19 GoodGym Superstars donated 300 cereal bars then ran 8k to give them to Westminsters homeless community.

Welcoming along a bumper group for this great Group Run! Welcoming of first timers to Both GoodGym and Westminster to the running party!!

First the session couldn’t happen without your amazing generosity to bring along your cereal bar donations!! A special mention to Oliva and Rhys who brought along over 100 bars, very much appreciated!!

Trying to build on our knowledge base we kept the same route as last month with plenty of options to nip off to find those in need of a little assistance. Great to see us seeking out many people who would otherwise be missed from the help that is on offer to Westminsters homeless community.

We were in constant motion covering a lot of group both running and walking over 90 action packed minutes. From a few Strava readings at the end the total distance covered was over 10k!!

It was not always easy to find people but with our super stamina we just kept moving until we did! Hopefully by the time everyone gets home over 300 bars will have found there way to a homeless person.

Running through Oxford Street, Piccadilly, Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square, Charring Cross, Westminster, Victoria and Green Park we covered a huge area superbly!!

Sorry for the lack of pictures but who knew counting to 19 would be so difficult!!

A heads up for next month that we will be giving away Hot Cross buns to Westminsters Homeless!! If you are available and would like to donate some buns please come along on March 21st!!

Thanks for being so great tonight, have a great week!

Smooth Running

Joel

p.s Thanks Annabella for the extra pictures!!

Tonight we visited Oasis Farm Waterloo, an urban farm and community resource in Waterloo, a hidden gem just moments from the Southbank, and the closest farm to Parliament. We also managed to run 4km and fit in a quick but tough circuits session.

Joining us for their first ever GoodGym group run, we had the amazing Rajmund, Anna, Georgia, Octavia and Theo (wow so many!) – give them a cheer for coming out in the cold and using their run to do some good. As well as welcoming these fab runners we also heard about the Long Run taking place in South London this weekend for anyone that’s about, and a little reminder of the Thursday running fitness session happening in Vauxhall this week.

As well as braving the cold, here at GoodGym King’s we also had to brave the busy Waterloo Bridge Commute as we couldn’t head out over Blackfriars Bridge as usual due to the location of the task. We practiced our dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge techniques and headed out. With everyone safely over the bridge, we made quick work of the rest of the journey down to the farm and met Roddy outside.

The task: The super organised Roddy split us up into groups when we arrived and showed us each to a planter – we needed to remove all the soil, take out all the bricks, move the planter, and then re-fill it with the bricks and soil – we had a tough 40 minutes ahead of us with a good arm workout! Between us we managed to fully move a couple of planters and make a great start on 2 or 3 more which some volunteers are going to finish off in the morning. I think the sounds of the animals settling down for sleep helped us work hard (especially the pigs from the Pig Palace!).

Roddy kindly let us use the farm's new barn for our fitness session as it started to rain. We went through questions like "are you scared of spiders?", "have you eaten any pancakes already today?" and "do you cycle to work?" - if you answered yes to the question you had a 40 second strength exercise to do, if you answered no then it was a 40 second cardio exercise. After lots of squats, high knees and mountain climbers (great suggestion Sophie!), we were ready to head back to King's. We waved goodbye to Roddy with promises of coming back soon to help with more tasks (hopefully in slightly warmer weather)! We ran back a slightly longer route, with slightly better views, over Westminster Bridge and did some stretches back at the base.

Credit to Gosia for the pun!

Next week is student volunteering week, so join us for our special run to help Rhythm of Life, a superb homeless charity in Covent Garden.