The light evenings are really bringing out the masses as last night in Ealing we had 19 GoodGymers out to run and do good! In the mix we had 4 fantastic newbies, big welcome to Jesse on his first GoodGym run and to Heidi, Jack and Sam on their first Ealing group run after joining in on the Earth Hour action last week!

After an introduction and chat about favourite city breaks we headed to Haven Green for a ‘round in circles’ warm up before we headed in our short run up the hill to St Peter’s Church.

A regular in our task calendar, churches like St Peters are so reliant on volunteers and community spirit, we’re extremely happy to give them a hand when it comes to getting this beautiful space ready before their big services. Our job this evening was a mix of cleaning and spreading the word about the parish party in the local area so upon arrival we split into teams. The hardiest of our members last night left the comfort of the lovely warm church and headed out to hit the streets delivering flyers to nearby residents to invite them to the upcoming spring service and party, while the rest of us stayed inside to get place sparkling clean!

It was lovely to have Sophie with us last night who actually got married in the church last year, she was excited to return and give back to the place that has provided her with so many happy memories!

No pew unturned!

Between the group that stayed to clean we left no surface undusted and no floor unswept! With such a big group we were able to really give all areas a good once over ready to receive the masses at the Easter services!

Mopping up the leftovers!

With the flyering groups arriving back it was time to stop dusting and polish of the biscuits (St Peter’s always leave us biscuits out but I promise it’s not the only reason we love helping them!) before heading out for our fitness session for the evening.

Using the last bit of light in the sky we headed to Montpellier Park for some team sprint intervals followed by Sally squats. It was a classic session of all smiles at first, grimaces in the middle and relief and joy to finish!

Great work team, next Tuesday we’ll do it all again! Same place and time with a different task, sign up on the right hand side of the screen! >>>

18 GoodGymers ran, did squats and got in touch with their creative side last night in support of this years Hanwell Hootie Festival and The William Hobbayne Charity!

Not your average group run!

Last night we broke with tradition and did all our running before the task, meeting at our usual base at Bodyline Studios we kicked things off with a head count and welcomed new GoodGymer Roisin to the mix! We run did a few drills focusing on getting some nice high knees and glute activation (very good if you've been sitting all day!) before heading to Hanger Hill Park for some undulation training. Everyone had a go at taking on the loop in the park which gives you the ability to run a fast downhill, hard uphill and a recovery along the top before doing it all again! We also did a few balance and strength exercises before doing a recovery jog back to the start.

Now that's where we'd normally call it an evening but not tonight, now it was time to get crafty! It just so happens that the first Tuesday of the month is always our social in Ealing so tonight we combined our task with just that and headed to the pub to get creative! We had two big MDF guitars to decorate for this years Hanwell Hootie for their Wall Of Sound Installation where for charitable organisations, schools, and community groups will present their message about how they support the community and promote the great work they do! We are very excited and honoured to be asked to create one for GoodGym and we were also asked to help The William Hobbayne Charity create theirs as over the last year we have been so involved with them and lots of the projects they work on!

We are very lucky in our group to have lots of talented and skilled people who got the extra mile to help on some tasks and this week Lionel was a star! Our resident handyman and fountain of knowledge when it comes to DIY primed and prepped the guitars ready for us to release our artistic side onto! Another special mention goes to Daniela who had the most beautiful handwriting and made the William Hobbayne guitar look like a professional job!

Everyone had a part to play in the final products, all working together and using our different skill sets. There's just a few finishing touches I'll need to add on once the paint is dry but what a great result so far!

Next week we are back to the normal format, where we'll do some good sandwiched in between a run! Details to the right hand side >>>

16 runners, 2 store cupboards sorted, one patio swept, a laundry room painted and an action packed hills session. That's a lot of good in one evening, all in aid of helping our local Hestia Refuge!

We continued our trend of stealing runners from other areas as we welcomed Sam to his first GoodGym Ealing experience (west is best, don't you know!). Previously found doing good things in Hackney Sam has seen the light and is now residing in Ealing, much like fellow steal-ee Annie who we were delighted to see back again this week!

We also had one Megan join us for her first ever GoodGym run, give her a cheer! I can tell she'll fit right in with our group as shes's already admitted that she has set herself the challenge of running a half marathon a month this year, we like that sort of nutty running behaviour here in Ealing! She obviously did her research as she arrived in her paint covered leggings ready to get stuck straight in, nice one!

After a quick warm-up and discussion about favourite races, it was just a short run up to Hestia leaving us plenty of time to spread out across the site and get LOADS of jobs done for them. We had a couple of teams upstairs channeling their inner Marie Kondo and organising storage cupboards, a few people out the front of the building sweeping up and finally a team cleaning down and repainting the laundry room.

After we had all given half an hour of hard graft we packed up and Sandra, who runs the house, gave everyone a little bit more information about what Hestia does and how they help the people living there.

We were also delighted to see a photo from one of our previous visits proudly displayed on their noticeboard. The quote reads, 'GoodGym volunteers, always smiling', how lovely!

Be running up that road, be running up that hill...

Now we could have taken a nice easy jog back to the start and finished up early for the evening but no, no, no. It was time for hills! We did a mixed session of running fast downhill and fast uphill. For the downhills we focused on having an 'active recovery of rear leg' which is to make sure you're using that momentum from the downhill to push off on your backwards stride (no shuffling downhill!). Then for the uphills we focused on having relaxed shoulders and a positive backwards arm drive. A hills session that combines both fast uphill and downhill elements is a great strength and speed session for those wanting to push themselves a little bit in their running but it totally adaptable to all fitness levels, have I mentioned before that I love hill training?!

Everyone tackled the session really well and hopefully took away a little technique point to focus on when you come across a hill in your next run or race!

A nice recovery jog and stretch was all that was left before heading home for a well deserved dinner and sit down!

>>> Details of the next run are on the right of the screen, get clicking and signing up! >>>

12 runners joined me last night and were not put off by the big 10km run we had planned to help paint a classroom at North Primary School!

School budgets are often tight, especially with the amount of time they have to dedicate to extra things such as repainting a class room, so we were delighted to be able to come down and offer our GoodGym power!

With a big run ahead of us we started with a quick head count and shot straight off on our long and very easy to navigate run down the Uxbridge Road. As we ran along we noted running long past where some of our other tasks are and lots of us were running further west of Ealing then we ever had before. I do like to treat you on a Tuesday night! It was definitely a case of just keep going as we made our way 3 miles straight down with no turnings to contend with, luckily it was basically impossible to get lost and I'm happy to say we all arrived without incident!

Glossing over it

We were met by Imran at the school who showed us the room we were going to take on, it was currently an interesting shade of yellow and our job was to gloss over it with a fresh coat of white paint! We had lots of brushes and rollers to use between us and we wasted no time is getting stuck in!

• Shan adopted the hack of turning his GoodGym tee inside out to save any paint mishaps
• Annamaria left with a lovely speckled design on her running top, I've heard this is the height of fashion!
• Steph didn't escape the paint and left with a badge of honour on her GoodGym tee, that's what they are for!

I'll get my coat...

After getting one coat on it was clear that the yellow wasn't going to give up that easily and we'll be coming back in two weeks time to give it another coat! We definitely made a fantastic start and the room was looking brighter already when we left. We finished up with Lionel's life hacks, were we cleaned off the paint brushes and wrapped them in damp cloths and cling film to make sure they were good to use next time round! Just a quick group pose and it was a case of 'keep running up that road', all the way back to the start.

Well done everyone, a long run, a painted classroom and a whole lot of good for a Tuesday evening!

On the week of Valentines Day Ealing was filled with love as 11 of us ran to help do some tidying at The Log Cabin children’s charity!

One of our favourite places to visit on our group runs, The Log Cabin provides a setting where children and young people with additional needs or disabilities can socialise, grow and have fun alongside their mainstream.

A cheesy start to proceedings

After meeting at base we started with a few hip opening exercises whilst discussing our favourite type of cheese. Laurianne and I pondered on our pre vegan life filled with Morbier and Brie whilst others talked of their love of all things cheesy. A brief talk about the latest GoodGym happenings, which are all listed up on the website and we were off on our run down to Northfields.

Barking mad

This week’s task was to rearrange some potentially hazardous and climbable logs, sweep the playground and rake over the sand pit and bark. Everyone distributed themselves across the site and got stuck straight in with the mix of tasks!

The logs were quickly tackled to make more even and less appealing the clamber over whilst others were a sweeping success over the playground. The bark however left us potentially well... barking up the wrong tree! In the dark we struggled to differentiate between the leaves and the wood chips but we did our best to even it all out and remove a large amount of the fallen leaves in the process!

Chair force one!

We finished up with a quick strength circuit involving lots of single leg exercises (which on first glance looked quite appealing as it partly involves sitting on a chair), however this sit down is not relaxing! We did lots of single leg chair sits and leg extensions as well as a mix of lunges and jump squats. After working our way through the 4 stations I think we’d all identified a few balance issues to need to work on! Luckily all those exercises are really easy to do at home without any equipment, well maybe a chair...

After all that hard work, a jog back and a quick stretch I think we all deserved more than a sit down, time for a lie down!