23 GoodGymers did some school running as they went back to school to lend a hand at John Betts Primary

It was a deceptively chilly night but this didn't stop 22 warm and hardy souls from joining me tonight to help out with a whole heap of jobs in Eloise's school, John Betts Primary.

Tonight we welcomed along, Mary, Venny, Sophie and Dan to their first H&F group run, thank you all for coming along and lending some extra hands tonight, hope you enjoyed it! 🙌

With everyone layered up and eager to get started we headed outside to our lovely and 'glamorous' cordoned off car park spot for the intros and news round-up...

Ain't it school news

1. January Challenge 2020 - we're into the last few days! We've completed 157 good deeds and run/walked 1,725kms, which smashes our 2019 totals of 107 good deeds and 1,627 kms. Check out the GoodGym leagues here.

2. Upcoming races - there's some great upcoming events that other H&F GoodGym'ers are getting involved with: Sunday 2nd February at 9.30am - Wimbledon Common 'Dash for the Splash' 10km and Saturday 8th February at 10am - Richmond Park 5km & 10km.

3. Cheer everyone! - there's a new '📢 Cheer all' button that enables you to cheer everyone who attended the session...although in a slight 'faux pas' tech error, it appears that you'll also give yourself a cheer too 😳.

4. 'Humans of H&F Exhibition' - a wonderful exhibition presented by United in Hammersmith & Fulham, on at the Lyric Theatre until 22nd February. Our very own H&F GoodGymer, Katie (K-A-T-H-R-Y-N 😉) Hodges is one of those 'humans' featured, see if you can spot her!

And....a big WELL DONE to Eloise who achieved TWO PBs at the weekend, one at parkrun and one at the Farnborough Half! 🥳🙌🏅

As a school of thumb

Following a pulse raising warm-up which involved some high knees, lunges, fast feet and a favourite of mine at the moment, the 'number exercise' challenge (great for warming-up both the body and brain!), we set off to John Betts Primary School with Cookie kindly backmarking, to ensure no one was lost en route.

Having successfully navigated our way around pedestrians and the streets of Hammersmith, we paused briefly to allow everyone to regroup, and much to everyone's delight had enough time to fit in a quick wall sit. Despite being a real 'quad burner' 🦵🔥, this exercise is great for runners as it not only builds isometric strength and endurance in the quadriceps muscle group, glutes, and calves, but also prevents runner's knee. I promise I don't torture you every week without good reason 😄!

Wall sit completed we continued on our run. It wasn't long before we all arrived at the front gates of the school and entered through the large main...well all aside from Cookie, who I may have forgotten to inform which door it was we had all disappeared through 🙈. The team were greeted in the main school hall by the school caretaker, Matt and his daughter, Emily. Matt explained that like many schools, due to constant funding cuts, any money available to schools goes directly into education rather than into general school maintenance and upkeep, so was very appreciative for all the helping hands tonight.

"Thank you, you lovely mad crazy people" - Matt

School's paradise

Matt and Eloise had drawn up a long list of jobs for the team to get stuck into, these included:

• Moving 10kgs of bagged wood chips to the climbing area 💪
• Sorting and labelling of school uniform for the PTA 📋🏷️
• Moving books from one room to another 📚 - with the bonus of stairs workout in-between!
• Moving two filing cabinets 🗄️🗄️ - again, with the bonus of stairs!
• Sorting the top-floor storage room 🗃

There was lots to keep the team busy tonight!

The team split into three groups to tackle the list of jobs. One group headed back outside to the climbing area with Matt, the second group headed up the stairs with Eloise and the third group stayed in the main hall. Within minutes, their were red and black GoodGym shirt both inside and out, and a real hive of activity.

Friends with benechips

Bev, Alice, Speedy, Andrew, Dan, Sophie R, Matt, Annabel, Milla and Cookie all got stuck in to the upper-body workout of wood chip shifting and mulching. Matt gave the first large bags of wood chips a helping hand over to make it easier and quicker for the group to scoop and distribute the wood chips to the 'danger' areas of the climbing area - the areas that needed more wood chips in order to be as 'fall-proof' as possible.

"We're all barking mad" - Bev

Despite the challenge of the cold and darkness, the team worked incredibly hard and efficiently to move the entire 10 kilos of wood chips! Some scooped, some carried and distributed containers full of wood chips, and others spread the piles of wood chips. Boom! One job done!

How much wood could a GoodGymer chip, if a GoodGymer could chip wood?

Book at them go!

Eloise headed up to the library with Marissa, Annabelle, Analiese, Tatty and Sophie C. The group had been tasked with the physical workout of the relocation of many books, where stairs had to be negotiated first up and then down while carrying a finely balanced pile of books. The team completed this with ease and emptied the shelves in super-quick time!

Time to run a file?

Next up was the job of moving two filing cabinets down the stairs. One proved a great deal heavier, thanks to some rather age-old paperwork that was removed then carefully placed back in once the cabinet had been relocated.

Off the cuff

The small but mighty team of Sarah, Lucy, Mary, Venny and Zanoubia set to work sorting crates of school uniform clothing: skirts, shirts, jackets, blouses all into the same age sizes and folded into nicely labelled bags. I jested that by chance, Sarah happened to be involved in the job that had not one but two of her favourites...bags and organising!

Once the wood chip group had completed their job they headed inside to the warmth of the main hall and gave a hand to those sorting and labelling the bags of uniform.

"What do you reckon, do I fit into this jacket?" - Speedy

Check out Alice, Sophie R, Zanoubia and Mary and Venny in the background, focused on sorting and folding!

"I feel like I've had the full GoodGym experience" - Sophie R

The sort end of the stick

Biscuits and Milla were given the challenge of the top-floor storage room which to begin with, which shall we say was a little unorganised. Trays and all kinds of items were everywhere! Milla even discovered a wonderfully crafted internal organ diagram. With some help from Emily, the storage room was now a place you could easily walk into, or in Biscuits' case, take 'Henry' the hoover for a quick spin around.

Check out the transformation!...

After forty minutes of lifting and shifting, organising and moving we called it a night once the final bag of school uniform was bagged up and labelled. There was just one last thing to do...have a team photo in Mrs. Nash's classroom! Much to the delight of many their were some fun coloured building blocks that were made into a lovely 'GG' prop.

With all the jobs completed and a team photo taken we said our goodbyes and thank yous to Matt and Emily, and headed back to base. Sadly, there was no time for a fitness session tonight, but we did manage to get in a few more 'squats' or 'spotty dogs' or as I conjured up 'squatty dogs' (now there's an idea!) on the run back. Once back at base we had a good stretch off back before heading home for warmth and food.

Top work tonight team! 😊

"You've all saved me many hours, if not days of walking back and forth, moving and sorting books which has been on my to do list since September 🙈" - Eloise

Next week we've got a new task up in White City for The Church of St Michael and St George. For all the details and to sign up, click here. Have a great rest of your week and weekend. Hopefully see you next week!