24 awesome runners ran 7km to help at Cherry Orchard Primary School!

Last night we ventured a little further afield for our run. Since our task was at a school, it was only fitting to talk about our favourite lessons from back in the day. The verdict: we are all just a bunch of nerds! But nerds who can RUN!

We quickly dropped our stuff off in the room and headed off, I had promised a 7.30 arrival and knew we had a longer run than usual plus THE hill so time would be tight! So off we went, up Maze Hill, across Vanbrugh Park and we eventually arrived at the side entrance to the school!

Beth was ready for us with lots of tools and gloves at the ready. She explained the task at hand and showed us the quite pretty but sadly rather itchy plant that needed to be removed. Half of the group went about finding said plants, whilst the rest tackled the wall of ivy, which was so overgrown that it covered the main path... So lots to be getting on with!

All the greenery was to be put in the 3 wheelie bins and compacted down as much as possible to fit as much in as possible! JC and Andy gave it a helping hand, or a helping foot more like, by getting in the bins and stomping the green matter down. And no this was not in my risk assessment!

After half an hour, the place had truly been transformed. We even had time to move the wooden planters to their new homes too. Really amazing stuff everyone!

We headed back through Greenwich Park and the heavens opened and we got COMPLETELY drenched. At least it happened during our run back and not at the task, or that would have been a very miserable 30 minutes! We quickly took cover and called it a night!

Great work last night everyone! You got SO much done, the change was unbelievable! The teachers are going to be dead chuffed and the kids a lot less itchy now that those weeds are out! Fantastic effort all round!

Parkrun

A kind reminder to anyone who fancied the chance of a fast and free 5k on Saturday. A group of us are heading down to Victoria Dock Parkrun on Saturday morning, 9am. You can even ride the cable car for some extra fun! The more the merrier!

200 flyers, 7 keeno runners, 6k and a whole load of guilty pleasures made up another cracking night in Hounslow!

We kicked off the evening with a few bits of news, including plans for our long run on the 3rd December and cheering Remy to half marathon glory on the 2nd December. Not forgetting of course that next week is our very FIRST birthday and we shall be celebrating with a great task (putting up flatpack furniture), a birthday-themed fitness game, and a pub quiz that we are going to smash. There will almost certainly be cake.

We then took ourselves outside for a warm up and to find out everybody's guilty pleasures. Although we should never feel guilty about pleasure, of course. TV shows (trashy and decidedly not trashy) featured quite highly in between high knees and heel kicks, including Outlander, Gilmore Girls, Made in Chelsea and Love Island. To which the latter particularly Ella had showed an impressive commitment. Sunflower seeds and bad action films we agreed were more noble pursuits.

We had a speedy run down to Waterman's Art Centre - a great independent charity that aims to inspire people of all backgrounds through creativity and provide art for all. Almost 2.5 k later and we arrived at the reception desk to find a pile of 200 flyers for an upcoming Digital Weekender waiting for us to distribute. This event in a couple of weeks is crammed full of fun and fascinating free sessions, so do check it out.

Now, we had done this before for Waterman's with mixed success, but this time we were going to do it better. We had already mapped out an area that we were going to hit up, so quickly made our way there. Splitting up into two groups to cover both sides of the street, we got ourselves into formation to put a flyer through every letterbox. Soon we were operating like (a bit rusty) clockwork. We covered about 2k in this way, encountering some menacing barking and some beautiful houses, and soon found ourselves empty handed and back at Turnham Green for our fitness session.

This week were CODE CRACKING. Yes, it was complicated, and no, it probably wasn't explained very well. The idea was that two teams had to each crack a 6 number code. Each number related to a certain exercise and could appear more than once. Each team had to guess the correct sequence but to find out whether they had, they had to do each exercise. A square bracket meant it was the right number in the right position. Phew. I said it was complicated. Still, it was no match for Ella, Andreea and Natasha, who just in the nick of time managed to crack that code and were declared the winners. I mean, there wasn't an actual prize. But they won an overall sense of satisfaction, and that is priceless.

After a few stretches and a cool down we revelled in our post-run, post-goodness endorphin high and called it a night. Great work team. Bring on next week!

24 lovely runners ran 8km to help clear weeds and paint at the Scouts in Charlton!

Well the weather was a lot kinder to us last night in comparison to a week ago where it absolutely hammered it down! It was such a perfect evening for a run!

Another long one last night though as we headed back to one of our favourite tasks over in Charlton 4km away, the New Greenwich Scouts! Last week we started on some paint work inside and didn't quite get to finish it but thankfully Alan let us come back and have another go!

We were joined by a fair few new runners again which is always amazing to see! Please give a big cheer to Seb, Florence and Tasha! Welcome guys and gals! Hope you enjoyed your first run with us!

Chips n gravy!

I've been a bit slack recently on the old warm up games so decided to bring a firm favourite out of the woodwork. CHIPS & GRAVY which just involves a lot of running around and if you're quite unlucky, a lot of burpees! But there were also a few smiles so it was definitely worth the minute or two of pain!

After all those burpees, it was time to go, we were already a bit behind schedule (my bad). Ben C led a speedy crew and they were gone in a flash! By the time the rest of us had arrived, they had already got stuck in with some painting and weeding. AWESOME!

Everyone made themselves useful and either grabbed some tools and gloves for the weeding or armed themselves with a roller/paintbrush and began to paint! No hanging around for this squad!

After 25 minutes, the whole area outside had been cleared and Alan FINALLY managed to get the lawnmower on it which he looked VERY excited about. Health and safety siren was going off having seen all the bits flying out the back of that mower.... it looked like a rocket about to take off! But thankfully everyone took a sizeable step back!! It nearly clogged the mower and it sounded like it was going to blow but Alan did NOT care, in fact, I've never seen anyone look so happy! Great job gang!

Over in the paint corner, room 1 was looking lovely and pretty much done whereas room 2 still needed a bit of work. The girls were absolutely going for it! and when it was time for us to leave, I couldn't get them away, they were determined to finish! But sadly we had to call it a day. Until next time...

Sprintervals!

Since we were running short of time, we incorporated the fitness session into the run back in the form of a few sprints between different landmarks meaning we would get home quicker AND get a decent workout at the same time! Double win! It was great to see you pushing yourselves so really well done!

We had a nice little stretch when we got back, ate some cookies and called it a night!

For those of you who are new, please join our GoodGym Greenwich Facebook Group where you can keep up to date with all the races and other fun runs and things we plan. Also if you want to check out Oli's books, here they are on Waterstones (aka everyone's favourite shop!), have a look here! No I'm not on commission but maybe I should be.

Thanks so much for making it last night and putting all your effort into the task and the run! You got so much done so give yourself a pat on the back! See you next week for some more painting action (hopefully).

Wow ! What an amazing vibe we had tonight with the launch of GoodGym Worthing.

Meeting at our new weekly home ,Splashpoint Leisure Centre , we were delighted to see so many local dignitaries , Adur -Worthing officers and councillors putting their weight and presence behind such an amazing concept.

After a welcome from Val Turner,Councillor for Wellbeing and Ivo Gormley founder of GoodGym, together with plenty of professional and personal photos taken, the trusty and newly formed GoodGym Worthing runners set off along the prom with near perfect weather conditions and the bonus of a wonderful ,warm Worthing sunset.

We arrived at Victoria Park a short time later to a welcoming committee who were a sight for sore eyes! The Conservation Volunteers ,Park Rangers together with Friends of Victoria Park were cheering us on and even offering platters of sliced fresh oranges reminiscent of hockey and football half time treats.

With a swift safety briefing from our friendly Park Rangers, GoodGymers picked up their tools and headtorches and pioneered their first task for an incredibly rewarding and productive 30 minutes of 'raking the dead' , 'sweeping up appearances' and 'pruning everything but the kitchen sink ' There were mutters of 'this is very therapeutic' together with other great banter from all concerned as we carried out the task. Please accept a GoodGym BIG CHEER to all of you! After waving a typically warm GG goodbye we headed back to the seafront where, under the light of the moon, there was the choice of either a steady run or 'licence to sprint' lamp post training.

We stopped briefly for a ' before you can say jack crocodile' fitness session followed by an easy run back to base for stretches and an interactive QA session.

Next week we already have the promise of cup cakes from GGWorthing Martin's amazing Mum , for after the session, so sign up now for the ' Sunset run and beach clean task.,,,,and cake eating!

Two GoodGymmers brightened up B's day and helped her sleep well at night by changing her lightbulbs, testing her smoke alarm and turning her mattress

Mark and I met at dusk and met our lovely host for the evening, B. She needed some lightbulbs replaced in her kitchen and had been incredibly active (especially for an 87-year old!) but isn't able to use the step ladder as she has had not one, but two, hip operations.

Thankfully, B's physio put her in touch with two GoodGym runners in search of a light workout.

Making light work of it

B had two rows of halogen spotlights in her kitchen but three of the eight bulbs no longer did their job. This left some parts of the kitchen in the dark.

We took out the step ladder and new light bulbs then up Mark got and replaced the first. I managed to remove the second and had trouble getting the replacement in but then Mark stepped up and took mere seconds to do the job. Great work, Mark, I could have been there a while! It then made sense for Mark to fit the third bulb (again in seconds).

The kitchen was much brighter afterwards.

Beep test

While Mark was fitting light bulbs we heard a low beep which B thought was her smoke alarm (but we knew we hadn't started a fire!!!).

We established it wasn't the washing machine or the door entry system. I followed B to the hallway and identified it was the phone, but while on the subject of beeping, B thought we could also change her smoke alarm battery. She said it had been beeping lately and someone told her this meant the battery needed replacing.

On closer inspection the model said the battery couldn't be replaced but I suggested Mark climb up and test the alarm to reassure B that it was working.

Got to turn around

B liked our style and the concept of a GoodGym mission so found a couple more tasks.

I'd remarked that I'd recently flipped my mattress for the first time in months after my shoulder surgery and this gave B the idea to ask us to turn her mattress so she could get a good night's sleep.

This is the beauty and simplicity of a GoodGym mission; a straightforward household task with a big impact to everyday lives.

It's time to take out the trash

B was delighted with our speedy and helpful work and just asked us to take out two bags of recycling as we left to go on our separate runs home.