Despite the pouring rain and prospect of another wet and cold run, last night a brilliant 7 other GoodGym'ers avoided the temptation to stay dry and in the warm and joined me for our final group run of 2018! Amongst my lovely regulars it was great to welcome along James for his second H&F group run - hope you enjoyed it!

That old chestnut...the news!

1. Tonight was the last group run of 2018! So NO Christmas Day or New Year’s Day GoodGym H&F but remember there are quite a few parkruns happening.
2. There’s still time to get your festive GoodGym badges with Community Missions still occurring over the festive break. Why not aim for the Winter 321 Challenge badge: 3 cheers, 2 community missions and 1 group run?!

In the line of flyer

This week we had a flyering task for 3 wonderful community organisations:

1. Family Friends - a small charity who provide a parent befriending and child mentoring service in West London. They use volunteers to support the service and are currently looking to recruit new mentors and befrienders.
2. Doorstep Library - a charity that recruit and train volunteers to go into some of the most disadvantaged areas in London to help introduce children from ages 1-11 to the pleasure of reading and inspire them with it.
3. Acknowledging Youths - a project that was set up to raise the aspirations and make a positive impact on the life of disadvantaged young people in London. They provide education and training to help prepare the young people for interviews and ensure they are ‘work ready’.

Following a quick warm-up we all headed off up to Shepherd’s Bush Road. Once at Brook Green we split into two with Team One - Sarah, Jonny, Jason and Chris covering one side of the road and Team Two - Sarah, James, Johnny and Beth covering the other side so as to maximise our flyering efficiency.

Both teams headed up Shepherd’s Bush Road and then along Goldhawk Road distributing many of the flyers to local newsagents, laundrettes and pubs as they ran, with the latter proving very tempting for a quick refreshment stop!

Safe you 'elfs for Christmas!

With the pub temptation avoided both teams pushed on and regrouped by Goldhawk tube station. With the rain still coming down and the flyers beginning to get overly damp we decided to call it a night on the flyering front and posed for a group photo under the shelter of an office.

In order to get a good run in, especially since as Sarah noted, I'd begun to get my bearings around the area a far lot better so there were less 'scenic routes' taken, we all headed down towards Furnivall Gardens.

The 12 Days of GoodGymas

Once at Furnivall Gardens the group completed a nice festive themed pyramid fitness session. In true grinch style I added an extra degree of difficulty by asking everyone to complete a short 10m sprint after completing each exercise.

On the 12 days of GoodGym Christmas, my GoodGym Trainer gave to me (carol singing however was not enforced!)...

1. One nutcracker knees
2. Two tricep presses
3. Three snow angels
4. Four Christmas Tree balances
5. Five Boxing Day Presses
6. Six lunge wraps
7. Seven shooting star jumps
8. Eight rocking bridges
9. Nine press on the walls
10. Ten leaping leap frogs
11. Eleven drummer squats
12. Twelve toy soldiers with high knees

Lighten up, it's Christmas!

Everyone put in 100% effort and had significantly raised pulse rates, and redder and sweatier faces after completing the session. Brilliant effort all! All that was left was for us to run the short distance back to base, admiring the wonderful Christmas lights on display at St Paul's CE Primary School en route. Back at base we sheltered under the car park of the Better Gym and had our final stretch off in 2018. Here's to 2019!

Thank you all for a RUN-derful latter part of 2018, thank you for all your hard work and smiley faces week in week out no matter what the weather. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! See you in 2019! And many thanks for my Buddy the elf approved treat!

The first group run in 2019 will be on Tuesday 8th January!! It will be an INDOOR task sorting donations for St Mungo's Reconnection Post, sign up here.

It was great to be joined by 14 other GoodGym'ers for tonight's Hammersmith & Fulham group run, following a wonderful weekend of racing in York for the final big 6 races of 2018 - have a read about the very inspirational and emotional story of GoodGym York runner, Sean here. It was lovely to welcome Charley and Harriet along to their first H&F group run - great to have you both along, hope you enjoyed it! And for the second week in a row we welcomed back GoodGym tourist Alex.

As it was a very welcome dry and mild autumnal evening, we all headed outside for a quick round-up of this week's news...

Firstly, a huge well done to all those that raced in the very wet and windy conditions at the weekend, Tom & Fiona in the Royal Parks Half, Alex in the Yorkshire 10 Mile and Jason in the Cabbage Patch 10.

1. October Long Run - this month's long run will be this Sunday! (21st October). A 19.3km run along the Capital ring - East Finchley to Hackney Wick and will be led by Simon Fitzmaurice. Sign up here.
2. Fulham 10K (Sunday 18 November) - If you've entered, or are thinking about entering. Sign up here.
3. The big C word......GoodGym London Christmas Party! (1st December). Hosted by GoodGym Southwark, fancy dress, killer tunes, dodgy dancing! Sign up here.
4. GoodGym H&F Christmas Party - either on Monday 10th December or post-run on Tuesday 11th December. Please vote for your preference here. Please vote by next Tuesday's group run!

Chariots of flyer

This week we had a flyering en masse task for 3 wonderful community organisations:

1. Family Friends - a small charity who provide a parent befriending and child mentoring service in West London. They use volunteers to support the service and are currently looking to recruit new mentors and befrienders.
2. Doorstep Library - a charity that recruit and train volunteers to go into some of the most disadvantaged areas in London to help introduce children from ages 1-11 to the pleasure of reading and inspire them with it.
3. Acknowledging Youths - a project that was set up to raise the aspirations and make a positive impact on the life of disadvantaged young people in London. They provide education and training to help prepare the young people for interviews and ensure they are ‘work ready’.

In the line of flyer

Following a quick name and number count the group split in to two teams: 'The Red Devils' (Route 1) no resemblance or link to Man United! - Will, Jason, Catherine, Bex, Charley and Martynas, and the 'Hammersmith Flyers' (Route 2) - Sarah, Johnny, Harriet, Alice, Alex, Joyce and Helena.

Fast flyering

To add a bit of fun and friendly competition to the task I had devised a scavenger hunt for the group to accompany all the flyering! Each team had the same sheet of items to find or actions to complete on their designated route: a red car, a team selfie, a wild animal, a pub named after an animal, something beginning with H or F, three flyering puns (definitely not to cheekily help with my run report punspiration!), a stop sign and a joke ideally running based, tell someone about GoodGym, wave at another runner & the bonus point round....road scrabble, find a road name with the most scrabble points!

I briefed both groups on the shops and areas that they were looking to target and hand out the flyers to, with the key instruction that both teams were to meet at the corner of Askew and Uxbridge Road at 8pm. The flyers were distributed amongst each team and plans for efficient flyering, whilst successfully scavenger hunting were formulated by both teams.

Come flyer with me, let's flyer let's flyer away

Plans formulated, Sarah led the 'Hammersmith Flyers' off on their route up Shepherd's Bush Road and along Goldhawk Road, while I joined 'The Red Devils' on their route down King Street and along Askew Road. Each team quickly ducked in and out of coffee shops, libraries, newsagents distributing the flyers, whilst also on the lookout for lengthy road names and other items from the scavenger hunt list.

No flyers on me

Time 'flyered' by and it didn't seem like half an hour had passed as the clock struck 8pm. Will and Charley from the 'Red Devils' had bumped into the 'Hammersmith Flyers' en route as they either intentionally - possibly on a secret sabotage mission - or unintentionally - accidentally took the scenic route! To my great relief both teams arrived at the meeting point only a few minutes late, and thankfully there were no missing runners lost around Hammersmith! With heaps of flyers distributed around the Hammersmith area and the group as one again it was time to head off on the short 2.5km run back to base. As we made our way we stopped for some bonus squats, lunges, high knees and back flips...otherwise known as heel flicks!! There was also a quick stop for a group photo before everyone began to part their separate ways.

Flyer me to the moon/back home

Back at base we had a quick cool down and stretch, both teams then re-huddled and had a final debrief on their scavenger hunt. With both teams applying the same tactic of noting down multiple road names they saw while running, there was of a lot of referring to the scrabble tile photo and adding up before they brought their attempts and photos over to me for some 'official judging'. There was some brilliant lateral thinking on some of the items, with the 'Hammersmith Flyers' presenting me with a (bus) stop instead of a stop sign. It was very close between both teams with each amazingly finding a road that equated to 32 points!! However, with the full compliment of three puns (all included within this report!) the victory went to the 'Hammersmith Flyers'! Fab flyering and scavenger hunting this week, each charity is very grateful for your help!

Next week, we hopefully have two tasks, a shorter 3-4km run back to Hestia and a longer 7-8km run out to Ray's Playhouse. Sign up here.

Thank you all for another fun night, hope you have a lovely week! Thank you to Johnny of the 'Hammersmith Flyers' for this week's pun! And thank you to Clare who biked home to distributed some flyers around the Fulham area. And thank you to Helena and Bex for the extra photos!

I'll leave you with my favourite jokes from the night....

What do runners do when they forget something? They jog their memory!

What do you call a runner behind a car? Exhaust-Ted!