With Mark taking a well earned break, Samia made a return to cover in his absence. Some mighty boots to fill, even with my giant feet!

First things first, it’s time for some news:

• Well done Kate on your 10th coach visit - give Kate a big cheer!

• Caroline responded to an urgent plea from Parkrun for volunteers, and listed a community mission for THIS SATURDAY - sign up here: https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/make-parkrun-safe-and-fun-in-kingston.

• We welcomed Charlotte and Katie back for their second runs - great to have you along! And we welcomed Tasha at the task who brought her docs along to get checked so she can do missions and coach runs - welcome!

Squat’s the matter?

After a very democratic vote via WhatsApp for the focus of the fitness session, the results were in and there was a tie between glutes and core - so in the name of fairness, both were featured. We recapped why those glutes are so important in running and in injury prevention, and then it was time for... sweets! Yes, sweets! They were imperative in providing an incentive with reaching during some single leg deadlifts and walkouts, and then of course providing some much needed sugar for the run. After some squats, glute bridges, plank pull-throughs (with sweets, of course), and split squats, we were ready to run.

Core, that was a glute warm-up!

With the task so nearby, we went for a run in the opposite direction along the promenade and then back to Canbury Community Garden. According to most of us, it was a 3.7km run out - but Caroline either had major GPS issues or took a sneaky super shortcut, clocking up a giant 0.03km on her run tracker...

Whether 30m or 3700m, we all arrived safely and were greeted by the marvellous Marilyn who gave us a briefing of the task. Oh, and she set her expectations with our pun report!

There were lots of tasks to do, BUTT there was no chickening out.

Jane and Hannah pond-ered about how to transfer the water from those giant butts to the pond. Wat-er solution they came up with, rolling kegs of the good stuff across the garden and having a barrel of laughs along the way.

Caroline borrowed a barrow so that she could provide a constant supply of compost to Dave & Rob to empty into the beds. They got to work as if they were on barrowed time, a brilliant display of teamwork!

There's no tyr-ing us out!

Next to the raised tyre planters, where Charlotte, Claire, Jess, Katie, Kate, Tom ans Tasha formed Team Rake it or Leaf it. The floor became visible again in a matter of minutes, we couldn’t be-leaf how quickly we raked them up, even in the pitch dark! You know what they say, many hands make light work. Such slick work too, the chickens slept right through all the action! And Charlotte has clearly got the knack for GoodGym puns, announcing that she’d “leaf them there” - you know somebody’s a goodgym-er when they talk in puns!

Glute work, team!

We tidied up, took a groupie and bid the chickens farewell. After a run back through Kingston (with customary heading in the wrong direction first, of course), we stretched and mulled over a pun, ate some more sweets and headed off.

Thanks Kate & Jane for backmarking and Jane for leading the walk back, Rob and Jess for your pun wizardry, and Dave for carrying the light to save my shoulders! And thanks to Team Kingston for bearing with me and my intentional-wrong-direction-running and glute sesh!

We'll leaf it to Kate for the final pun:

I'm a be-leaf-er in GluteGym!

Oh, go on then, one final pun for glute measure:

Gluten Abend!

What a turnout! And on a soggy day too!

Welcome to Clare, Rachel, Chris, Tash and Laura on your first GoodGym good deed! It was brilliant to have you join us and extra kudos for coming despite the rain - you're clearly all made for GoodGym!

I'd texted the lovely Sufiyo from the Friends of Ham Lands to warn her that lots of people were signed up, which meant that she found a task that required many pairs of hands, lots of strength and lots of squats!

With so many new to the project, Sufiyo gave a very useful talk to tell us all about the butterflies project, what it's all about, why we do it, and how we do it. Very helpful for us old-timers too! Sufiyo also explained that we have a new strategy of focusing on one area for lots of weeks and then seeing if there is any impact on the biodiversity - so hopefully we will be able to see the results of our toil.

After a good briefing, we got cracking - you almost had to rain in our enthusiasm!

As the saying goes, where there's a Jane, there will be roots to yank - and boy were there lots and lots of roots! We know that Jane will always get to the root of it, and she didn't disappoint - and neither did anyone else, there were roots being yanked all around the clearing. Jenna even seemed to be following a root to Ham Parade such was her commitment to the cause!

Jo and I decided it was almost the festive season with some good old hoe hoe hoeing, although Jo may need some more convincing about the magic of a good hoe-down... We managed to fit in a couple of document checks for DBS applications (yay to more runners getting coach and mission verified!), and chatted about how GoodGym is such a great way of finding your feet in a new place - oh, and the question of "does it ever get rained off?"

After a good hour of rooting for the butterfly cause, it was time to pack away and bid Hamlands farewell for this month - but look out for next month's return visit, on the second Saturday of November. Same time, same place: see you there!

Finally, thanks "Kingston Kate" for the pun!! And go on, give Laura, Chris, Rachel, Clare and Tasha a cheer! Woop!