A good-sized group!

What a turnout for our last group run of 2018! A great sized group of us made our way at a speedy pace to our favourite city farm just over a mile away from our hotel meeting point.

Ha y & herding

On arrival, task owner Tom wasted no time in telling the team what was expected: mucking out the goat pen and herding goats. As you would expect in the middle of East London. And what fun it was.

The teams completed tasks ahead of time as usual, and so proceeded to the second pen to do the same all over again. Floors were swept, bins emptied, hay wheeled and piled high into compost bays, goats herded (sort of - they did nearly escape despite being surrounded by 28 runners. #YouHadOneJob).

We were all soon gathering for tonight's fitness session, The Great GoodGym Glute Off, where Chi and I led the runners through a fine selection of glute exercises leaving no buttock area untouched. The runners performed amazingly, none more so than Alfie, who effortlessly whizzed through speedy reps of pistol squats putting even the most decent of our infinitely shallow-er single leg squats to shame.

And then we congregated in the barn where Tom suggested a nice position on a neighbouring ledge, the other side of the stable, for he & I to take a couple of pics. After some nail-biting gate-climbing, we were soon perched on, well, the wall, it seemed, but we got some good pics.

We then promptly said our cheerios and headed back to the hotel, where Chi had brilliantly brought a selection of some of the finest spirits for us to savour alongside Sarah's delicious mince pies.

This week’s shout-outs

So a great big hello, and welcome, to Pistol Squat King Alfie,whose first GG run it was, and a massive hello to Debs and Paul, who joined us while visiting from Bristol. Lovely to see you both.

Thanks to Chi for delivering a fab fitness session, and for organising and supplying the most post-fitness fun we’ve had in a long time.

Thanks to Leanne for backmarking this evening, and a big thank you to everyone who brought food and snacks for tonight’s social.

And so to 2019

...when we'll be kicking off the New Year with a brand new task! Details are here.

Until then, have the happiest of Christmases, a wonderful rest, and I really hope to see you in the New Year.

A whopping 19 runners showed up to come and build furniture at this phenomenally fun task at Weavers Adventure Playground.

Additional tasks!

After warming up outside the hotel, we took an easy 0.5-mile run over to the playground, skilfully navigated by Si (although rather meanly he took us passed McDonalds - cue 7pm rumbling tummies). On arrival at the playground, task owner Alex was delighted to see so many of us, and wasted no time in dispatching half the team to a new task: clearing a large grass area of tyres, wood and the most stubborn weeds. The panels of fencing were removed and the runners soon got to work digging, lifting and shifting. The entire area was unrecognisable by the time the runners had finished - binfuls of weeds, rubbish, and tyres meant the new terrain was now ready for use, flattened and clutter-free.

The frustrating furniture

Meanwhile two teams worked on the original task of building tables from disused wood. No traditional meaning of R&R to describe GoodGymers - a GoodGymer's R&R is Resourceful and Resilient, and this is never more apparent when they're put to work on Weavers' furniture. Mis-shapen bits of wood, limited tools, stubborn bolts and an absence of any manual makes this particular task tough-going by any stretch of the imagination, but they persevered as always. Progress was made - tables had additional legs; isolated planks of wood became part of a bench, but the runners definitely felt frustrated at not being able to finish.

Stiff upper hip

And so 8.15 came around quicker than you could imagine (where do those last 20 or so minutes of a task always go?) and we gathered on the asphalt area for our hip workout. After warming up (again) we proceeded to move onto the delightful single leg pogo and several versions of isometric hip abductions, and we also squeezed in a couple of seated core exercises, just in case hip flexors were feeling a bit neglected. Everyone performed the exercises with pretty good form and, as we head out of 2018, I have to say I think the team's balance has improved as the year's gone on.

The difference you make

Our last couple of the minutes were spent at the task saying goodbye to Alex, and listening to him describe in detail how the team's efforts made a difference: he explained all that shifting of rubbish, weeds and debris, and furniture-building, frees him up in the days ahead for more activity-planning for the children's holidays, and for actually participating in that activity. Actual hours - plural - freed up. Quite a big deal when you think about it.

And so we headed back to base for some static stretching on the steps.

What a really lovely second-from-last Group Run of the year. Well done to everyone for another night for all to remember.

This week's shout-outs

So, hello and welcome to our first time GG runners, Becky, Grit and Sarah - you played such a big part in getting so much done! I really hope you'll all join us again very soon. And same to Saoirse, who is by no means new to GG, but new to TH. Hope to see you again in the near future.

Thanks, on behalf of our whole group, to Leanne for backmarking; Si and Dave for navigating and route-planning.

And a huge shout-out this week to Becky J who headed up the very popular, productive and successful lantern-making task last Wednesday, and to Becky G, who's leading our Mile End parkrun takeover this weekend.

What a lucky area we are to have such brilliant members/task force members!

Right, that's it for tonight. Have a truly wonderful week - and do think about joining us for Saturday's parkrun pacing (less formal and scary than it sounds - really fun in fact) and our participation at The Glasshouse's Winter Warmer event a little later at 2pm.

See you soon I hope!