On another beautifully sunny and warm Tuesday evening in H&F, 21 GoodGym-ers joined me to run and do good! It was lovely to have Ooonagh, Joyce, Sophie, Zoe and Martynas along for their second H&F group run, to have Lena back after a bit of a hiatus and to again have Karen from GG Wandsworth doing some GoodGym tourism!

To mix things up this week, because as they say 'variety is the spice of life', we headed outside this week the round-up of the weekly news…

1. Bonus H&F Group Run & Community Mission - Next Tuesday (28th August) there is a bonus lunchtime group run to help Chelsea FC Foundation, sign up here - the run is limited to 8 runners due to space constrictions. On Saturday 1st September there will be a community mission to help out at the amazing White City Adventure Playground, sign up here - Wormwood Scrubs parkrun followed by breakfast will be organised pre-mission! Please come along and lend a hand if you can.
2. Donations Wanted! - Catriona is going to Calais in October to volunteer for a couple of weeks with an amazing charity called Help Refugees, who among other things, give support to people who were displaced from the Jungle when it was torn down by the French police. Do you have any of the items listed here that you can donate? If YES, please let Catriona know!
3. Bank Holiday Racing/Running - Good luck to all those going down to Dorset for the East Farm - White Star Races. Enjoy! For those that aren't there is the monthly GoodGym Long Run for August on 25th August which will be led by Dom, a 21km route from Hampton Court to Battersea Arts Centre – sign up here.

Finally, a special shoutout to Polly who did a mega sub-20 minute parkrun at the weekend! Amazing stuff!

After a quick warm-up (this week with some shooing of the chickens), a name and number head count and poll of 'Black or White?' - apologies all for the very poor question which ultimately had no clear winner....a very grey answer! - we all headed north on the short 1.2km run to tonight's task at Springvale Estate Residents Hall. When we arrived we were greeted by Tom, the gardener who tends to the garden space at the Residents Hall. He gave a quick introduction about what the hall and garden space is used for and provided all the necessary tools and equipment to get on with the 5 tasks that were requested by Berni when I met her here last week:

1. Weeding the overgrown garden at the rear
2. Weeding and sweeping of the patio
3. Weeding and sweeping down the side of the hall
4. Cleaning the windows and mopping the hall floor
   
5. Removal of all the cobwebs on the outside of the hall

...an overarching theme of lots of weeding and sweeping!

The team efficiently split off into different groups, arming themselves with the necessary tools in order to begin tackling the above tasks.

Gym Class Windows

Karen, Oonagh, Jesse, Jason and Will headed in to the hall and began the cleaning of the windows and the mirrors, and the tricky spot behind the exercise bike. It wasn't long before they had the inside of the hall looking far fresher and cleaner so the trio of Jesse, Karen and Oonagh headed outside to tackle to weeds down the side of the hall while Will and Jason remained inside to sweep and mop the hall floors. Not being ones to sweep it under the carpet/rug, the boys did an incredibly thorough job, one any perfectionist would approve of; and they had the added bonus of now smelling and wearing eau d'cif!

Broom for Improvement

Fiona set about sweeping the patio with her lovely new broom and she was going great guns until she exclaimed "What a great broom this is", cue the brush and handle very much becoming detached from one another! Upon closer inspection it was apparent that this incident had occurred due to a missing screw, somewhat key in the holding together of the broom. With no screws to be found, Sarah kindly offered to run home and fetch the all-important screw.

Have I Got Screws For You

Screw acquired, the broom was quickly fixed and Fiona was able to set about again sweeping the weeds and leaves on the patio. Sarah posed for another non-rubbish but instead fabulous bin bag shot while 'super poser' Sophie worked numerous poses with the rather deadly but effective point/brush weeding tool as she cleared the patio and path of weeds before passing it on to Tom so that he too could get involved in the fun! Lena also proved a dab hand in sweeping as she swept the patio and Miteki tackled the plants and tidied the leaves down the side of the garden while the rest of the group got well and truly stuck into the overgrowth at the end of the garden.

Biscuits Casual

Berni had very kindly left some biscuits for the group as a thank you and to keep them fuelled through the task. Not one to miss a biscuit or food based snack, Johnny quickly went in seek of them out and began serving up a 'sugar rush' to everyone in the group. With the strong dream team of Joyce, Zoe, Alice, Bex, Missie, Catriona, Andrew, Arba, Martynas tackling the weeds, plants and attempting to avoid all the stinging nettles it wasn't long before there were many bin bags full of weeds and cuttings.

Step Up 2: The Weedy Good Sweep

As ever, the time at the task flew by and it was soon time to down tool and tidy-up. Joe, was incredibly pleased and impressed with what had been achieved and described what he had witnessed to be like "waving a magic wand". Plants and some steps were now visible in the garden area and there was now space in which some bulbs could be planted in the coming months. With the step ladder providing much needed height and leverage to me, the group posed for a post-task photo around the markedly improved garden and entertained my selfie with the group photo attempt!

The Speed for Speed

Task complete we set off on the very short run to Brook Green to complete a quick 1km time trial around the outer perimeter of the Green. Jesse kindly offered to be on stopwatch duty, definitely not because he wanted to skip the time trial but because he wanted the group to all partake and have a time to beat next time.... The group set off in staggered starts so as not to overwhelm other pedestrians and it wasn't long before the first runners to set off were back at the start having completed the lap of the Green in super quick time. There was some excellent 'pockets to sockets' running technique executed and significantly redder and sweatier faces proved what a big effort was put in by all. Ace running all! Please try and remember your times so that when we do this time trial again you have a time to beat!

The Hunger Games

Before we headed back to base there was time for one quick game of 'Hungry Hippos'. Four teams, one bag of Maoam's in the centre with an exercise that corresponded to each flavour, of course, Apple worked the core...10 x crunches. The winning team was the one that got the most Maoam's and the result was a 6-6 draw between Team 1 & 3, and the bonus knowledge that there are 22 Maoam stripes in a bag! Rubbish collected and binned in true GoodGym fashion we then set off on the 1km run back to base for a cool down and stretch before saying our goodbyes.

What a great night! In a H&F first (possibly second) with me leading, the task and run that went completely as I briefed, definitely not down to the L word of...luck! Fab weeding, sweeping, moping, and running all - hope you enjoyed it! Berni and Tom will be delighted with the transformation you all achieved. Thank you very much to Jason for back-marking and to Jesse for being timekeeper on the 1km time trial. Have a lovely bank holiday weekend and hopefully see you on one of the runs or at the community mission next week!

Next week’s evening task is at the Maystate Estate where we will be helping out on numerous tasks in their community centre, older resident's gardens and the community garden – sign-up here.

It's a Tuesday night, it's GoodGym H&F night! Definitely my favourite evening of the week! The weather was markedly cooler than it had been in previous weeks and across the pond in LA, and tonight a wonderful 22 GoodGym-ers joined me in H&F to run and do good! A big warm welcome to the 5 fab new runners Amy, Ooonagh, Joyce, Sophie and Ruby on their first GoodGym run, it was lovely to have you all along! Hope to see you all again on another group run soon, hopefully wearing a nice red GoodGym tee! It was great to also see Martynas on his second group run of the week and to have Karen from GG Wandsworth and Mr 'Abs on Tour' Chi from GG Haringey doing some GoodGym tourism!

Before we headed outside, with everyone gathered around we had a brief introduction and round-up of the news from the week…

1. The monthly GoodGym Long Run for August will be led by the ace Dom Tooze, it will be on the 25th August and will be a 21km route from Hampton Court to Battersea Arts Centre – sign up here.
2. Big well done to Catriona who got another parkrun PB, a cracking run in under 23 minutes!
3. If there's any items anyone would like to see in the weekly fitness email, please drop me an email!

Thanks for pudding up with me & my puns!

Following a quick pulse raising warm-up which included a group numbers game and some dynamic stretching, though sadly this week I forgot to 'shoo the chickens' (hopefully H&F isn't overrun in the week by them...) there was a name and number count along with everyone’s favourite desserts –– cheesecake was the run away winner with mentions for ice cream, apple pie, cake and many other sugary delights.

Stravas and RunKeepers set we headed off on the short 1.2km run up to Loris Community Gardens. When we arrived at the gate we noticed there was a lovely welcome message written in chalk on the paved paths in the entrance to the gardens. The chalk had also been left out so I handed this to the 'resident graffiti artist', Catriona for a "GoodGym was 'ere" message. Disclaimer in her own words "I'm not really a graffiti artist, I'm not very good at art!"

Our task brief today was to remove the weeds from the garden path and if the group worked particularly speedy, lay down some sand on the path to fill in the gaps and finish it off. With the padlock combination code correct we accessed all the tools, kneel mats, brooms and gloves that Katie, from Loris Community Gardens had kindly left out for us to use. Everyone quickly gloved up and picked their weapon/tool of choice and evenly spread themselves out as they set about tackling all the weeds growing in the path cracks. The bin bags were MIA so Jason ran off on a short bonus run to acquire these for the group, within minutes he returned triumphant!

A run derfully weedy path

The garden path looked quite the challenge, there were leaves to sweep off the path and a plethora of weeds to uproot. A nice before shot of Jenny pensively posing with the path wonderfully captured just how overrun with weeds the path was. However, as always thr group worked efficiently and like a well-oiled garden machine so it wasn't long before the path had begun to be transformed from a weedy bad state to a much improved de-weeded one! Andrew and Arba stubbornly fought against the weeds and proved victorious in uprooting a large number while Katie brandished the broom and swept the path clear of leaves.

A sucker for GoodGym

Karen was proving a hit with the bloodsucking insects about and gained a good few of these 'friends' on her arms as she weeded. Luke, Catherine and Anna used their trowels to good effect on the side of the garden path while Tom, Johnny, Miteki, Jo and Sarah (who I can vouch definitely doesn't just hold the bin bags!) worked around the pond area. And the GoodGym gardening debutants of Martynas, Joyce, Amy, Oonagh, Ruby and Sophie took to weeding and sweeping like ducks to water!

Weed Up! Sand Up!

An incredibly thorough job was done by the group with some even upturning bricks from the path to get to the weeds roots. Despite the time passing quickly as always, the group worked so efficiently that they did indeed have time to lay some of the sand that had been left out. Many of the group proved a dab hand with the brooms, even though one of the brooms was very much a touch too big for the sand spreading and manoeuvring!

Weeding, check. Sanding, check. Tidying, check. Group photo, check. Group selfie, could be better but check. A clean sweep! Following one final pose around the brilliantly weeded and sanded paths the group headed off on the short 1.5km run to Ravenscourt Park for a quick fitness session.

Absolutely fab!

With Mr 'Abs on Tour' (apparently this nickname has stuck after I jokingly once called Chi this a few months ago...) in attendance the group were treated (though probably best read as, subjected to/punished...) to one of Chi's abs blasting sessions. As most GoodGymers in London now know, planks, supermans, leg raises and holds all form part of the routine and the group put in a great effort which Chi claimed will make you wake up with abs in the morning. Disclaimer (again) sadly one of these abs sessions probably isn't enough, but a sharpie pen or comedy chef's apron may suffice in the interim!

There was now one thing, well two things including the run back to base that stood in the way of the group and the promised cake, a sprint technique based shot game! 4 teams. 28 shot glasses all numbered 1-7 in a pile 20 metres away. Sprint to the pile focusing on your 'pockets to sockets'. The winning team was the one that got all the numbers 1-7 (not 1, 2 and 7!) first from the shot glass pile. And the winners were...Team One! Well done, guys! All that was left to do was run the final short and navigational easy 1.5km back to base.

With the nights slowly drawing in we had a cool-down and stretch in the fading light back at base and discussed the wonderful sweaty summer of running that we'd all had. Cool-down complete, there was only one thing left to do....belatedly celebrate Johnny's 50th good deed by eating star baker, Catriona's divine coffee and walnut cupcakes! Despite the unwillingness to make a fuss about it last week, this week I captured Johnny striking a pose with his much loved cupcake which would be a worthy glossy cover of any food magazine!

Hope you all had a fun night, great work and running tonight, Katie from the Loris Community Gardens will be so chuffed with the amount you all achieved tonight. Thank you very much to Jason for back-marking and for the 'bin bag run', and to our newbies and those doing some tourism for coming along. A pleasure to lead you all as always, have a fantastic week and hopefully see you all next week.

Next week’s task is another gardening one at the Springvale Estate – sign-up here.