10 Westminster GoodGymers ran 7k, climbed hundreds of stairs to deliver 400 leaflets for DAWS (drug and alcohol support charity).

Heading out the gate strong but steady as we made our way South to Pimlico weaving in and out of some quite back streets. We arrived at our destination for the evening ChurchHill Garden Estate.

A massive place so we split up Into 2 groups and got climbing!! Tackling some epic 9 story high blocks at top speed up the stairs really getting the legs working! Working in unison as a team covering floors in sequence for optimum efficiency!

35 minutes of continuous action later and we had climbed Everest as well as delivering over 400 leaflets to promote the work of DAWS (Drug and Alcohol service) who help those that need to access life changing help and support in Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham.

We headed back up to Oxford Street working out way through Green Park and a sneaky short cut next to Sexy Fish.

Thanks for such great work tonight and for looking after me when I was feeling ill.

See you all next week when we will be helping St Andrews Youth Club in St James'.

Have a great week!

Smooth Running

Joel

12 GoodGymers ran 7k to prepare the food for One Big Family homeless charities weekly food run.

A mild but dark evening awaited us this week as we met in the New Balance store and plotted our way to victory.

Heading off through the Central London buzz ducking and diving, bobbing and weaving out way South. Great to have everyone running well as we gathered pace going towards the river. 3.5k of strong Running brought us the the Ebury estate to meet Mike where we grabbed the food ingredients for the evening from the hut and delved deep into the basement of the Youth Club.

Splitting into two groups we had the cling filmers wrapping and stacking 300 pastries in the kitchen. While the sandwich production line was in full flow spreading, filling and bagging close to 100 sandwiches of 3 different varieties in 30 efficient minutes.

Making the ingredients stretch to the absolute max so that as many mouths could be fed as possible.

Was really thought provoking to think that all that food was produced for £10 plus the donations of the pastries and our volunteering. The combined efforts will have a huge impact for Westminsters homeless community tonight!!

A faster run back with some speedy running through Victoria and a huge effort by all up the Green Park Drag finished off a super satisfying evening!!

Thank you all for coming along, see you next week for some more epic GG action!!

Smooth Running

Joel

12 Westminster GoodGymers ran 7k and moved 9k and delivered 375 leaflets to promote a Bone health course for Open Age charity.

We had a special guest this evening as new GoodGym Kings College London trainer Alyx joined us to take part of the session.

After a tip top introduction from Alix we headed out towards Marylebone fully loaded with flyers! Once we reached the area where the course will take place we split into two groups. Taking a side of the road each we used the leap frogged delivery method and powered our way North. A ** Maverick** squad delivered with care free abandon down the right hand side of each Street often nipping off just to scare me! While the left lane deliverers stuck to the script and gave me an easier time spotting them!

Picking up the running pace as we past Marylebone station and hit over drive on the roads west of Regents Park finishing off almost all the leaflets in 35 skilful minutes!

Given our location it seemed like a plan to go for a 3k loop around the Outer Circle of Regents Park! Although it did feel like an awful lot of other people had had the same idea and Frieze Art fair was also just closing we managed to zip around in no time ramping up the pace towards the end!

A little jaunt down Harley Street brought as back to base perfectly on time where Alyx Stretched is out before we headed off into the night with a top evenings GoodGym action under our belts!

Thanks for coming and hope to see you all next week for our visit to One Big Family homeless charity to make their food for the food run to Westminsters homeless community.

Smooth Running

Joel

Eighteen wonderful Westminster GoodGymmers ran 7km tonight to help One Big Family Victoria, a brilliant charity for homeless people here in Westminster.

We gathered in our usual spot at New Balance Oxford Street with an incredible 6 (SIX) first time runners. Michelle, Aoife, Sam, James, Olivia and Rhys. Incredible. Sam even brought her documents ready for checking.

It was also Gabrielle's 50th good deed!! Amazing. A black t-shirt will be on it's way to you. Make sure you give her a cheer!

After a quick brief for our newbies, we had a short warm up and number circle before setting off.

It's a longer run than usual down to Victoria, so we tried to keep a good pace. A tricky thing to do down New Bond Street, Piccadilly, and Green Park, but our team did brilliantly and we arrived at our destination exactly on time.

One Big Family Victoria are using a basement youth club to do their work, so we all filed in and Mike was there to give us our instructions. The majority of our team, 11, helped in the kitchen. Here they formed a production line to spread margarine (or jam for a vegetarian option), grate cheese, put sandwiches together with ham, then bag them separately for the people the charity will be helping. We also had runners on breakfast duty, bagging pastries. Once all that was done, the runners speedily turned to slicing some delicious looking and enormous cake before bagging those up too.

The rest of the team helped in the main room. This involved filling the large water heaters ready for teas and coffees, and sorting through a variety of donated clothes to separate the most useful items and also divide into genders. Bizarre t-shirt slogans aside (and not all suitable for sharing), the work passed quickly and soon there were large neatly folded piles of clothes ready to be handed out.

25 minutes passed rapidly before we tidied up and filed out. Our task leaders were delighted with everyone's efforts, which save the volunteers loads of time.

From there, I led the group back to base, with Nina kindly back marking. On the way we made a brief stop for some extra running in Green Park. Using the lamp posts as markers, the runners could either do some interval running, or versions of progressive running over a 300 meter (ish!) stretch. Everyone upped their pace brilliantly and we made sure we caught our breath at the top for a moment or two. From there it was a quick run back to base. After a stretch and a round of applause we were done.

Well done everyone and I hope to see you all again soon.

14 GoodGymers ran 7k around Central London to do as much good as we could.

After our task had cancelled w had to make the most of the warm evening so embarked on something a little different!!

After welcoming to the fold our amazing GoodGym first timers we went through the Good List!!.

On the list we were challenged to do as many of the following as we could in 90 action packed Westminster minutes!!

~1 piece of rubbish per k run ~Speak to 2 homeless people ~Help 1 out of towner with local knowledge. ~Make someone smile ~High five/ fist bump 10 people ~100 lunges ~50 press ups ~50 squats ~5 minutes of planks

We set off with purpose racking up high fives straight out the store on our sightseeing tour around town. After a nice warm up we got to Green Park where we mobilised then lower body and core stabilised with a eclectic range of lunges, planks and skips not to mention a few press ups!

With our body turned we went to help out some out of towners outside Buckingham Palace by Creating a GG photo both, then taking pictures for everyone who wanted, plus some helpful London walking directions!! Creating a lot of smiling happy faces!!

Rounding into St James Park we got little picking clearing up the streets nicely. After a little debate about the Churchill War rooms we replaced the now silent Big Ben Bells with some singing and a big Bong!!

Heading into the River Thames we litter picked, created a finishing line ribbon that turned into a limbo pole, and powered through to Embankment where we hammered out a the second half of the physical challenge, planking, squatting, and press upping the reps away!

A burst along the Strand, Trafalgar Square and dropping some serious pace is up St James's brought us back to base having completed our task to spread the GoodGym love and get fit in the process!!

After a lover key drama 7 of us headed out to Chipotle for a very well deserved refuel and said a sad Goodbye to Ruth and Felicity as they head off on there next adventures!! Thank you both for your energy and enthusiasm every Wednesday!!

I am away next week, Damien will be leading the charge to One Big Family homeless charity!

See you in a couple

Smooth Running

Joel