18 dodging GoodGymers ran the busiest 4k ever to Rhythams of Life Homeless Charity and sorted 2 tones of donations.

We welcomed many new faces this evening some GoodGym first timers and others Uber GoodGym travellers!

No easy way to start the run as we had the busiest run in GoodGym history between Oxford Street and Leicester Square. 1.5k of being super alert and dancing around a million people doing their Spring early evening thing!

A few back streets and quieter ally ways while managing to keep a steady rhythm we reached The colossal building that is Rhythams of Life Homeless Charity. We all the staff and charity volunteers out delivering food donations to the homeless of Westminster we had the building to sort out.

We split into groups sorting out huge bags of clothing donations into labelled and ordered piles in the main room up stairs which looks almost unrecognisable from when we started the task last week.

A second group began sorting the catering, electricals and a anything else in the back room while the basement crew got stuck into some serious graft down stairs ordering, sorting the Winter clothing while sorting books, electronics, manakin legs with pained toenails.

With the main room sorting at a great pace we brought anything that was not going to be used down to the basement to make the room as easy to use as possible.

After 50 minutes of serious sorting action we have conquered the double task!! As a reward when we return in May we will sorting out food packages and running them around the borough to help feed the local homeless community.

Bouncing out the door, we altered our route and took in a few sights running through The edge of Leicester Square, the heart of Trafalgar Square, past St James's Palace then powering up the hill to the Ritz hotel. After checking out a few shops on Old Bond Street we had genital run back to base where we stretched out and congratulated ourselves on a top evening of GoodGym action!!

Be great to have you along next week when we visit One Big Family Homeless Charity in Victoria.

A sad goodbye to Annie who is off on her travels and leaving the big smoke. Thank you so much for your energy and enthusiasm at GoodGym!

Smooth Running

Joel

18 GoodGymers ran 3k to Rhythams of Life Homeless Charity to sort, order, lift and shift 3 tonnes of donations

Starting with a flurry of DBS checks to get stuck into Missions and Coach runs we set off on our bob and weave run from Oxford Street to Rhythams of Life in Leicester Square.

1.5k of forward running with a couple of cheeky back street weaves and a whole lot of lateral dodging we arrived at the amazing building that houses Rhythams of Life to meet Farris.

After a couple of minutes of heart stopping wait for me we went in to tackle the monster pile of donations that we needed to sort, order, lift and shift.

The task was a monster and almost hard to see how to start but we did and smashed a GoodGym size dent in it!! Sorting everything from toiletries to Suits we had our work cut out and we labelled our way to success using every second of the 50 minutes we spent there!!

The final flurry to move all the ordered and labelled clothing down into the basement so we can dominate the second half of the Clothing Mountain next week!!

A big thank you from Farris, a dose of hand sanitizer and a team picture and we were off on the 1.5k dodgems run back to base!

Arriving back dead on 8pm a quick static stretch out and we were done!!

Be great to see you al again next week!! So please sign up and come along to tackle the clothing mountain!!

Smooth Running

Joel

18 LOVEly GoodGym runners gave up their St Valentine's evenings to run c8km for a date with a paintbrush at the Barnet Furniture Centre but were stood up so decided to fly-er on the wings of love instead.

Pennie was still nursing an injury so it was up to another biscuiteer from Islington to look after the evening. I'm one of many people who admit they #runtoeat !

First dates, long-term relationships and blasts from the past

First to arrive was Del who'd I'd not seen in a while and then newbie Jacqui. Then we had LOTS more first-timers: Shawn, Catherine, Hayley AND Lilian; regular Barnetians and a few more familiar faces (Danica, Chris and Ollie) who I'd previously only seen in Islington and Haringey. Great to spread the love.

News

We welcomed the many newcomers, talked about the many ways of doing good, shared the news of our sibling's award in Wandsworth and talked about races.

We almost had a record turnout: some sources say the record is 19 and alternative news sources said 21. I haven't fact-checked this but I was tempted to still say it was a record turnout for my inaugural Tuesday run with GG Barnet.

Leg wax on, leg wax off

It was much milder than Monday but it was still important to warm up the heart and activate the leg muscles in preparation for a long run.

We marched, we lunged, we warmed up our calves and opened up our hip flexors with leggy versions of Mr Miyagi's wax on, wax off technique (or more conventionally we visualised mounting and dismounting a bicycle).

Squat's love got to do with it? Another great way to warm up the heart and soul is to do squats. Lots of them!

Fast or slow

GG Barnet stalwart, Damian, led a faster group and supported by Hazel at the rear. Heather made sure the philosophers and I made our way safely to the furniture centre with Del acting as backmarker.

It was a long run and Heather took Jacqui at the front and wanted more, more, more (that's how she liked it). They were not waiting around and threw in some push ups, loopbacks and sneaky ninja-like detours then seamlessly rejoining the group.

Tainted love

It was supposed to be painted love but alas our host was also injured so:

• we couldn't do our painting :(
• OR have the rest for our legs (sorry newcomers!!!) :(

Divide and conquer

However, we were left with a lovely note and a mahoosive stack of flyers so that we could tell the local Barnetians that they can find a new home for old furniture rather than throw it away.

We divided and conquered the many residential streets on the way back to the cinema and even left a few flyers on car windscreens. Wonderful work!

After around 15 minutes of high-flyering action we regrouped by the local nature trail and ran back as one pack-ish before meeting back at the base for a stretch of our muscles and a stretch of our stomachs with delicious chocolate wafers courtesy of speedster, Heather.

Thanks for having me, Barnet, it was a real pleasure and a massive thank you to the wonderful TaskForce and Graham, Dorian, Briony, Sarah and Nicola. You can sign up for next week's run here which is sorting DVDs for a care home and very on trend with BAFTA and OSCAR season: enjoy!!

Much LOVE

Patrick

PS: Thanks to Hazel for the run report title; I was going to go for Painted Love but that didn't work out!

PPS: Danica achieved her double wings of love with 200 deeds. Awesome!