Rain threatened just before but that didn’t stop 14 of us coming out to support Cultivate London last night.

Cultivate London are an urban farm and social enterprise that sponsor and train unemployed young people in landscaping and horticulture. All whilst also working to engage communities in food growing and changing the way Londoners think about their fresh produce and where it comes from.

All the news:

• GoodGym Windsor and Maidenhead launches next Wednesday 26th February. A few of us are heading over to support and if you've never been to a launch before, they are great fun! Sign up here to get involved.

• The GoodGym Games are happening on Saturday 18th July this year in Oxford. Chris will be team captain from Ealing this year and will be rallying the troops for the event but you can sign up here.

• The 2020 GoodGym Shindig will take place over the weekend of Friday 7th August - Sunday 9th August and I'd love to see a few of you guys from Ealing there! The Shindig is for everyone who wants to be involved in making GoodGym as good as it can be, whether you've done one run or 100 everyone is welcome, new runners especially! You can find out all the details here, be sure to register your interest!

• Race for free when you volunteer at Hackney Half - That's right if you volunteer at this event you get a free place at another event. And they ain't cheap so it's a good deal!

And the most important news of all...

• Our pizza party social is happening after the run on 3rd March - sign up right here so I know how many to book a table for.

Recap of last night:

No newbies this week but Alec and Mathilde both hit 15 good deeds for a shiny new badge on their profile. Go give them a cheer!

We warmed up with the classic question of what’s your favourite animal (lots of cat lovers) before setting off at a nice pace across Ealing Common and down to Acton. The run out felt great, (thanks downhill route and tail wind!) and we even had the energy for 10 press ups at a traffic light break.

When we arrived, Auberon from Cultivate was ready for us where our original task was put on hold in order to help move a wrongly placed pile of wood chips instead. They’d been delivered in front of a gate that needed to close to be able to lock the site.

But we didn’t have a chip on our shoulder about it...

Working in pairs we filled bag after bag of wood chips so that the gate could be released. We lost count of bags after about 30 but it was probably close to 70 bags we filled and shifted. What a workout!

With sweet freedom for the gate achieved it was time to pack up and head back where we now faced a slight uphill and head wind. Great resistance training if you ask me!

We wrapped up with some stretches just as the heavens opened with some biblical rain and hail. How’s that for timing!

See you all next time!