The light evenings are really bringing out the masses as last night in Ealing we had 19 GoodGymers out to run and do good! In the mix we had 4 fantastic newbies, big welcome to Jesse on his first GoodGym run and to Heidi, Jack and Sam on their first Ealing group run after joining in on the Earth Hour action last week!

After an introduction and chat about favourite city breaks we headed to Haven Green for a ‘round in circles’ warm up before we headed in our short run up the hill to St Peter’s Church.

A regular in our task calendar, churches like St Peters are so reliant on volunteers and community spirit, we’re extremely happy to give them a hand when it comes to getting this beautiful space ready before their big services. Our job this evening was a mix of cleaning and spreading the word about the parish party in the local area so upon arrival we split into teams. The hardiest of our members last night left the comfort of the lovely warm church and headed out to hit the streets delivering flyers to nearby residents to invite them to the upcoming spring service and party, while the rest of us stayed inside to get place sparkling clean!

It was lovely to have Sophie with us last night who actually got married in the church last year, she was excited to return and give back to the place that has provided her with so many happy memories!

No pew unturned!

Between the group that stayed to clean we left no surface undusted and no floor unswept! With such a big group we were able to really give all areas a good once over ready to receive the masses at the Easter services!

Mopping up the leftovers!

With the flyering groups arriving back it was time to stop dusting and polish of the biscuits (St Peter’s always leave us biscuits out but I promise it’s not the only reason we love helping them!) before heading out for our fitness session for the evening.

Using the last bit of light in the sky we headed to Montpellier Park for some team sprint intervals followed by Sally squats. It was a classic session of all smiles at first, grimaces in the middle and relief and joy to finish!

Great work team, next Tuesday we’ll do it all again! Same place and time with a different task, sign up on the right hand side of the screen! >>>

On a Special GGxWWF Run 27 Goodgymers ran 5km to help Spitalfields City Farm

Thank you all for coming and I hope you had fun! Welcome to newbies - Sam, Heidi, Grace, Luke, Jack, Jie, Non, Holly and Karolina - great to have you along.

So on a rather warm spring evening GoodGym was partnering with WWF in celebration of Earth Hour. This is a global campaign overseen by the WWF to raise awareness of environmental issues. It takes place this Saturday 30th March at 8:30pm-9:30pm (local time), join millions around the world to turn off the lights and speak up about why nature matters.

We collected together from 5pm and then did some introductions - first Rachel explained all about WWF and Earth Hour. Remember to tell your mum all about it when you call/see her on mother's day!

Then we got moving and grooving with a big dynamic warm up plus some conditioning + running in pairs - nice! Feeling ready to go we headed up and over Tower Bridge, and then onto Aldgate and Whitechapel. Everyone was really agile in the crowds and kept a good pace up between the traffic lights.

Environmental Impact!

Upon our arrival at Spitalfields City Farm we met Emily and her team, she explained the tasks which were as follows:

• Shovelling muck, to be wheelbarrowed away to make way for a toilet or bagged up and sold on.
• Organising an area of planks, wood and materials.
• Shifting tons of logs from one place to another
• Sweeping and tidying up

Over an hour of lifting, shifting, moving, grooving, shovelling and sweeping we made a massive difference to the Farm and helped them to prepare for the Cambridge & Oxford Goat and Sheep Race! There were 27 of us so that's 27 hours of volunteering done for our local community - absolutely huge!

After finishing our tasks we enjoyed seeing the various animals - including a 11 hour old lamb! We collected together and took a group photo before running down hill home - fun!

Thanks for a brilliant evening guys! Sign up for GoodGym Runs near you here.

PB out