16 GoodGym'ers ran 9km to deliver 500 Christmas Cards for H&F Foodbank...CARD core!

It may have been a chilly night in H&F but that didn't deter 15 other GoodGym'ers from joining me on our annual H&F Foodbank Christmas Card delivery around the streets of Fulham.

A big welcome along to Duncan, Jackie and Anne who joined us tonight for their first GoodGym H&F group run, lovely to have you join us tonight! And thank you as always to my wonderful regulars 😊.

With everyone layered up and ready we headed outside for our news round-up and warm-up while jogging on the spot to keep warm!

Just news it! 📰

We started off by congratulating both Arba and Lucy on reaching their 50th good deed! 5️⃣0️⃣ Between them 100 good deeds done and a whole lot of good for their community. Well done both! 🙌🏼

1. H&F Community Missions - Age UK H&F's Christmas party is on Thursday 12th December. Please sign up here if you can lend a hand anytime between 4pm-8.30pm. Notting Hill Genesis on Friday 13th December, help sort donating food and gifts, time TBC shortly.
2. Alice's Birthday Celebrations 🥳 - Thursday 5th December - check the WhatsApp group for details/ask Alice!
   
3. Santa Dash 🎅 - Sunday 8th December at Brockwell Park. Run a 5k or 10k dressed as Santa! All the details are here - Andrew has kindly created a team called 'GoodGym H&F'.
4. GG-all areas Christmas party 🎅🎄⛄🎉 - Friday 6th December. Places are limited so make sure you sign up! All the details are here.

GoodGym H&F on a Tuesday night...there's snow-where we'd rather be!

Following a quick warm-up that included some high knees, an extra long squad hold and some festive ‘shooing of the turkeys’ we set-off down towards ChristChurch in Fulham.

Half-way down we came across the tall and colourfully decorated Christmas Tree near St John's Church and Sarah had the bright idea to get a team photo with it in the background 🎄.

A card day's night

With my Fulham bearings not quite as up to scratch as my Hammersmith ones, we ended taking a slightly more scenic route to the church (sorry guys!). Upon our arrival we were greeted by Mel from H&F Foodbank who was armed with a bag of 500 Christmas Cards, ready for us to deliver around the surrounding streets. Around Christmas, the H&F Foodbank feed around 400 additional families a week, so non-perishable, in date donations are much needed and appreciated.

Before we started our big posting task we got a nicely-lit team photo with Mel of everyone holding the H&F Foodbank Christmas Cards, which featured a lovely hand-drawn snowman on the front ⛄️.

In order to be as quick and efficient as possible we split into two teams - Team Wren and Team Beth - and divided the equally halve the streets we had been asked to cover. After discussing our plans for optimal quick and slick Christmas Card delivery we both mapped out our routes and shared them with our teams - many of the streets ran parallel to each other which made for a nice and easy up one street and down the next!

Postcard pelotons make card work easy!

The teams headed off in separate directions with the agreement we’d meet back at the church once all the houses had had a Christmas Card posted through the door. We both initiated the ‘postcard peloton’, brilliantly coined by Johnny, which you can just about see in action through the darkness...

As we poster door-to-door we had a couple of stops to admire Christmas lights and a few of the large fancy houses, one of which Alice spotted had a giant gold lion door knocker!

In perfect synchronisation both teams arrived back at the church at exactly the same time. The remaining Christmas Cards were equally redistributed amongst the group so that we cover the final marked street on our map that ran parallel to the church.

As we began our run back to base we had one final push to post the final remaining Christmas Cards. Katie spotted a row of houses on the other side of the row and we made a beeline for them with our Christmas Cards in hand. With Mikaela posting the final of the 500 Christmas Cards we had a quick cheer of success but didn’t stop to celebrate for too long because it was fresh out and more importantly, we had treats to get back to!

Life's batter with cake!

We continued on our route back to base, this time the more direct route via Parsons Green and Barons Court! Once back we had a cool down and stretch and celebrated Arba and Lucy’s 50th’s in the best H&F way...with the lots of cakes and biscuits!! Matt had baked some delicious vegan biscuits, Katie had a chocolate cake complete with a 50 candle and I had made a rather crumbly lemon loaf. Once everyone had had their sugar fix and fill we said our goodbyes for another week and headed home to warm-up!

Well done team! Super effort tonight. 500 Christmas Cards posted ✅ and 9km run ✅.

Run shout of steam 📣

• A big well done to Matt who got another parkrun PBs at the weekend, complete with a shoe lace tie mid-run!! 🥳🙌🏼.
• Well done to Alice, Mo and 'Speedy Jonzales', Jonny Knight for completing Mo Run at Greenwick Park! Sadly there were no moustaches to be seen tonight! 👨🏻
• Thank you to Lucy for backmarking, and to Katie for her fabulous camera work 📸.
  
• Well done to all those who volunteered at parkrun and helped at one of the tree planting events across London at the weekend! 🌲

Next week's we're heading on a shorter run to Springvale Residents Hall to help with some weeding and tidying so that the Hall is spick and span ready to host the elections! Please sign up here. Hopefully see you there! Have a great rest of your week!