If you watch or listen to the news at the moment, you would be forgiven for thinking that the country is falling apart with all the Brexit shinanigans and division in Westminster. So it is a huge tonic to me to turn off the telly and head out of the door on a Wednesday evening to meet a group of people who build community, do something constructive and who work together to achieve a common goal. Thank goodness for GoodGym.

Anyhoo, before I get on with the deets of tonight's task, here is some news. This Saturday we have a one-off special run taking place to Willow Brook Primary School in Leyton. This is a great opportunity for new runners to get a taste of GoodGym and for regulars to meet up for a lovely Saturday daylight run to a charming school. If you fancy an extended run, Ercole, Ramon and I will be running Walthamstow Parkrun first (5km), then running to Mirth, Marvel and Maud (2.5km), Willow Brook (3km). Anyone is welcome to join at Parkrun or Mirth.

We will be setting off from Mirth at 10.30 am. Please turn up ready to run as Mirth will be closed.

As well as going for a great run and doing something good, participation will boost GGWF's league standings in the January Challenge good deeds target. We are currently in third so with your participation on Saturday, we will end the week on a high.

You can sign up for Saturday's run here

After a rainy day, it was nice to sit in Mirth, Marvel and Maud and see plenty of GoodGymers arriving one after another. We were also delighted to welcome first-timer Sophie to the crew tonight, great to see you, Sophie. I hope this is the first of many. I should also extend a special welcome also to GG founder Ivo who also joined us this evening. All in all thirteen of us set off but after picking up a few chums on the way, we were fifteen altogether shortly after arriving at St Mary’s Church.

Tonight's task was one that is close to the hearts of many of GGWFs regulars as we were filling some planters with compost. Previous tasks had seen us build these very planters and help to establish the compost we were using to fill them.

With such a good turnout, I decided to split the group into a running drills half and a task half, swapping over after some slow, medium and fast circuits had been done. Everyone beavered away at the task and we moved a mountain of earth completely filling the planters before we were treated to a great core workout by Chi, who was visiting us from Haringey for the night. Great work from Chi and even better work from the crew. I suspect there will be a few aching abs today.

Chi is organising a few activities for GoodGym and you can read about them and get involved here:

1. Spartan Race

2. Training Session

Before I go a word on next weeks run. We are visiting St Peter’s In The Forest Church to tidy up the graves. We will also be saying au revoir to Jo Stevens who is soon to be embarking on a trip to India to study yoga. Jo has been an amazing member of the GGWF team, not only joining in plenty of runs but leading some wonderfully relaxing warmdowns post-task. Jo will be missed so come along and say goodbye. This event will also include some of Jo’s delicious banana bread. Sign-up here

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