheelbarrow, a broken toilet door lock, hockey puck, tissues, sweet wrappers and a bag of a 'special' stash...the less said about this the better! It wasn't a competition, but many were treating it as one (no names mentioned! 😉)

The litter end 🚮

Park clean-up complete we regrouped and set off down and along the river to The Crabtree Wharf, a beautiful inlet on the River Thames where litter-ally all the floating rubbish washes up and accumulates. Tonight, much to our surprise it wasn’t completely filled with litter and other weird and wonderful things - who can forget the plastic seagull and marine radio from the summer?!

Another group may have recently cleaned the inlet but I think we’d all like to think that there was less litter in the River Thames, especially plastics as everyone was being more mindful of their plastic usage and how it should be responsibly recycled or disposed of....🤞

Following a quick group photo we all responsibly disposed of all the big bags, Cookie even managed to part with his beloved bag, "Baggy" which he had lovingly looked after and run with all evening! Plogging completed we began our short run back to base along the river with the stunning backdrop of the lights reflecting from Hammersmith Bridge onto the River Thames. Back at base we had our stretch off before we headed our separate ways, either to the monthly social at Hop Poles or home!

Great work tonight everyone. Thank you for coming along and for all your hard work.

Special shout outs to...📢🙌🏼

• Eloise, Matt and Danny on their Grand Union Canal Half Marathon, apparently a slippy and muddy one! Well done to Matt on his 6 minute PB!!
• Lucy for completing her 200th parkrun
• Thank you to Andrew for leading and to Matt and Lucy for backmarking, and ensuring you got photos that weren't just dark silhouttes...thank you Katie and Lucy for your fabulous Mo'esk photos! "Where are you Mo?"

Next week we're heading on our monthly visit to the Nubian Life Resource Centre to help out at their Josiah Braithwaite Community Garden. Sign up here. Have a lovely rest of your week and weekend. See you next week!

GoodGym H&F went off with a bang! Remember, remember the 5th of November, gunpowder, treason and trot....

On a chilly Tuesday evening, 14 H&F GoodGymmers forwent bonfires and instead chose to watch the bangs, pops and fizzes from firework displays on a their run to help out a local church.

A big hello and welcome along to GoodGym H&F to Melissa, thank you for coming along.

News

1. H&F Community Missions - 2 on Saturday! Help pack containers for ERASE Foundation from 9.30-10.30am, all the details are here followed bythe 'Big Planting Event' at Wormholt Park, all the details are here if you can lend a hand anytime between 11am-3pm.
2. Unofficial GG10 party 🔟🎉 - this Friday! At Topolski Bar on the Southbank. All the details are here.
3. GG Christmas party 🎄🎉 - Friday 6th December. Places are limited so make sure you sign up early! All the details are here.

There was some brilliant racing at the weekend....well done to Katie and Eloise in the Richmond Half and to Lucy in the Billericay Striders 10k 🏅🥳🙌🏼 .

Spot my mojo working

Before we headed to the streets we did a quick pulse raising warm-up that began with some high knees, jumping jacks and Johnny Wren's favourite, spotty dogs - he's definitely becoming a pro at these now! This was followed by some different movements when certain numbers were shouted out and some dynamic stretches.

Nicely warmed-up we headed down towards our task tonight at Parsons Green. With it being bonfire night and a Chelsea home game the streets were a lot fuller than normal! Following lots of weaving around pedestrians, and a brief pause for a wall sit while we waited for lights to turn green, we eventually arrived at St Dionis Church.

Orange you glad it's Autumn!

We managed to track down the church vicar, Tim who warmly welcomed everyone to the church amongst the lovely Autumnal colours of the fallen leaves. He explained to the group that tonight's task was to give the garden area and sides of the church a lovely spruce up through some leaf clearing and weed removal.

The church has been closed for refurbishment for the past 6 months and Sunday at 3pm is their grand reopening. It was our job tonight to provide the all inportant tidy up to leave a good first impression, because as Tim humourously said " you can never make a first impression again!"

No sight for saw eyes as GG H&F stand & de-leaf-er

The team gloved up and quickly set about filling green garden bags with weeds and leaves. Lucy and Jonny teamed up for the great rake off and large 'scooping hands' combo while everyone else got stuck in with their hands.

Following last week's strong winds there were a number of large fallen branches that also needed to be removed. Henry and Katie armed themselves with a saw and set about cutting the branches into smaller pieces so that they could be used as fire wood.

Raking it happen

After 30 minutes of raking, collecting handful after handful of leaves, sawing of branches and gravel de-weeding we called it a night. The result of all this hard work was 10 full garden bags and one immaculately looking garden area, one that would definitely give a great first impression!

Tim led us inside and treated us to a sneak peak of the refurbished church. And wow, it was stunning! We took the opportunity to get a team photo under the church's arches and bright lights before we said our goodbyes to Tim and headed off on our run back to base.

We'll keep you postered

En route we stopped at some local supermarkets and shops to distribute some posters for Food2You, a grocery delivery service for vulnerable, isolated older people who can't do their own shopping. It will be up and running in Hammersmith & Fulham very soon and they are currently looking for volunteers to drive the delivery vans and assist with co-ordination.

After another weavy pedestrian-avoiding run we arrived back at base. As we completed our cool down stretches we discussed upcoming races and milestones, and of course Christmas! With strectches completed and the temperature dropping, we all headed home to some much needed warmth. Thank you for tonight team, unbe-leaf-able work!

Next week we'll be helping out at Flora Gardens Primary and will be doing some more postering for Food2You. For all the details and to sign up, click here. Have a great rest of your week and weekend. Hopefully see you next week!

19 runners went back to school to lend a hand at John Betts Primary

The crisp darker nights are well and truly upon us and head torch wearing is definitely the fashion that is in! 🔦 The clocks go back on Sunday and the c word is beginning to creep up on us....sadly team I think it’s time to end the denial and accept that Winter is definitely coming!

Tonight we welcomed along Henry and Chris to their first H&F group run, thank you both for coming along and lending some extra hands tonight, hope you enjoyed it! And thank you as always to my wonderful regulars 😊.

School runnings! 🏫🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️

Following a warm-up which involved some high knees, fast feet and exercises that required more co-ordination than normal, we all set off towards our task tonight at John Betts Primary School with Bex and Cookie backmarking.

Having successfully navigated our way round pedestrians and the streets of Hammersmith, we arrived quicker than expected at the front of the school. We paused briefly to allow everyone to regroup, fitting in a quick wall sit / school railings sit before we all set off in search of the open gates at the back of the school.

Success! Open gates located the group all entered into the school grounds and were greeted by the school caretaker, Matt and his daughter, Emily. Matt explained that like many schools, due to constant funding cuts, any money available to schools goes directly into education rather than into general school maintenance and upkeep - enter GoodGym!

No one was board tonight!

Tonight, the team had the following jobs to get stuck into:

• Moving & lifting of noticeboards 🏋️
• Tidying and organising of the art shed 🎨
• Gardening at the back of the school - featuring a pick axe! 🌱⛏️
• Gardening at the front of the school 🌱

The team split into smaller groups with some very much heading towards their calling...Helen to the pick axe, Sarah and Bex to the tidying and organising!

After half an hour of lifting and shifting, organising and gardening, everywhere was looking a lot cleaner, tidier and organised ready for when the children come back after half term.

School's gold

With us being in a school there was also no shortage of toys and props that the team very much enjoyed trying out - Lucy and Will conquered the walking planks with ease, Lucy showed us all how to hula hoop, and the costumes from the school play were tested out by Lucy and Jonny, magic! Everyone was also assigned their part in the next school play...coming soon!

Très school

As the final organisational touches were put on the art shed we finally called it a night. With it being Eloise’s school there was one final thing to do while herself and Matt were away on holiday, crash her classroom and take our group photo there! We didn't move much around we promise! 🤪

Team photo taken we said our goodbyes to Matt and Emily and headed down towards Furnival Gardens for tonight's fitness session. This week we started with a game designed to warm everyone up before sprinting, two tennis balls passed around everyone as they jogged around the green space, one green and one yellow, really easy to tell apart in the dark...whoops sorry team! 🎾🎾 The green tennis ball = 10 jumping jacks and the yellow tennis ball = 10 squats. Following this we did some sprint work, making use of the lamp posts along the path, 3 reps of 50% effort, 70% effort and 100% effort between 3 lamp posts 💡.

Faces redder and breathing heavier the group were given a choice of either continuing the lamp post sprints along the path or a nice gentle run back to base. Throughout, there was some brilliant sprint technique displayed with lots of 'pockets to sockets' and lovely upright postures. Great work team!

All that was left to do was to do our cool down, and sadly say our final goodbyes to Steph before she heads off on her 3 months African adventure. Thank you for all your efforts over the last year Steph, we're all going to miss you and hope that you come back to visit us! Very kindly Steph had bought along some delicious homemade fudgeballs which finished off the night to perfection - the recipe is in the WhatsApp group if anyone fancies making them again one week...hint hint 😉.

Shoutouts

A DAM big well done to Catriona who ran in the Amsterdam Marathon 🇳🇱 at the weekend. Congratulations on the shiny new marathon PB!! 🏅🥳🙌🏼

Well done to 'Speedy Jonzales', Jonny Knight on his Greenwich Park 10k race! 🥳🙌🏼

News

1. FREE Holland Park run - Wednesday 23rd October - Meet at the Stable Yard in Holland Park at 5.45pm for a 6pm start 🕕. Baggage storage and toilets are available.
2. H&F Community Missions - Wednesday 23rd October for the 'Small tap, big change' launch from 6-8pm, please sign up here and Saturday 9th November at Wormholt Park, please sign up here if you can lend a hand anytime between 11am-3pm.
3. Unofficial GG10 party 🔟🎉 - Friday 8th November at Topolski Bar on the Southbank. All the details are here.
4. GG Christmas party 🎅🎄⛄🎉 - Friday 6th December. Places are limited so make sure you sign up early! All the details are here.

Next week we've got a Two Task Tuesday, we'll be heading to Loris Community Gardens and will be leafleting for UNITED in Hammersmith & Fulham. For all the details and to sign up, click here. Have a great rest of your week and weekend. Hopefully see you next week!