17 amazing GoodGymers ran 4k to help Rhythms of Life homeless charity.

A busy and bright Central London evening met is this week. We were on the charge to Rhythms of Life this week to continue the help with their recent move to their new home on Oxford Street.

Running a seemingly counter productive route to get us a little distance in the legs as a warm up for the task ahead. Looping up and around Harley street to avoid the irrepressible Oxford Street foot traffic. We made steady progress to the Rhythms of Life HQ.

Meeting Ali this week we had a mini introduction before breaking off into small groups to battle the tasks ahead!

Starting off by lifting and manoeuvring a fridge, a freezer and a shelving unit up and down multiple flights of stairs to find a new home in the rooms that were getting renovated.

Then laying the carpet tiles on the room we stripped bare last week we new black tiles made a huge turn around in 2 visits.

With all that complete we got stuck into the main task of the evening, painting!! Arming ourselves with as may painting instruments as possible we got painting!! Working with the standard colour combination of Lilac and grey we rolled our way to success expertly painting the room to bring some colour and flair to the refurbished room. A last minute expert cut in of the high and low areas finished off a great and almost artistic task.

A slightly shorter running route back to base plus a stretch out and we were away with an excellent Group run complete.

Next week we will be helping Open Age charity encourage more older people in Westminster to be active and social. See you there!

Smooth Running

Joel

14 tip Top Westminster GoodGymers ran 3k to help Rhythms of Life homeless Charity renovate their new building.

Will only a very short 400 metres standing between our starting location and our task destination this week we had to get a little artistic with our route to get in a few K’s in.

Literally running away from the task we run a nice pretty quite Loop to Rhythms of Life new building and got stuck right in!

Navigating the maze of floors and rooms we first carried a room full full of old floor tiles from the 2nd floor to the 5th floor store room.

We then got to grips we the renovation of a new meeting room. But clearing out 3 big shelving units, a huge table, 10 big bags full of rubbish and 4 sets of draws!!

With the room empty we managed to rip up the floor tiles, take them up to the 5th floor store and hoover the room out! Phew!!

With a few minutes to play with we carried the new black floor tiles from the 5th floor store down to the new meeting room so that everything is ready to be laid after a lick of paint!

Bursting out of the building after a very physical carrying and stair climbing task we modified the route back to base with a top task under our belts!

We will be back to Rhythms of Life next week to carrying on the renovation, so please come along for another action packed session!

Andrew the task owner called me to thank you all for your hard work and apologise for not catching up with us before we left.

Have a great week

Smooth Running

Joel

Another Monday night in Wandsworth, another chance to meet up with some ace people, make a real difference in the community and to knock out a few planks.

And it was a extra special one because we celebrated the 50th good deed of one Ms Morag - that's a huge amount of doing good and commitment to others. Way to go!

Hannah, Karen, Zoe, Emily, Hannah and Charlotte all came for their first GoodGym run last night - people, give them a massive cheer!

Before our task tonight we popped outside to knock out a warm up which fired up our muscles and got us thinking about coordination and balance ahead of the run. We also did a quick poll to find out which object we simply could not live with out. It quickly became apparent that food and drink topped the list (with beer, wine, cheese and peanut butter the hot favs) and as well as our indispensable phone, Helen's hugs, and trainers, we had a very sweet moment from one corner of the group who decided they could not manage without eachother. Ahh!

Our job tonight was at Bramford Community Garden, which is managed by volunteers and especially Sha - a tireless lady who can often be found gardening into the night with the aid of a headtorch in order to make the garden a nice place for everybody to be. So, after a 2.5 km run down there we found her waiting for us with gloves and a list of jobs.

While a big group got stuck into picking up the many, many cigarette butts (non-biodegradable!) and scraps of plastic around the garden, a few people used troughs to fetch water from across the road for the desperate trees and plants. Other jobs included crushing cans for recycling - universally agreed to be a great stress reliever and perfect for a Monday!

After half an hour of hard work, we got stuck into our fitness session, which last night focussed on conditioning exercises for three main parts of our body - arms, legs and core. Many press ups, plié squats, planks and bridge lifts later we left the garden behind and made our way back to the BAC. Great work everybody!

Next week is a bank holiday, but we will still be running to a local rooftop garden. What better way to spend it?! Sign up here to do good and get fit on your day off [https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/lending-a-hand-at-rooftop-community-garden]!

25 energetic GoodGymers ran up to 6.5k to help the Oasis Community Garden.

A great turn out in Westminster this week!! Great to have you all along for such a fun session!

Starting off with an adventurous run to the Task with seemingly many variations of routes taken and much discussion on how everyone got there.

With so many helping hands we made short work of the last of our Gardening tasks at the Oasis Garden for the summer! Watering and dead heading with a bit of sweeping thrown in for good measure!

With a bit of time left we packed away the watering cans and headed off to Bedford Square for some all action circuits!! Smashing out tag team return running laps, core conditioning and some big time leg strength exercises!

A short run back a stretch out and we were away!!

Hope to see you all next week!!

Smooth Running

Joel