Starter for 10!

Last night 10 of us met to run 10km to help Bubble & Squeak Eat, a group of entrepreneurial children from West London who are fighting food waste by selling surplus food in the school playground and to the local community. It was all hands on deck to clean their storage shipping container in East Acton!

No new members last night but we did have Michelle from Hounslow on her #westisbest GoodGym tour! With a long run ahead of us we did a couple of leg wakening exercises while waiting for the hardy crew to assemble and swiftly started our journey out towards Acton at 7pm sharp. The run was a change of scenery for us as lots of our tasks centre around Ealing and Hanwell, it's always good to shake things up a bit!

The whole group kept a really good pace last night and we all stuck together to get the long run done as a team! Special mention to Larissa who is most definitely due a parkrun PB based on last nights pace and Jenni whos strava says last nights run was a 10km PB!

We arrived at the task to meet Elly who coordinates the project, she was ready and equip with buckets of water, sponges and cleaning products ready for us to give the container a good scrub down. The container serves as the main storage space for all the surplus food they acquire so after a bit of heavy lifting to clear the space (a great workout!) we all got stuck in taking sections of the container to clean as well as washing down the fridges.

The container was crowd funded and it was really great to chat to Elly about how the initiative works and the ways in which it helps the community, such a worthy project!

Running a tight ship!

With such a long run last night we didn't have too much time but with 10 pairs of hands we made light work of the task and got everything gleaming in the space of 30 minutes! Now that's what I call team work!

Living in the area Michael was responsible for our route back and took us a dubious back route but I'm glad to report we all made it back safe and sound and no-one took the bail out tube back option!

Great work everyone, we hope to go back and help Elly at the project again very soon!

Another lovely sunny evening in Ealing saw 15 of us head to Walpole Walled Garden to take on a variety of garden tasks to help this wonderful local space!

No new faces this week but lots of second timers which was lovely to see. We started by doing a round of truth or lie, one true thing we were up to this coming bank holiday and one false. Some of us were very inventive with our fibs but everyone sounds like they have very exciting plans for the long weekend!

Off on our run we went and this week we looped around the park for a bit more mileage before the task, last weeks run was rather short so it’s good to mix up the distances!

Vanessa was prepped and ready to go when we arrived back in Walpole and had a good mix of jobs for us to complete for the evening within the walled garden area. We split ourself into teams and got stuck in!

• Team Watering - Jenni, Sam & Amanda
• Team Trimming - Rachael, Shan, Phill & Charlotte
• Team Potting - Chris, Callum, Steph, Sonia & Michael
• Team Digging - Sam & Bec

Now which team would you choose…

Well unlucky for Jenni, Sam and Amanda they definitely drew the short straw! You’d think watering is like a nice little job well not when you throw comfrey tea into the mix, the smell is definitely something that will stick with us all for a while. Every time any of them came near with their watering can you knew about it! Well done for sucking it up and getting the job done guys!

The rest of us had a fairly smooth ride for the evening (except for a little shock from some frogs hiding in the overgrowth!) all working efficiently in our teams to get all the jobs done! Time flew by and working until the bitter end left us just enough time to pack up and do a round of sally squats and planks in the park before jogging the short few minutes back to base.

The nights are definitely drawing in now and it’s getting dark as we say our goodbyes so hopefully catch you all again very soon while we still have the light evenings!

Another beautiful evening in Ealing but thankfully with a slightly cooler temperature made for a perfect evening to do some good and go for a run!

We had a team of 11 runners to see to our task at Hestia this week which included planting some flowers for the greenhouse and having a little tidy of the surrounding area. We also had a bonus indoor task of sorting out a store cupboard all to help this fantastic centre that empowers its service users to find their feet after being affected by homelessness.

We started by meeting at our base just under a mile away and had a chat about all the news for the week. The main topic was about Jenni’s 50th good deed happening next Tuesday, it’s also her birthday and she’s worked really hard over the last few weeks to make it to the black t-shirt milestone before her special day! Do sign up and celebrate with us next week as we’ll head to the pub after the task!

Then we were off leaving in a chase style run up Castlebar Hill to our destination. Those wanting to push the pace left last chasing the rest of us down on our short run commute! There we were met by Sandra and Theo from the centre who had a few plants for us to pot to give thier greenhouse a new lease of life!

We also found a few other tidying tasks around the garden including some weeding and shifting a pile of old compost to give the overall grounds a boost!

Meanwhile Larissa and Lionel were summoned inside to organise a store room which included sorting Christmas decorations, quite possible the wrong time of year and wrong temperature to think about such things!

Before we knew it we’d wrapped up all the tasks and had plenty of time for my favourite fitness session… hills! They’d been warned that the quicker they worked the more hills we could fit in so I can only assume by the groups efficiency that they were super keen to fit in as many as possible!

The hills are alive with the sound of runners!

Over to West Walk we went for a chasing hill sprint session, the idea is that you push as hard as you can on the uphill (at your own pace) and as soon as the first person reaches the top a whistle is sounded and you make your way down from wherever you get to. Each time you try and make it a little further up before the whistle goes. It’s a really great session and everyone gave it 100% so well done!

After 4 reps of killer work we headed back for a lovely stretch on the green, what a great way to round up the evening!

The worlds friendliest goats made last nights long hot group run of 10km to Horsenden Farm totally worth it!

16 of us headed down to help Friends of Horsenden Hill with weeding and watering and we were rewarded with spending the beautiful summers evening in wonderful outside space surrounded by pigs, chickens and the aforementioned super cute goats (named Gandolf and Badger!).

Why do we GoodGym?!

We started at out by welcoming Becky to her first ever GoodGym run and inspired by last weekends GoodGym Shindig we all went round and said why we came to GoodGym. Answers ranged from ’It forces me to run when I wouldn’t otherwise’ to the best answer from Alex visiting us from Camden (and head office!) who said ’GoodGym has changed my life’. We also had lots of votes for feeling part of and helping the local community!

News this week is:

• GoodGym Slough launches next Monday, can you make it? Sign up here if you can!
• Jenni is still on track to reach 50 good deeds by her birthday on 7th August, sign up for the run here and join the celebrations afterwards!
• If you fancy joining her on the extras group runs just ask on the Whatsapp Group what she has got lined up!

With a long run ahead of us we set straight off sticking in a spaced out group on the way down with the quickest members looping back to regroup. The run was undulating and varied with a mix of quiet roads, parks, bridges, a much appreciated sprinkler through the golf course before a bit more hill work to get over the A40 before arriving at our final destination.

Once inside the grounds it felt very detached from the busy lives we all live in London, a little piece of tranquility and calm were volunteers come to help look after the land and animals. We were met by volunteer Lynda who is part of Friends of Horsenden Hill, they are a group of people who love the area and want others to enjoy and celebrate this wonderful unique place, definitely fitting with our GoodGym ethos.

A world away from London!

The tasks to complete were lots of watering from the recent stretches of warm weather and lots of weeding in the raised beds so the plants and vegetables have space to grow. We rotated the tasks around so everyone got a chance to do a bit of everything including a couple of breaks to pet the amazingly friendly goats and look around the rest of the lovely space on the farm.

Time flew by and between us we managed to give all the trees and beds a good drink and tidy up! Just time for quick group picture (if you look closely there’s a guest in the middle of us!) before heading back in staggered groups back to the start. The quickest left last meaning they could push the pace and chase the rest of us down.

Everyone loved the task and is keen to visit again so we’ll definitely be booking in future do gooding there on upcoming tasks but if you’re interested in getting involved sooner then head over to the Friends Of Horsenden Hill Facebook Page to see how you can get involved. They have a few upcoming open events so keep an eye out on how you can help!

Until next time!