It's our birthday

This week marked the 1st anniversary for Goodgym Hammersmith & Fulham. The group has perform over 50 good deeds in one year. And one runner has been to every single one! Our Taskforce member Jason

Weed sort out the problem

After a briefing and a warm-up, we headed off to Askham Court, a council owner sheltered housing property for the over 60's to help weed a big overgrown flower bed.

Upon our arrival we were met by some of the residents who help direct us to the task in hand. The gang grabbed the gloves, tools and bags and quickly got to work. They had to tackle a tricky combination of brambles and bindweed to free the lavender and roses.

After packing up and saying goodbye to the residents we headed off back to base.

Will take the long way home

After 2 km, Will took a fast group on a long route home and I lead a direct route back.

After a warm down, we head off to Draught House for a birthday dinner. Party hats were worn, balloons inflated and a tasty dinner eaten.

What a wonderful evening

It started out with a task briefing in the fitness centre. This night we’d be delivering flyers for Wand UK again. Wand is a fantastic charity that provides support for vulnerable and isolated women in the communities. Their services include mental health and wellbeing support, computer and English classes, advice with domestic abuse and parenting. They have also put on an extra project called ‘Holding Hands’ to help those affected by the Grenfell disaster - providing free emotional welling and holistic support, tai chi & yoga classes and massages.

Meet me in Norland Park

After a warm-up we set off together toward Norland Open Space. There, the group was split into two (gender balanced ;) teams. Then armed with maps and new highlighters, they set off to deliver the flyers in different areas - one lead by Polly and the other by Jason.

They navigated successfully and did a speedy job, meaning we could all meet back at the park at 8 for a core workout.

Round the tree Goosey

Our fitness session was a was like a game duck duck goose with a detour. The group did a series of core exercises whilst one member race out to a tree across the park and back. This made the timing different for each exercise. Star jumps, burpees, legs raises and more.

Once everyone had a run out to the tree we wrapped up and headed back home whilst discussing the best local park runs.

Congrats to Esther for making it along to her first Goodgym run. Give her a Cheer!

Next week is our 1st birthday! Join us for celebrations.

LOADS of excellent runners tackled THREE tasks across Lambeth and did loads of good whilst they were at it

First up, hooray to Dee and Jim who finally got their black t-shirts after weeks of waiting. Another big hooray to Steve for hitting his 100th run and getting his wings t-shirt (on time and everything). BIG CHEERS for the excellent running all of you!

We had a nice big crowd along for some running and supporting community projects and we had a lot to do. After a nice warm up led by John we headed off to three brilliant tasks:

Group 1 was led by Sarah. They went back to the Moorlands Estate allotment and finished digging and woodchipping the path. We've been there a few times over the summer and this visit saw the path finally complete. Great stuff!

Group 2 was led by Katie. This saw another return to the BAGS OF SOIL at Loughborough Farm. They need to move some massive planters full of soil literally about 2 feet. Soil is heavy. Very very heavy. So we need to dig it from one bag to another. Rose was part of the group who made headway a few weeks ago and this time she was back for revenge! She totally smashed it in a neat little team of three, entirely emptying one bag into another before heading off to do some weeding. Katie, Beth, Nelly, Jim and John took on the fearsome task of a massive, super compacted bag. After a seemingly endless dig and shovel, they had still not transferred all of the soil. HOW IS THERE SO MUCH SOIL? Still, a top effort and a job well done by all.

Group 3 was led by James and John. They headed 2.5km down to Kennington Park and the lovely Bee Urban project led by Barnaby. There were three teams, one on watering, one on weeding and one turning compost. Dee also got handy with a saw DANGER KLAXON John did some fitness with them and everyone got tired.

And with that we all returned home and went to the pub, where we valiantly stayed outside because it's August even though we were all freezing. That's the GoodGym spirit!

This week 16 GoodGym-ers ran 5.5km to help the Barnet Furniture Centre with a flyer drop around Muswell Hill.

We were treated to a guest appearance from GG Barnet oldie Mark this week – give him a cheer!

Lots of hills for us to run up – with even more stairs for us to climb. Damian lead us to a residential part of Muswell Hill while Heather was our trusty back-marker. We split into teams to cover as much ground as possible.

We regrouped under the bridge, where Freya lead us up the stairs to a secret pathway up above London with the most beautiful view. Danica donned her badger face for the photo op before we ran back down to continue the flyering.

My team ran up a giant hill to flyer houses all a million steps away. GG Barnet is building legs of steel. Prima said flyering with the GG crew made running up hills a whole lot better – which everyone agreed with. Running up is always better with company.

The two teams then came together to split up for a final flyer push, before putting the remaining stacks back into our bags and heading towards Cherry Tree Woods for some games and burpees.

After all the running, I figured I'd be nice and let everyone sit down. So we played Duck, duck, goose. After several rounds, we played a game of Bulldog before finishing with the Barnet Burpees. Shawn and Paul were pretty speedy with the burpees and Heather requested we do the worm instead. Turns out none of us can do the worm. Something to work on.

We then ran back to base for this week's Barnet Biscuit: Flapjacks, courtesy of Damian

Well done, team!

Anyone looking to do a Parkrun with Freya this Saturday, sign up to Ally Pally here. More hills, beautiful views at the top.