With Beth on holiday in Slovenia, she trusted me with the Hammersmith and Fulham crew for the evening.

After a little welcome, and chats about upcoming half marathons like the Ealing and Oxford halves (come and cheer on fellow GoodGym runners at either of them if you can!) and the GoodGym Social next week, we made our way outside for a warm up and introductions. I wanted to find out the best things about Hammersmith and Fulham, so we got everyones ideas. Fitting for a running group, the most popular thing turned out to be the running route along the river, so I'll be sure to come back and try that out some more!

After the warm up we headed out to Maystar Estates, a local housing area where they have some communal green areas that need looking after and lots of smaller individual gardens. Despite back-marking being one of his favourite things (sorry!), Jason did a splendid job leading from the front, and got us there safe and sound. We met Pauline there, who got us all armed with gardening tools and bin bags and set us to work. We also caught up with some of our friends from the Chelsea FC Foundation, who we helped out last week, at the task.

The Task: To turn a grassy area into a patch of turned over soil, ready for planting some bulbs, to give the communal space a bit of colour. Plus we also had a couple of individual gardens to tend to, cutting back their hedges and doing some weeding on of their grass.

Everyone got stuck in quickly, and so before we knew it the task was completed and we found ourselves eating biscuits in their community hall - what a treat! After a group picture, and goodbyes to Pauline and the Maystar reps, we jogged off to the famous riverside to do some sprint training. Using a small length of the path, with some handily placed street lights, we focussed on different factors of our sprint to try and improve our running techniques.

• Socket to pocket (focussing on driving that elbow backwards!)
• Lifting your torso upright, imagining a helium balloon pulling you up
• Increasing your cadence to maximise speed

After a tiring little session, it was time to call the run to an end for the night, so we made our way back to the Fitness and Squash club for some stretches and chats about next week's run, which you can sign up to here.

Don't fear, you'll be back to normal next week when Beth returns. Hopefully see you all soon. Thanks for having me H&F!

The fairy godmothers (and fathers) were out in their numbers in H&F tonight to help the elderly residents of Maystar Estate.

We were also lucky to have visiting fairy godmothers, Katie and Aiste, from the neighbouring kingdoms of GoodGym Camden and Greenwich along with new joiners James and Clare on their first group run.

It all started early on a Tuesday night when 22 GoodGymers stood in a circle and desperately tried to remember their names, a number and come up with an un-embarrassing favourite film. After the warm up, which featured The Shining (much concern), The Lion King (overall approval) and Harry Potter (once again – general nodding) we set off with a reminder that we hadn’t seen Clueless, Pretty Women or Mean Girls in far too long.

Arriving at Maystar Estate we were met by Pauline who had a fine display of various gardening tools. Choosing our weeding weapon of choice we were split into teams of five and six and set off to work our magic on the gardens of the elderly residents. Nearly 20 bags of garden waste/weeds later we were rewarded with smiles from the people who lived there and a great selection of biscuits and squash from Pauline.

After all of the weeding weapons were back in line and meeting the one and only Danny Cocaine (write it down everyone) we made our way to the river to do some interval training to get us back to Hammersmith Bridge.

And so, the fairy godmothers and fathers made it back to the Better Gym in Hammersmith and lived happily ever after - knowing that they would be laughing at everyone’s toddler photos in a few weeks time.

A special thanks to Beth for leading tonight’s run and to the wonderful Jason who keeps everyone company at the back.

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Big big thank you to Bex for writing this week's run report!...if anyone's missing their left slipper, please let Bex know!!

You're saved from my terrible puns this week but a quick reminder of all the news this week....

1. Community Mission - On Saturday 1st September (that's right, this Saturday!), there will be a community mission to help out at the amazing White City Adventure Playground, sign up here - Wormwood Scrubs parkrun followed by breakfast will be organised pre-mission! Please come along and lend a hand if you can You do not need to be DBS verified to get involved with community missions.
2. GG London-wide 'Hamingslow' Social - On Thursday 6th September, GG Hammersmith, Ealing and Hounslow will be uniting and hosting the social! It'll be in Hammersmith upstairs at The Rutland Arms! Sign up here.
3. GG H&F's 2nd Birthday - On Tuesday 11th September, part two of the birthday celebrations with a post-run social! Venue TBC. Important pre-social request - Please email or whatsapp a photo of yourself aged 2 to Bex before the date for the baby photo quiz round!
4. Adidas Shoreditch 10K Volunteering - Volunteer for Adidas City Run Shoreditch10K on Sunday 14th October and earn half-price entry into another Adidas City Run! – sign up here.
5. Donations Wanted! - Catriona is going to Calais in October to volunteer for a couple of weeks with an amazing charity called Help Refugees, who among other things, give support to people who were displaced from the Jungle when it was torn down by the French police. Do you have any of the items listed here that you can donate? If YES, please let Catriona know!

And, well done to Jason who FINALLY (suprisingly Back to the Future isn't his favourite film?!) received his well-earned winged t-shirt for his 100 good deeds.

Next week it's part one of H&F's 2nd birthday celebrations, we will be off on a party run to St Mungo's Reconnection Staging Post to help give their garden a revamp – sign-up here.

Thank you all for pitching-in on another garden task and for entertaining my photo posing requests and the questionable group selfie attempts! It was lovely to see Joyce, Luke, Sophie and Missie repping their nice and new (yet to have paint splashed on) red GG-tees, great to meet and welcome along James and Clare, hopefully we will see you both on another group run soon! And lastly, thank you to the GG tourists, my three-legged race buddy, Katie and Greenwich's finest, Aistle.

Ramble done, have a fantastic week all and hopefully see you either on Saturday or next Tuesday!

Our welcome speech this week had lots of news. Including Tom, Catriona & Bex have joined Sarah, Ellie, Justine & Jason on our taskforce. Give them a cheer! A bunch of us are heading to White Star Running on the bank holiday in August along with lots of other goodgymers - will you join us? And the last bit of news was Age UK in Kensington & Chelsea are putting on a football event this Sunday and are looking for volunteers to help out serving drinks and chatting with the older people 12-3pm. More info here.

Our task for the evening was to help at Maystar Estate. It was a 1.5km run for us and we were met there by the lovely Pauline, a Residents Association volunteer who always organises our visit. This time she asked if we could help plant out some plants in the raised beds and around the play area, plus water everywhere throughly. There was a slight hold up when we arrived because the lock on their tool shed had jammed and wouldn’t open. The team started using the few available tools and their hands to start planting, whilst Jason and Catriona worked on the lock. They eventually Catriona it open and then everybody had enough tools. With time to spare at the end, one group weeded the pavement around the garden and another few people filled up the water butts so the garden was easier to water after our visit.

Once we’d finished all the tasked we headed back to base. Catriona and Andrew went a fast, long route via the river and the rest of us went a shorter route one.

Everyone’s reward at the end was a tasty carrot cake at the gym afterward to celebrating Alice and my birthdays and the new recruits to taskforce.

Tasty stuff!

20 wonderful running fans turned up to DO GOOD and GET FIT - running 5.4km in total.

The summer evenings are bringing us bigger numbers lately and on this occasion 4 brand new to GoodGym runners. Welcome Catherine, Leanne, Jade & Lorna - plus Kerri joined us from Newham. We started our night off gathered in the Better gym to chat over the night’s task and session ahead. Bex and Catriona shared their experience of doing one of their first mission at the weekend.

Then we headed off to toward Sun Road to meet Pauline at Maystar Estates. They’d asked us to come back for the next two weeks to help out in their community hall and garden. Our small Goodgym army was tasked with weeding estate flower beds, planting and watering some new plants in the raised garden beds, cleaning the community hall windows and helping out in two older residents gardens.

After our time was up, the sun had come out and we headed back to base via the river, stopping for a group photo(shoot) by Hammersmith Bridge.

Lovely stuff!

12 fabulous Hammersmith & Fulhamites ran 4km & gardened for Maystar Estates

Welcome to newbies this week - Ele, Georgia, Amber and Anders - lovely to have you along and join the GG crew!

In the news this week:

1. It's GG Monthly Drinks this Thursday - we've got a pub booked in this pub - link.
2. The GG Olympics has been announced for Saturday 30th June at Parliament Hill Track - represent H&F at an array of events.

After a quick intro and a dynamic warm up we headed into the night, bouncing off the main road and into the backstreets. We met Pauline from Maystar Estates - she explained that they now have to look after their gardens and deliver activities alone because of council cuts.

We were eager to get started, armed with tools we did the following:

• Cut back a bush - bagging up all the debris
• Weeding and cutting the grass back (by hand) in one garden
• Hanging up a new clock!
• Weeding, trimming back and cutting back a small tree in another garden.
• Pulling up and cutting back dead roots and ivy

With 25 minutes of hard work we'd made a huge impact; something many of the communities residents would not have been able to do alone. If you think about it we achieved nearly 6 hours of work between us in one Spring evening!

File Fun!

After doing squats, star jumps and squat jumps to warm up again we headed west to the river for our extended run home. Once on the towpath we played the Indian File game - with one person sprinting at all times - everyone did amazingly!

Upon arriving home we stretched out and chatted about the GG Olympics!

Sign up next week here, Polly will be back!

PB out.

Well thankfully you were spared me leading the run in a suit... though it seems the idea might be welcomed... we'll see what we can do next time I cover in H+F (if you'll have me!)

An awesome ten of you joined me in Hammersmith and Fulham to help Pauline at the Maystar Estate. We were joined by Miteki who was attending GoodGym for the first time.

We did a quick intro talking about the three ways that you can do good and get fit with GoodGym: Missions, Coach Runs and as we were doing... Group Runs! With that done, a quick warm up despatched and, with only a slight vehicular interruption, we were ready to go. I had leapt on Jason's offer to back-mark the session and quickly persuaded him that his knowledge of the area would make him a much much better leader for the journey to Maystar Estate. I took up the back-marker post (to ensure that is noone is left behind) and we were off!

Front- or back-marker!

Arriving at Maystar we met with Pauline who outlined the tasks for us:

• Turning the soil in four planters and one flower bed
• Helping to move some damaged fence posts

We were slightly hampered by a lack of tools but everyone got down to it and we had the planters and the beds looking great in no time. Special mention to Tom and Miteki who, at my suggestion, tried to turn the planting tool into a soil turning tool - let's just say tools tend to be made to do what they're designed for...

Meanwhile, after Jason had assessed the damaged fence posts Anders and Helen joined Jason and this little crack team got to work dismantling and carrying the posts to the bins and ensuring that was couldn't be moved was left in a safe state - great work!

River run

With plenty of time to spare we decided to extended our run back to base by going via the Thames Path, Jason again led the way and we had a well paced run back. With that done it left just enough time for us to stretch off, here some news about the Hammersmith + Fulham Social on the 17th April and the GoodGym Monthly social next week on the 5th. Polly even checked in all the way from Costa Rica and then we were done.

Thanks for having me, hope to see some of you next week at the social and don't forget you've got Paul covering next week with another trip to Maystar.

Cheers, Pritesh