GoodGym is TEN!

On a muggy night in Brent TEN wonderful people joined me to run 7km, do some weeding for Harlesden Town Garden and celebrate ten years of GoodGym!

After a calamitous start to the evening (forgotten kit, intro fail and general lateness - all from me) we got ourselves together and headed off towards Harlesden.

In our intro tonight the main focus was on the 10th birthday - talking about the City Hall event last week, the Fit Together publication, our flag plans for the evening (see pics), Super Saturday for missions on the 21st and of course cakes for tonight. We also welcomed Helen who joined us for her first ever GG run, what a time to join.

The run there took in our first photo opportunity in Roundwood Park, home of the GG Brent 1km Time Trial. We all posed for the photo and so began the battle of the phones - spoiler iPhone X for the win!

Photos done and we were one our way again and it wasn't long before we got to Harlesden Town Garden. There we met Phillip who let us in and showed us the work to do. Some intensive weeding around the raised planters. Everyone gloved up grabbed tools and got to work. What we hadn't accounted for was how quickly the light was going to come in - before we knew it we were in a lot of darkness. Not to be stopped everyone with phones used them to provide light to finish the task off.

With that all done we posed for a group photo with the flag and then we were on our way. Harlesden Town Garden is a long-standing task for GG Brent so it means a lot for the flag to be there.

With everyone gathered we headed off, I goaded everyone by threatening a super long run on the way home but it was all a ruse to disguise the next flag stop. This time it was Willesden Sports Centre the original home of GG Brent. We posed outside and then were on our way again. We managed to do a quick on the run photo and video and then continued home.

With quite frankly more than enough photos I decided we should definitely do some more so we posed with the new Willesden Green railway bridge murial, one outside our current home, the Queensbury and finally one inside. We made sure we stretched and then it was time for a celebratory drink and some cake!

Happy 10th Birthday GoodGym, thanks for bringing this wonderful community to Brent!

I'm away for the next two weeks but you have Liz and then Claire in charge.

Cheers,
Pritesh

This week seven spectacular people joined me in Brent, litter picked an entire high street and then ran over 3km!

This week we were helping Willesden Green Town Team with their bid to make what we're calling Willesden High Street a winner of the Great British High Streets Award Rising Star!

After a quick intro and news round up, with the main news being Samina's effort with both volunteering and taking part in the Rough Runner run - congratulations.

With the start point for the task being Willesden Green Station we crossed the road safely and ran all of about 10 metres before meeting Elayne and Marilyn. They quickly outlined the task at hand and doled out litter pickers and bin bags.

With that we split the group so we had people on both sides of the road and off we went! Everyone was very diligent and in the end, given the ground we had to cover, I had to start imposing rules on the size of litter we could stay to pick up. We were all amazed at the huge number of cigarette butt's and if we had the time we all wanted to stay and get them all!

After a good 40 minutes of hard working and mega litter-picking we were all done (though not nearly as done as we wanted to be!) and after a mega effort to clear the areas around the library, old police station and St Andrew's Church we were done and took our many bags and met Marilyn at the Library and posed for a group photo with our many piles of rubbish (in bags I should add)!

Now as litter picking doesn't allow for much fitness we thought we better use our time wisely and so with the 'good' very much accomplished it was time for some 'gym'. A quick check map check and we were on our a way a nice 3km loop and some Indian File running. The Indian File is a simple but fun way of getting some fartlek running in and consists of everyone jogging in a line with the person at the back sprinting to the front. We had some with this running back to base and with only one wrong turn we were back and stretched right on time! Great effort everyone - let's hope our help will win Willesden the rising star award and remember you can help even more by voting here - thank you!

Next week's task is being sorted but it's the week of GoodGym's 10th birthday so expect much fun (and possibly cake)

Cheers,
Pritesh

Ten fantastic people joined me to run over 7km to help out at Abbey Community Centre!

Having seen the heavens open quite dramatically I was unsure on who'd be brave enough to come out for GoodGym tonight but I wasn't disappointed as the group gathered.

After a quick intro where we congratulated Marcos on becoming a dad and welcomed Emily from GG Slough and ran through some of the upcoming 10th birthday celebrations we warmed up and then were on our way.

The journey to Abbey is a nice one but hills are unavoidable and I'd tried to engineer routes that made it as easy as possible! The journey there was about 3.3km and everyone worked hard to get there in good time.

Once at the centre we said hello to Simone and then worked out the the best way to handle the tasks we had. Bryony had listed out what we had to do. I handed out team leader roles to Emily and Tabitha and off we went! The task was to clean out the kitchen stores, the tea trolley and various other bits and bobs! We also checked the stock was in date and rearranged things to make them fit better. After 30 mins of hardworking everything was done and we even managed our bonus task of stapling copies of the newsletter together! The resounding memory was finding hundreds of sugar sachets in amongst all the various boxes!

With everything done we posed for a group photo and then headed off! Well we had a vote, longer route with fewer hills or go back the way we came with more hills on way back. We went longer and everyone went for it keeping a good pace all along!

Once back to base we stretched and the. We were done, another top night in Brent.

Cheers,
Pritesh

Ten brilliant people joined me in Brent as we ran nearly 7km to help Queen's Park Community Council deliver their newsletter.

Having forced everyone to drink some water to ensure we were hydrated in the heat we headed outside for the intro. Liz gave us a quick summary of the shindig, I reminded everyone about the Olympics on the 3rd and the social on the 8th before I went through the task info and health and safety.

We then headed off to the task - it was about a 3km run and we kept up a good speed through the heat and made it down to Queen Park in good time. It was on the run that spotted a friendly cat and it became a bit of a theme as you'll see from the pictures!

Once there, Lindsey soon arrived and we unpacked the boxes, split into teams and then began our work to distribute the newsletter.

We had 25 minutes and before we knew it we were done and had covered all the areas we needed, and weirdly, met many more cats!

Once everything was sorted we had a group photo and made Lindsey promise she would join us for a run soon and then we headed back to base. The run home is always a bit harder as we have a big uphill but everyone worked hard and managed to get up the hill without stopping - well done!

Once back at base, yup we did see another cat, we stretched and then it was time for a drink and for our flag designing session. Many ideas were thrown around but I think we've got a great design planned. Make sure you come along to the Olympics to see it!

I'm away next week but Tabitha is in charge, make sure you come along!

Cheers,
Pritesh