It was all Gogh Gogh Gogh at H&F tonight...11 runners painted for a local school while 8 runners flyered for a local charity!

After last's week '2 become 1' task situation I was cautious optimistic that lightening wouldn't strike twice this evening. The thunder and lightening had passed, and the pouring rain that had fallen all day had finally stopped and given way to lovely clear blue skies. The pouring rain hadn't deterred my lovely group and I was greeted at the BetterGym reception by 14 other GoodGym'ers, and an extra 4 at the task as work and transport got in the way!

What are two like?!

Tonight we were going to be helping paint the 2nd coat of paint in the room at Flora Gardens and flyering around the streets of Shepherd's Bush for the wonderful charity Turning Paint.

We started off the evening by congratulating Catriona on her 100th good deed and ensured she was dressed appropriately for the run...with her wings of course! Well done Catriona! 💯🙌🥳 ...AND a big well done to Matt on his 50th good deed! 5️⃣0️⃣🙌🥳

Two milestones, two tasks - the 2nd coat of paint - it was all about the 'not so terrible' twos tonight!

P'aint no stopping them!

After a quick run down of the news and pulse raising warm-up we headed off down towards Flora Gardens. It wasn't long before we arrived and were warmly welcomed in by Business Manager, Jeanette. At this point the group split into two with just over a half staying with Jeanette to paint the second of paint and the rest continuing on up to Shepherd's Bush now we had 'dropped the kids off at school!'.

After a couple of kilometers up and around the backstreets of Hammersmith we arrived on Uxbridge Road at the Shepherd's Bush branch of Turning Point.

Come on flyer with me, we'll flyer, we'll flyer away!

We were met by one of the co-ordinators, Hardik who invited us into one of their many branches and explained the extensive offer of drug, alcohol and mental health services they provide for local communities - these included advice, clinics, and health and wellbeing support.

He then presented us with a number of leaflets that promoted and explained their services - this stack of leaflets was HUGE and contained 6 different flyers. Our task tonight was to deliver as many of the leaflets as possible in 20 minutes to the surrounding streets. Alice came up with the perfect plan to ensure maximum efficiency and coverage.

With the team split into two we worked together in a nice chain formation, ensuring each house had a range of the leaflets.

There was a lot of this...

What the shell?!

The rain had led to MANY MANY snails being out in force on the pavements and in driveways which led to a rather cautious approach from our 'gram extraordinaire', Lucy.

As well as lot of flyering there was also a lot of sneaking/checking before entering....

And of course the odd 'gram story to document the evening!

On the Monet....we totally snailed it!

The other team painted away in their black L'oreal tees to ensure their lovely red GG tees were not covered in paint, though somehow a few managed to come away with some artistic dots on their tees!

After 45 minutes of painting work, Jeanette was very happy with what the team had managed to achieve, 2nd coat complete! All that was left was the tidy-up before being 'picked up from school' by the flyering group who had delivered all but a few of their huge stack of leaflets!

With everyone re-grouped together, we headed off on our short run back to base for a stretch off and the best bit of the evening...the cake celebrations! 🧁🍰

As always, the bakers had excelled in providing us all with an absolutely delicious range of cakes, and there was also some bonus sweets! Energy and sugar levels replenished we decided to call it a night. Another wonderful evening of running, doing good and celebrating achievements aced!

Great work tonight team & BIG well done to Catriona and Matt!

This week's news 📣...

1. FREE Local Run Group - Meet at the Stable Yard in Holland Park at 5.45pm for a 6pm start 🕕 this Thursday! The run will be approx. 5-10kms. No sign-up is required, there is also bag storage ✅ & toilets ✅.
2. Chiswick 10k TT - This Sunday is the monthly up & running 10k time trial starting. Meet at Chiswick Bridge for a 9am start.
3. Ealing Half Marathon - Good luck to anyone running, and thank you to all those volunteering.

Next week, the wonderful 'new centurion' Catriona is leading you up to Askham Court to help out with some gardening for the residents. Please sign up here. As the nights are getting darker, please bring a headtorch if you have one! 🔦 Have a great couple of weeks, see you when I'm back!

We had cake-off in H&F last night as 31 GoodGym'ers made a piece of cake of weeding and cleaning at Springvale Tenants Hall

It was our 3rd birthday celebrations in H&F last night which meant alongside our run and good deed for our community tonight there would also be three additions: cake, games, and well more cake! What made it extra special was that it was a record-breaking night in H&F with a massive 31 GoodGym'ers!

It was lovely to welcome along Joshua for his first H&F group run - you choose a good one to begin on! Thank you for coming along and lending a hand with all my wonderful regulars, and tourists from Wandsworth and Lewisham tonight!

With everyone donning one very fashionable party hat 🥳, or in Catriona’s case about four(!!) we headed outside for a quick round-up of this week’s news...

• Tomorrow (5th Sept) is the next GoodGym social at The Court on Tottenham Court Road, all details are here.
• GoodGym is turning 10! 🔟🎉 There's a big party at City Hall on Thursday 12th September and there will also be a BIG day of missions on Saturday 21st September - more details coming soon!
• New FREE Local Run Group - Meet at the Stable Yard in Holland Park at 5.45pm for a 6pm start 🕕. The Sept dates are as follows: Weds 4th, Thurs 12th, Weds 18th & Thurs 26th. Each run will be approx. 5-10kms. No sign-up is required, there is also bag storage ✅ & toilets ✅.

Three running 3️⃣🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️

Before we headed off on our short run over to Springvale Tenants Hall we had a quick warm-up to get the pulses raising, after some exercises that tested everyone's co-ordination skills, we had a special honesty quiz on all things H&F. Some fun facts we all learnt was that this was our 175th group run, the 1st H&F group run was on 6th Sept 2016, there were 27 runners at the 1st run and 11 runners have celebrated their 50th good deed on a H&F group run (well I think it's 11!). For those that chose the incorrect answer there was the punishment of jumping jacks and squats.

After one final burst of fast feet we headed off towards our tasks tonight at Springvale Tenants Hall with Bex and Sarah backmarking. As it was a short run tonight we had a bit of fun on the way there as we looped back on ourselves through Brook Green to get in a few extra metres!

Weeds, three afraid, be very afraid!

When we arrived at the Hall we were greeted by the lovely Berni and Tom, and some very high and might weeds! With everyone in and gathered around Berni ran through the list of jobs for tonight:

• Weeding in the garden area between the path cracks 🌱
• Weeding and sweeping at the front of the hall 🧹
• Weeding and chopping of ivy outside the garden area ✂️
• Sweeping of leaves 🍂
• Removal of cobwebs 🕸️

There was lots for everyone to get stuck in to! And luckily tonight there were lots of hands to make light work of all the jobs.

The good knife

While we had a few of our favourite pointed weeding tools to help us weed between the lines, Berni also had the genius idea of using the cutlery knives from the kitchen. They were on point as they helped everyone to get to the roots of the weeds and it wasn't long before there were piles of weeds that had been removed from where they were very much not welcome!

Amazingly, the party hats remained on everyone's heads, with Catriona doing a particularly good Lisa Simpson/Garden Gnome impression and Chi rocking the alternative shoulder hat...

The powers that three declared that the weeds shall not path! 🛑

As ever, 40 minutes flew by and it was time to down tools and complete the final tidy-up. Phoebe and Joshua ensured absolute perfection on the front path before they joined the others inside for some treats that Berni had kindly provided to the group as a big thank you.

Check out the difference!!...

Before heading off we all gathered for some group photos infront of the red GoodGym t-shirt Berni has displayed up in the Hall next to a number of photos from our previous visits over the past year, what a lovely gesture!

We've never ab'd it so good!

Filled with the first round of treats we all gathered outside and headed off towards Brook Green for tonight's fitness session, With 'Mr Abs on Tour', Chi in attendance the group were treated to a hardcore 5-minute abs blast before a slightly more chilled game of 'plank the parcel' which essentially become 'squat & pass the parcel'...

There were sweets, challenges and cheesy party tunes galore as the two parcels made their way around the circle, with everyone seemingly picking on Mo and Catriona each time, and they definitely were not competitive in their plank off! An honourable draw!

As the nice light summer nights are now sadly behind us we ended the game very much in the dark, but with lots of amusement as we ended on none other than S Club Party! Well done to the winners, Catherine and Alice.

Cake the bit by your teeth 🧁

There wasn't much between the group and all the post-run cake celebrations. In what I think was record-quick time we made it back to base and were stretched off ready to either head to the pub, or home.

In the pub the celebrations continued with bakers Catherine, Bex, Tom and Jonathon all offering out fabulous cakes, naturally we all had to have a piece of each. The night was completed with some oops upside your head, retro polaroid snaps and flexed muscles! Most importantly, Alice ended the night with her favourite bottle from the Olympics, enjoy the apple goodness!

How to cake it in H&F 🎂

Thank you for an absolutely brilliant evening, and the most amazing array of delicious cakes that catered for all...Bake Off eat your heart out! Here's to the 4th year of getting fit and doing good in H&F! Thank you for your efforts each week and for making Tuesday my favourite night of the week.

AND...a big thank you to everyone who baked, bought party hats and helped with the fun and games.

Next week, the wonderful Ana is leading you to Flora Gardens to lend a hand with some painting, please sign up here. Have a lovely rest of your week and weekend! See you in a couple of weeks!

A fantastic crowd of 26 GoodGym'ers turned out for two task Tuesday in H&F!

With two tasks lined up this evening it was great to see such a huge team of GoodGym'ers gathered ready to run and do good in their local community. It was lovely to welcome along Phoebe and Lizzie for their first GoodGym H&F run - thank you for coming along, hope you enjoyed it!

With the scaffolding still up in our regular warm-up spot we once again headed to our rather cosy makeshift warm-up spot. Before we got our pulses raised and blood pumping we had a quick run down of this week's news...

Have I got news for you...📰

1. There are a limited number of £10 community entries for the Big Half in London on Sunday 1st March 2020. If you are interested in a £10 place, please drop me an email for the details.
2. This Sunday is the monthly Morden Hall 10km and the monthly GoodGym Long Run - Tour of the Docklands.
3. Rough Runner comes to Finsbury Park on Saturday 7th September, you can volunteer on the Saturday for a free place on the Sunday!
4. Would you like to help in the event of an emergency? CAMERA (Coordinating and Mobilising Emergency Response Activists) project are looking for volunteers, all the details here.
5. Ealing Half Marathon 2019 volunteers needed! Sunday 29th September, you'll receive a free bacon butty and race place for next year as a thank you! For all the details, click here.

After a little warm-up involving skips, ankle taps and fast feet we split off into our two groups for the evening...

Josiah Braithwaite Community Garden led by Catriona

A lucky 13 GoodGymmers headed up to the Josiah Braithwaite Community Garden, which is a garden for the Centre's visitors who are elderly members of the African, Afro-Caribbean and Asian communities with Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease. The Centre also runs a gardening club for families in Shepherds Bush living in temporary and overcrowded accommodation. Our task tonight was to tidy up ready for this Saturday's gardening club.

A labour of glove

To kick us off, Tom and Katie got very excited about their favourite weed clearing gadgets and set to work on the patio. Catherine and Naveed cleared out the greenhouse, emptying old soil out of pots ready to be re-used again. Sarah was nominated by the group as glove-sorter, Mo as plant waterer, Alice cut down some old signs from the fence outside, and everyone else got to work weeding, sweeping and dead-heading. After 30 minutes the garden looked spick and span, Susannah did some quick calculation about how much time we'd saved her (7.5 hours!), and we took a photo around the giant flower with triple Jo(h)nnies hiding at the back. Then back to base a different way for a stretch off.

Plogging led by Andrew

Andrew led the other 13 GoodGym’ers towards our first litter picking stop of the evening at Lillie Rec Park. When we got caught by the lights there was no-one stood still as we filled the time with jumping jacks and squats, and of course our weekly wall sit. On what I think would be described as the scenic route we arrived at the park and set about our mission to clean-up the park. The group spread out into smaller groups around the park so as to maximise our coverage. Andrew, Lizzie and Phoebe covered the children’s playground and discovered a t-shirt amongst numerous sweet wrappers, while Lucy and Steph claimed they picked up 397 cigarette butts from under the park benches! After 15 minutes there were 6 full bin bags that were responsibly disposed of in the park bins. And one final find by Matt of a dog tag.

A litter pick of this, and a litter pick of that!

Park clean-up complete we set off down and along the river next to the beautiful backdrop of the sunset towards the Crabtree Pub. The Crabtree Wharf is a beautiful inlet on the River Thames where litter-ally all the floating rubbish washes up and accumulates. This evening was the worst we’ve seen it! The team had a BIG challenge here. There were litter-ally hundreds of plastic bottles and bottle tops, about ten tennis balls, some less tasteful finds (the less said about these the better), a stuffed seagull that Maddy tested out for flight potential, and the biggest find of all, a marine radio! It felt like every possible piece of litter was down here with us. As the team filled bag after bag of litter, Chi helpfully handed out more bags from above and acted as a go between to the industrial waste bins by the pub - it very much resembled Rapunzel! We posed for a quick team photo with our loot (bags filled with litter!) and the stunning sunset before we called it a night. The transformation the team achieved in just 20 minutes was striking! I lost count of just how many bags that were filled but it must’ve been at least 30!

Litter picks completed we began our short run back to base along the river. With Chi ‘Mr Abs on Tour’ in our presence we were treated to a 2 minute abs blast of push-ups, tricep dips and a plank by Hammersmith Bridge. We pushed the pace for the final few metres before we had our stretch off back at base.

Great work tonight everyone. Thank you for coming along and for all your hard work.

Special shout outs to...📢🙌🏼

• Everyone who raced at the Two Tunnels festival at the weekend - brilliant running and support by all and SO many PBs!!🥳. AND, a big well done to GoodGym H&F's running joke relay team...who are definitely not a running joke but in fact super speedy as they came 1st in the mixed 50km relay! 🏆
• Maddy and Rob who were superhero sidekicks at the Superhero Tri (the one and only disability sports series) on Saturday in Windsor 🦸.

Phew!! What a week! Well done all. Next week we're flyering for the wonderful charity Family Friends. Sign up here. Have a lovely bank holiday weekend. Hopefully see you next week!