21 Westminster GoodGymers ran 7k to One Big Family to sort out all the clothing donations from the summer months.

So I was very scared the size of task and the amazing surge in numbers of energetic GoodGymers were not going to marry up but I was very pleased to be proved totally wrong!!

A touristy 3.5k Run South to Victoria lead us to a hidden gem of a charity One Big Family Victoria. With a tiny team of volunteers masterfully helping Westminster’s Homeless with 2 evening meals a week as well as vital clothing and sanitary products.

With the hot food donations this evening already plentiful we didn’t need to do our sandwich production line and instead sorted through 3 sheds full of clothing donations!!

Kids, Women’s and Men’s clothing being speedily and expertly sorted into boxes ready for distribution to local homeless people in the coming weeks. Obviously with night time temperatures dropping this becomes even more critical!!

35 minutes of efficient excellence as we had completed the task perfectly. Easy to access, tidy and ordered boxes complete we zipped back to base with a Spring in our step grabbing a picture with a GG York runner enroute!

Thank you so much for coming along and really hope to see you all again next week when we start our river take over near Little Venice where we will be adopting a section of river to up keep!

Finally a huge thank you and good luck to Westminster GoodGym regular Kate who has been a great GoodGym Westminster Runner!! Probably coming to the most sessions over the last year and us now moving out of London to continue her adventures!!

Have a great week

Smooth Running

Joel

17 amazing GoodGymers ran 4k to help Rhythms of Life homeless charity.

A busy and bright Central London evening met is this week. We were on the charge to Rhythms of Life this week to continue the help with their recent move to their new home on Oxford Street.

Running a seemingly counter productive route to get us a little distance in the legs as a warm up for the task ahead. Looping up and around Harley street to avoid the irrepressible Oxford Street foot traffic. We made steady progress to the Rhythms of Life HQ.

Meeting Ali this week we had a mini introduction before breaking off into small groups to battle the tasks ahead!

Starting off by lifting and manoeuvring a fridge, a freezer and a shelving unit up and down multiple flights of stairs to find a new home in the rooms that were getting renovated.

Then laying the carpet tiles on the room we stripped bare last week we new black tiles made a huge turn around in 2 visits.

With all that complete we got stuck into the main task of the evening, painting!! Arming ourselves with as may painting instruments as possible we got painting!! Working with the standard colour combination of Lilac and grey we rolled our way to success expertly painting the room to bring some colour and flair to the refurbished room. A last minute expert cut in of the high and low areas finished off a great and almost artistic task.

A slightly shorter running route back to base plus a stretch out and we were away with an excellent Group run complete.

Next week we will be helping Open Age charity encourage more older people in Westminster to be active and social. See you there!

Smooth Running

Joel

25 energetic GoodGymers ran up to 6.5k to help the Oasis Community Garden.

A great turn out in Westminster this week!! Great to have you all along for such a fun session!

Starting off with an adventurous run to the Task with seemingly many variations of routes taken and much discussion on how everyone got there.

With so many helping hands we made short work of the last of our Gardening tasks at the Oasis Garden for the summer! Watering and dead heading with a bit of sweeping thrown in for good measure!

With a bit of time left we packed away the watering cans and headed off to Bedford Square for some all action circuits!! Smashing out tag team return running laps, core conditioning and some big time leg strength exercises!

A short run back a stretch out and we were away!!

Hope to see you all next week!!

Smooth Running

Joel

14 Westminster GoodGymers navigated their way 7k to the the London waterways to pick, clip and bag with the Canals and River Trust!

Withba longer run than normal we headed out on our adventure to wiggle our way up to North North Westminster (Camden) trying to find to quietest route possible along the way. 3.5k of strong running in the very warm London Town took us up to St Pancreas Lock to meet Canal and River Trust superstar Jack!!

Making the best possible impression on any Goodgym group Jack had Water and melon ready for us to top us up for the task ahead!

Splitting into 2 units we went left and right armed with litter pickers long and short, bags with fancy easy access attachment, sheares and loppers!

Making a kilometre each way of canal path magnificently rubbish free and all the vegetation cut back to allow the full width of the very busy path to be used!

35 minutes of action 10 bags filled, few bits fished out of the river and a perfect fade cut into the path side greenery!!

A speedy return leg back to base rounded off a fun, fitness filled evening!!

Am off on my holidays for the next 2 weeks, superstar trainer Damien will be looking after you next week as you help Open Age get into hard to access communities in Westminster to get the over 60’s more active in social groups to combat isolation in Westminster.

See you on the 15th

Smooth Running

Joel

14 GoodGymers ran 6k to St Andrews Youth Club for a little spring clean and dominated an exercise filled session!!

Amazing to have you along for a great fitness filled evening in the heart of London Town!!

With a smaller than normal task this evening it gave us a chance to push the fitness a fair bit more than our usual Wednesday Session.

We set off guided by Rhys down to Green Park where we logged times for the GoodGym Olympics 1k Time trial by zipping around a speedy 1k Loop!! Although a few fancied making it into a 1m Time trial by missing the last turn a great effort was on show and done speedy 1k times laid down!!

If you recorded the time trial on Strava tag it in the description with #GGOlympics2018 check out the categories and Strava settings info here.

With speed training ticked off we took a gentle run over to St Andrews youth Club in St James’s where we hit a 20 minute body weight circuit in a dominating, upper body, lower body and core conditioning get a strong sweat on!!

The task was almost a cool down with the A/C on full blast in the gym we spayed, wiped and tidied in 15 cleansing minutes before we had a great of hearing the ** Oldest Youth Club in the World’s** history from John the General Manager as well as the current work and activities done to help everyone from 5-92 in Westminster.

We said our goodbyes for the summer and ran the 2k back to base with a very energetic session complete.

Hope to see you again next week!!

If anyone fancies coming along for the GoodGym Olympics on Saturday afternoon here is all the information.

Smooth Running

Joel

12 amazing Westminster GoodGymers ran 4K to help the Oasis Community Garden.

Starting with a huge welcome in particular to this evenings GoodGym first timers!! Great to have you along for a top Wednesday evening’s fun on the run!

A huge thank you to Frances for leading the charge to the Oasis Community Garden. Expert navigation and road crossing on point! Plus some exotic stretches at the end!

With 2.5k in the bag by weaving our around the Central London Foot traffic.

We arrived at the garden ready for action, grabbed the watering cans, brooms, brushes and buckets and got stuck in.

A triple layer of watering was required with some very thirsty herbs, plants, fruit and vegetables after a super dry, hot spell along with them doing a lot of growing!

Filling up the buckets and watering can by the not so speedy tap and the cold shower we filled carried and poured 100 gallons of water over the garden! The clean up crew weeded, brushed, swept and collected everything in sight to get the garden looking at peak beautifulness, ready to do some hardcore growing over their few weeks!

With everything garden side complete we had time for our evenings exercise to get turned up a bit with a 15 minute full body circuit around Bedford Square! High Five and return races dominated before a Powerful 4 minute non stop circuit racking up as many reps as humanly possible in 240 seconds!! We Pressed up, squatted, lunged, dipped to body conditioning glory! With a super session complete we cooled down with a short very busy run back to base!!

Thanks for coming along and hope you all enjoyed the session! Hope to see you all next week when we visit the Worlds Oldest Youth Club!

Smooth Running

Joel