We were welcomed back to the beautiful Caledonian Park this week, after an unexpected change of plans. A fantastic job was done last week by 10 bank holiday Goodgymmers, but we smashed it with 23 running volunteers on hand last night!

Back to the Emirates again, we made a quick departure to Cally Park, stopping at the wonderfully named Lumpy Hill adventure playground to pick up wheel barrows on route to the Caledonian Park Clock Tower (You can climb up this for free! Plan a trip up the tower here).

Our big group was separated to perform specific tasks, rotating throughout the evening. We had folks shoveling crushed concrete and others wheeling and dumping the concrete on to a tree lined pathway, with the intention of making this green section wheel chair accessible. The rest of our crew set about cutting, sawing, snipping and removing roots and undergrowth from the surrounding area. It was a huge undertaking for the Friends of Calendonian Park, but Goodgym definitely made a huge dent in their workload.

Autumn is drawing in (September already, who'd have thought it?), and we are starting to see the last of our tasks in natural light. A wonderful time of year for running, but maybe time to invest in a head torch for upcoming tasks.

There is some fun stuff happening this week!

Firstly, Pritesh (GG Brent Trainer) was be hosting his final event as GG social secretary this Thursday. Come and join Goodgymmers from all boroughs for a meet-up and a Thank You for his hard work over the years! Sign up here.

Also, Peckham Rye parkrun will be taken over by Goodgymmers this Saturday at 9am. We will be out pacing, volunteering, cheering and supporting on mass- always a blast! Come on down, and sign up here.

Next week, we will be running over to Sunnyside Community Centre for some chopping, snapping and snipping action in their lovely community gardens. Sign up here, and see you all next week!

Lights! Camera! Action!

Last night in Hounslow we were the (slightly sweaty) stars of the silver screen as the council had come along to make a little film about being active in the borough.

But before we could learn our lines and hit make up, we had our usual hellos and well dones. Hat tip to all that did park runs this week - way to go Matthew and David - and to Andy who is topping both the distance and good deed leagues. Have a look at the heroes boards to see where you are. But now Natasha has stopped her Strava flat lining who knows what will happen in the rankings!

After a quick warm up and some Chariots of Fire style shots of the group running, wind in our hair, past our starting point at the Town Hall, we set off on the 1.5 mile run to Waterman's Arts Centre. Dave took us on a lovely route under Kew Bridge and along the tow path. We must have looked quite the team with every single one of us in our red GG tshirts. Lovely stuff! Before long we made it to the centre - Waterman's is an amazing independent charity where all the money made is ploughed back into the organisation to allow the whole community access to arts, bringing them together through cultural participation.

We cracked straight on with our task, which was to weed the outside pathways which had become overgrown. We were given gloves and a range of tools including one which we could not work out - please see picture and if anybody can shed any light on it then let us know! There were also snails, lots of snails, which Remy and Natasha rescued.

Within half an hour the pathway was looking lovely and clear of weeds, so we set off back to the park to do a quick round of upper body, legs and core workouts. It was a speedy run back - well done team. We started with the arms - three rounds of tricep dips, wide arm press ups, and diamond press ups before moving on to legs, which involved doing lunges, mountain climbers (argh) and then a squat hold. We had a little break as a lovely person came over and asked what we were doing - we must have been a great advert for GoodGym! Then we finished off with a third round of core exercises featuring, of course, planks.

Next week we are off to help out Roger and the homeless shelter he runs at Ealing Road Baptist Church, which you can sign up to here which is going to be followed by a super special first ever Hounslow GG SOCIAL! I know. There are more details on the Hounslow GG facebook page or email me. Can't wait to see you there!