*Alpine Loop Hill Training 🏃‍♀️ *

Big welcome to Robert who attended his first GG session, and what a session to attend 🤣

A superb turn out from Woking GoodGym for a hill training session. I'm sure we would have changed our minds if we knew what we had in store. Wayne told us there were only a few hills but I counted at least 27. Up was hard going in the warm evening and on the gravel but going down was even worse😩 . There was a lot more walking than running, at least from me, but I think we were all glad to take a break to avoid the army trucks doing their driving training 🚚. We happily welcomed Robert to his first session with us and what a one to pick! Thank you to Anne for caring for everyone on the downhill 🗻sections and go Wayne for not getting us lost. Nadia did a great job with the warm up, safety briefing and keeping everyone together. 🪾 Well done to Katie, Alys, Melanie, Julie and Andy too for conquering the hills in good spirits. 🌳The company certainly made the hills more bearable. Lastly, a thank you to Julie for the puns in the report title.

Following the completion of a task for lovely Dramatize at their Knaphill centre, the Woking Goodgym team were asked to help create a useful garden space at their Brookwood site. Anne, Alys, Katie and Kirsty ran to the task to find that Wayne had made a great start on removing the debris from the space. Everyone got stuck in and cleared away the remaining branches and ivy while our former forest school leader, Anne led the creation of a dead hedge to create a wildlife habitat and secluded space for Dramatize students to relax in. Great job everyone!

Knaphill Community Fridge

This evening 5 Goodgym members met at Knaphill Community Fridge to give the shed a good dust down and a lick of paint 😀

Anne ran 6k along the canal to get to the fridge while Katie also ran 6k but from the opposite direction both ladies getting their runs in before the Martian Race in a few weekends time 👽 Wayne, Kirsty & Julie made there own way there. They were greeted my Jules who had two tasks that needed to be done. Wayne, Katie & Anne started to dust down the outside of the fridge before they applied a stain varnish onto the shed while Kirsty & Julie worked on a bedding in the pre-school removing weeds and planting new plants and flowers 🌼. It was a beautiful evening and plenty of conversations while the tasks were being carried out.

In no time both tasks had been completed and they looked great 😀

Jules was very pleased with the results

St Johns Church ⛪️

This evening Wayne & Julie met at St Johns church in West Byfleet to help with cutting back some overgrown trees in preparation for the summer fate 😀 Luckily it was not raining while we carried out the task. We started off with the big Oak tree and moved along the church grounds to each tree to cut back the low dead branches 🪾 In no time we had finished and the church care taker was very grateful.

Just the two of us! Tonight, Julie & I (Alys) headed over to St Mark’s Church in Kingsfield to help out at their newly established community garden.

The hawthorn trees planted to create some lovely hedges were feeling a bit suffocated by grass and other small plants sharing their soil.

We spent an hour and a half with garden forks and spades getting as rid as many of the weeds as possible to leave behind a neat soil strip giving the saplings lots of much needed space.

I obtained some injuries - an ant bite to the calf and a speck of soil in the eye but this didn’t slow us down!

We managed to slip in some strength training too by taking turns carrying the waste over to the compost heap.

They are looking for regular volunteers to help maintain the garden - so if you have an hour to spare on a Wednesday morning, make sure to get in touch with Rosemary at St Mark’s.