This evening's group run took us back to the Maidenhead Community Allotment, the task location for our first ever GoodGym group run, and the setting for many happy sessions watering, weeding and digging since.

We met at the Windsor Castle pub, resisted the urge to go in and instead welcomed everyone and warmed up in the car park. It was great to meet Anita, who officially joined us for the first time, having met Sheila 'At the Cutting Hedge'. We also admired Sheila's brand new black t-shirt, signifying her completing 50 good deeds with GoodGym. She only reached the magic 5-0 a week ago, but somehow she's clocked up another 5 good deeds since then....incredible stuff!

To reach the Allotment, Carina, Jess, Steve, Jen, Jack and I ran a 3km route, with a few squats thrown in along the way for good measure. Thanks to Jess for back-marking and to Sheila for walk-leading with Anita. Hannah met us at the Allotment having stayed home a bit longer to try and get small children to sleep - arguably a bigger challenge than anything the rest of us were doing!

At the allotment, we read through task owners Sue and Gary's instructions, which included weeding, digging in manure and covering two beds with weed matting, as well as a spot of litter picking and grass trimming.

As always, it was a case of manure hands make light work. Everyone mucked in, we manure-vered our way through the list and weed did it! I know my puns really stink, but they are nothing compared to the whiff of that manure. It was scent-sational! It wasn't long before it was time to clear up, celebrate with a one minute plank and say smell you later.

Sheila and Anita walked back, Hannah returned to parenting duties, and Steve, Jen, Carina, Jack, Jess and I headed for the hills, or rather 'the only hill in Maidenhead' as Strava would erroneously have you believe. We challenged ourselves to run up and down this steep stretch of Boyn Hill/Punt Hill Park as many times as possible in 5 minutes. Between us we managed 19 reps before we were dung for - not bad! I'm trying to think of a hill areas pun for this part of the report, but can't come up with anything funny...

A few of us then jogged back to the pub for stretches, whilst others peeled off home.

Well done everyone on another great evening of GoodGyming and extra kudos to Steve for this evening's title pun.

Juli, Nick, Carina, Jordan and newcomer Monika - welcome to our group - met Rachel and Deb from Wild Maidenhead to give a bit of TLC to the wildflower bed in Kidwells Park which was established last year. Now that the flowering season is over, our task was to tidy the bed ahead of winter, cutting down the dead stems and raking over the soil to encourage the wildflower seeds to germinate. A small area was left uncut to provide a safe haven for wildlife and some seed heads for food. We quickly filled two giant bags with the dead stems, and had to employ Jordan to compress the contents so we could finish our task.

Another great session at Ockwells! When push comes to shovel, its hard to imagine anywhere I'd rather be on a Wednesday evening. Amy, Anna, Carina, Diya, Gillian, Juli, Kanika, Rosie and Sheila had a great workout and lots to celebrate too as Diya completed her 50th good deed! Find out more about Diya's superstar achievements in the cake part of the report.

A very warm welcome to Rosie, who joined us for the first time this evening. It is fantastic to see that you've already signed up for your next good deed! And congratulations to Gillian on your first GoodGym good deed and second GoodGym session this week. Rosie and Gillian (and any other newbies reading this!) if you would like to join the GoodGym W&M WhatsApp group please send your number to amylovell@goodgym.org. It is a great way to connect with other GoodGymers and stay up to date.

Our job for this evening was spreading woodchip to improve the designated path in Little Thrift Wood. This is a task we've been chipping away at for a few months now and it is super satisfying to see how the great woodchip mountain we faced at the start has now been reduced to a small hill. As ever it was also lovely to see our task owner Jason, the Countryside Manager for RBWM, who laid all the tools out beautifully for us.

This evening was a group run rather than a community mission, so that meant fitness was on the menu as well as chips. And what a workout! We started off with a warm-up lap of the first Ockwells field and some dynamic stretches, before running or walking the 1km-ish route to the task location. Then we took things up a level, challenging quads and upper body as we shoveled woodchip into wheelbarrows and buckets, and then pushing it a bit further in the great wheelbarrow relay to the other end of the path. We each covered an estimated 2km racing up and down the path.

Even though we were on barrowed time with the darkness drawing in, we still made great progress and had a barrow of laughs! To explore Ockwells a bit further we took a slightly different route back to our start location, where we stretched and ate cake (huge thank you to Kanika!) to celebrate Diya's big 5 0 GoodGym milestone. Diya want to know just how awesome Diya is? Read on!

Diya joined GoodGym back in 2016 in Newham, before lots of us Windsor & Maidenhead members had even heard of GoodGym. In her GoodGym career she has done good deeds in at least 4 different GoodGym areas and she made a huge difference to the life of an isolated older person as a coach runner in Newham (and continues to do so in W&M outside GoodGym through the RVS befriending programme). Diya has been a regular at the Maidenhead vaccination clinic, giving up a huge chunk of every weekend in the battle against Covid. She has also contributed to our group by capturing 100s of brilliant photos and she is proof that you don't have to love running to love GoodGym. Diya has made fantastic progress towards her goal to cycle the London to Brighton event and she even promises to make her debut at Maidenhead parkrun soon. Above all, thank you Diya for always smiling and being such a supportive member of our community.

Chip chip hooray for Diya, and for everyone who worked hard this evening.