35 excellent runners gathered at Papa's Park for our group run tonight.

We said a huge Lambeth welcome to 6 brilliant new runners - Anna, Jessie, Emma, Isla, Kate and Harriet

Next, we heard about these exciting events coming up in Lambeth and our neighbouring areas:

• A community mission at Herne Hill Halloween party at 7pm on Thursday 31st October.
• A parkrun takeover at Burgess Park with GG Southwark at 8:30am on Saturday 2nd November.
• The monthly kebab chase meeting at 10am on Sunday 3rd November at BaBa Boom Battersea.
• A big GoodGym London social from 6:30pm on Friday 9th November.

Lots of lovely things to get involved with :)

It was also SPOTM week and this week's very well-deserved winner of a unique assortment of National Trust pens, Puregym freebies, a bookmark and possibly the world's smallest notebook was Shauna. Despite only joining GoodGym recently, Shauna is already on her 15th good deed and her 9th for October. Huge kudos and thank you!

And onto the main event aka tonight's task.

We split into two groups to run there, David and Charlotte leading a slightly longer run whilst George and Nicky led a more relaxed party pace troop.

On arrival, we surprised Karen with the size of our group but quickly split into teams, digging up stones around the veg plot, moving planks of wood and clearing the area around the Bug Hotel. After half an hour, Karen seemed very happy with what we'd done and we headed back to base to enjoy some delicious cake expertly baked by Becca and Angela

Great work everyone, thank you so much and hopefully see you at next week's group run for more getting fit and doing good.

NINE amazing runners braved the heat and joined me to help Harlesden Town Garden and unbeknownst to them take part in a 1km time trial too!

What a Monday - it had reached 30 degrees in central London earlier in the day and it was still super hot as we met at the Queensbury for this edition of GoodGym Brent.

We said welcome back to Amy who was joining us for the first time since January - welcome back!

With everyone hydrated, we gathered for a brief intro in the sun, I explained that we'd be doing a 1km time trial this evening so that we'd have more entries to the GG Olympics and that we were off to Harlesden Town Garden to help them out with more clearing work.

Task!

With that done we set off on the run. The heat was extremely oppressive but we stuck together and got there in good time. Gabriel then explained what we had to do. There was some chopping back of a hedge but the main work was in clearing the path around the garden. Various bits of ivy and plants had been chopped down and we were clearing it out and chopping it down so it could be bagged and taken away.

With some hardcore efforts from Caroline, Scott and Claire to remove some very strong ivy roots - we reckon we're going to come back to tackle the rest - we all gathered for a group photo and the headed off for the time trial!

Trial!

We gathered in Roundwood park which is handily 1.07 km long around the perimeter. After an unnecessarily long intro and explanation of the route and with much strava-starting we got the first five lined up and off they went! While we waited for them to come round we discovered that the 1000m world record is 2m11s - crazy! It didn't take long for the first group to get back and then we swapped over and the next five went around...and Uthman went for another lap - now that is crazy!

Times are below (extrapolated 1km time in brackets) - great effort from everyone! (strava times may differ)

• Amy - 5m32 (5m10)
• Caroline - 5m48 (5m25)
• Clare - 5m50 (5m27)
• Claire - 4m56 (4m37)
• Ellen - 4m54 (4m35)
• Liz - 4m48 (4m29)
• Lucy - 5m49 (5m26)
• Pritesh - 4m12 (3m55)
• Scott - 4m11 (3m54)
• Uthman - 4m25 (4m07) ... and 6m08

Amazing

With that we recovered and then jogged back to base, stretched, marvelled at the football results and a few of us stayed for a drink and some GG Brent Olympic torch planning! Top effort from everyone, and whilst we may have wilted in the heat we showed our speed in that time trial!

Thanks and sign up here for next week - we're hopefully off to the canal!

Cheers, Pritesh

Eight excellent GoodGymmers ran to the canal to tidy it for local residents.

Meeting at the Queensbury, we were joined by Scott and Zivile for their first ever GoodGym run. Give them a cheer!

After a quick chat - mentioning the GoodGym Olympics (seriously check it out guys) - we set off. It was a 3.5k run and we found a lovely route through the local park, squinting at the sun and watching the dogs play. Let's do this more often.

Arriving at the canal, we were met by our task leader Jack who handed out our tools - grabbers, bin bags, gloves and high vis vests. Our task was to work along a stretch of the canal clearing litter. With the team looking dapper, they quickly got to work.

After 25 mins effort, we had filled 12 rubbish bags with an assortment of weird and gross trash. This included lots of cans, takeaway packages, a spiderman umbrella, shirt and trousers, and lots of crisp packets. Total Trash indeed. Jack was delighted with our efforts and rewarded the team with kit kats!

We ran back on a slightly more direct route, though up hill, and got back to base for a stretch.

A pleasure to see you again Brent! Pritesh is back next week.

ps I'm not sure some rubbish next to a picturesque canal was what Sonic Youth had in mind when they wrote 'Total Trash' but it will do 🎶🎶🎶🎶