With Mark taking a well earned break, Samia made a return to cover in his absence. Some mighty boots to fill, even with my giant feet!

First things first, it’s time for some news:

• Well done Kate on your 10th coach visit - give Kate a big cheer!

• Caroline responded to an urgent plea from Parkrun for volunteers, and listed a community mission for THIS SATURDAY - sign up here: https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/make-parkrun-safe-and-fun-in-kingston.

• We welcomed Charlotte and Katie back for their second runs - great to have you along! And we welcomed Tasha at the task who brought her docs along to get checked so she can do missions and coach runs - welcome!

Squat’s the matter?

After a very democratic vote via WhatsApp for the focus of the fitness session, the results were in and there was a tie between glutes and core - so in the name of fairness, both were featured. We recapped why those glutes are so important in running and in injury prevention, and then it was time for... sweets! Yes, sweets! They were imperative in providing an incentive with reaching during some single leg deadlifts and walkouts, and then of course providing some much needed sugar for the run. After some squats, glute bridges, plank pull-throughs (with sweets, of course), and split squats, we were ready to run.

Core, that was a glute warm-up!

With the task so nearby, we went for a run in the opposite direction along the promenade and then back to Canbury Community Garden. According to most of us, it was a 3.7km run out - but Caroline either had major GPS issues or took a sneaky super shortcut, clocking up a giant 0.03km on her run tracker...

Whether 30m or 3700m, we all arrived safely and were greeted by the marvellous Marilyn who gave us a briefing of the task. Oh, and she set her expectations with our pun report!

There were lots of tasks to do, BUTT there was no chickening out.

Jane and Hannah pond-ered about how to transfer the water from those giant butts to the pond. Wat-er solution they came up with, rolling kegs of the good stuff across the garden and having a barrel of laughs along the way.

Caroline borrowed a barrow so that she could provide a constant supply of compost to Dave & Rob to empty into the beds. They got to work as if they were on barrowed time, a brilliant display of teamwork!

There's no tyr-ing us out!

Next to the raised tyre planters, where Charlotte, Claire, Jess, Katie, Kate, Tom ans Tasha formed Team Rake it or Leaf it. The floor became visible again in a matter of minutes, we couldn’t be-leaf how quickly we raked them up, even in the pitch dark! You know what they say, many hands make light work. Such slick work too, the chickens slept right through all the action! And Charlotte has clearly got the knack for GoodGym puns, announcing that she’d “leaf them there” - you know somebody’s a goodgym-er when they talk in puns!

Glute work, team!

We tidied up, took a groupie and bid the chickens farewell. After a run back through Kingston (with customary heading in the wrong direction first, of course), we stretched and mulled over a pun, ate some more sweets and headed off.

Thanks Kate & Jane for backmarking and Jane for leading the walk back, Rob and Jess for your pun wizardry, and Dave for carrying the light to save my shoulders! And thanks to Team Kingston for bearing with me and my intentional-wrong-direction-running and glute sesh!

We'll leaf it to Kate for the final pun:

I'm a be-leaf-er in GluteGym!

Oh, go on then, one final pun for glute measure:

Gluten Abend!

What a night to celebrate such a fantastic birthday - GOOD GYM's 10th YEAR!

Whether Ivo knew just how contagious doing good could be and how many would want to contribute we don't know but one thing is for sure he is a legend and so Kingston wanted to hail the hero by paying tribute in his form...that's right we ran tonight Ivo-esque with the trademark cap and glasses (and of course a GG shirt).

As well as trying to pull of the look our challenge was to wave our flag in as many places as we could, get a fun run in and of course help a great community mission - and all before the kitchen closed at the pub.

Did we do it of course .... we did and more. We started the night welcoming three new runners, Jessica, Louisa, and Tish who fell straight into fancy dress and celebration mode, making an awesome compliment to the team - Lovely to have them join us!!

A fast brief, briefer warm up and baseball caps and glasses on we took to the Kingston streets, glowing warmly in the evenings fading sunshine. Rather than take the direct route we wanted to enjoy the run some so headed to bushy park making the most of the daylight while we had it and the great open space - we had a SEIZE the FLAG run which was not competitive at all (except for perhaps the run trainer who shouldn't be allowed to play such games).

Flag seized and a strong pace set we headed to CANBURY gardens to meet the lovely Marilyn and some sleepy chickens. Straight to work and watering, filling butts, emptying butts, pallette moving, path clearing, moving compost, filling the pond, moving tyres and even EATING TOMATOES all took place in a flash! Job done and time to spare...was it the thought of the pub that helped us make great time or just the awesome teamwork of a great Kingston team!!! The latter surely as rather than extra time in the pub we squeezed in a preliminary round of a in-promtu 'MARK SAYS CIRCUIT" in the dark too! Much Kudos to all as admirably done and hardly a burpee in sight!

Goodgym on the run in Bushy Park #happybirthday #10yearsold #birthdayrun #running #volunteering #goodgym #bushypark #kingston #runninggroup #doinggood #fun #celebration pic.twitter.com/f5bH3GAukm

— GoodGym Kingston-upon-Thames (@GoodGymKingston) September 18, 2019

So back to Guildhall where surely it was time for a photo as we hadn't had one of the flag in at least 5 running strides.

Finally the pub- Private room of course as only the best will do for a place to hang the great GG logo and toast what makes our Tueday evenings and all the good that has happened in the GG name over the last 10 years. Cheers and here's to many more for many more to enjoy!

Happy 10 years @Goodgym!!!! #birthday #runnersdoinggood #runninggroup #community #celebration #cake #fun #social #volunteering #reason2run #getfitdoinggood pic.twitter.com/9APTPas1TG

— GoodGym Kingston-upon-Thames (@GoodGymKingston) September 18, 2019

See you next week for a visit to Citizen Zoo and all don't forget Super Saturday Mission running this weekend Plog along Sunday too!

Welcome back to Donna, Cathy and Adam for their 2nd group run with Kingston…. Looking great in the red shirts too!!

Very timely tonight that our task at Canbury Community Garden was walkable given today’s heat. Although extreme heat gives our run trainer Mark even more energy. Tonight, Mark energized our relay race warm up with some welcome mini water pistols – a tad mini for cooling down many hot runners but still very welcome!

With our Nation’s Biggest Sports Day badges on, in association with I AM TEAM GB, the running group set off on a longer route to the walkers, which became even longer for some of us who eventually arrived a little tomato faced, and ironically matching the cherry tomato takeover going on at Canbury Gardens. The tomato plant seeds got into the compost apparently, or so the Canbury legend goes.

Runners all got stuck straight in like a hive of worker bees tidying all the different areas of the community garden but did make time to meet the resident hens – Henny, Mollie, Lillie, Chocolate and is it Daisy or Princess Lay-a?

Our task was to clear a path to the vegetable beds, so pulling up an old dead hedge, chopping and sawing branches (not as easy as it sounds with some springy saws and springy branches). We were collecting water from the river, watering the tomatoes and courgettes as well as weeding and ridding the beds of brambles/ nettles. All was going well and then unfortunately, rather than do-good worker bees some sleepy wasps took a shine to Kate’s ankle with some nasty stings. Kate, we hope it’s not too painful and you got some ice-cream and are back to running very soon.

After a stunning walk-run back along the Thames which felt more like the Med tonight, the evening rounded off with a post run cheer and flag raising for the Nation’s Biggest Sports Day and hopefully some less cherry tomato faces.

Fresh in as we type from the task owner Marilyn “Thank you and your lovely GoodGym team for your hard work last night - with lots of useful path-clearing and watering (typically it’s raining now but it won’t be very much I think, so last night’s water-hauling won’t be wasted!). We will try to keep the paths clear, but the weeds tend to outpace us and there will certainly be lots to do next time you visit. Hope the bee/wasp sting got better quickly too”.

Great job all see you next week for Searchlight task and don’t forget to look up the parkrun takeover mission 28th September (get signed up)

Tonight we ran to a familiar GoodGym haunt at the Canbury Community Garden. It was our first group task that had people join for both the walking and running route options and we were very pleased to welcome Roz for her first GoodGym deed. She showed us that she had been well briefed by Kate and came fully kitted up and ready for action.

After a fun warm up, which was at times more reminiscent of the ministry of silly walks due to our skipping styles and monster lunges, we headed out into the darkness along the river towards the gardens. We split at Kingston bridge with the walking group heading along the tow path and the running group heading out on the longer route across the river. We arrived at the gardens with not a squawk to welcome us. We were worried it might be a case of Chicken None rather than Chicken Run!?!

It was great to see the progress that has been made with the garden with new crops for every visit. While the chickens were sleeping soundly all cooped up, we all headed to our beds, but there was no lying down to be done! First task was to shift the compost and level the beds and fill the pond, from our old friend wobbly butt!

Although we struggled to locate the compost, when we found ourselves standing on top of it we didn’t lose our composture! Armed with trusty wheelbarrows and shovels we set to work reducing the muddy mountain and covered the beds with their compost blanket, lovingly tucked in with a kiss from a rake. We showed those chickens that we can-bury those beds!

Whilst pondering on our next task we worked hard on taming our wobbly butts by topping up the duck pond at the back of the gardens. We had a quacking time!

We had energy to spare as we hadn't tyred ourselves out, so we prepared the tyre tubs for potato planting. We had to tread carefully but we hope that the potato harvest will make it a Goodyear!

Tasks complete we tidied away our tools and returned back along the river together! A great team task and we’re egg-cited to hopefully return again soon!

*Note from Run Trainer * This is a great report, thank you Nicky and a huge congratulations on reaching your 50th good deed in such a speedy time with GoodGym. Great back marking, thank you Nik. In tonight's news we also talked about festive tasks for December - please do give me a shout if you know anyone we can assist that ticks that box and look forward to seeing you next week