Eighteen wonderful Westminster GoodGymmers ran 7km tonight to help One Big Family Victoria, a brilliant charity for homeless people here in Westminster.

We gathered in our usual spot at New Balance Oxford Street with an incredible 6 (SIX) first time runners. Michelle, Aoife, Sam, James, Olivia and Rhys. Incredible. Sam even brought her documents ready for checking.

It was also Gabrielle's 50th good deed!! Amazing. A black t-shirt will be on it's way to you. Make sure you give her a cheer!

After a quick brief for our newbies, we had a short warm up and number circle before setting off.

It's a longer run than usual down to Victoria, so we tried to keep a good pace. A tricky thing to do down New Bond Street, Piccadilly, and Green Park, but our team did brilliantly and we arrived at our destination exactly on time.

One Big Family Victoria are using a basement youth club to do their work, so we all filed in and Mike was there to give us our instructions. The majority of our team, 11, helped in the kitchen. Here they formed a production line to spread margarine (or jam for a vegetarian option), grate cheese, put sandwiches together with ham, then bag them separately for the people the charity will be helping. We also had runners on breakfast duty, bagging pastries. Once all that was done, the runners speedily turned to slicing some delicious looking and enormous cake before bagging those up too.

The rest of the team helped in the main room. This involved filling the large water heaters ready for teas and coffees, and sorting through a variety of donated clothes to separate the most useful items and also divide into genders. Bizarre t-shirt slogans aside (and not all suitable for sharing), the work passed quickly and soon there were large neatly folded piles of clothes ready to be handed out.

25 minutes passed rapidly before we tidied up and filed out. Our task leaders were delighted with everyone's efforts, which save the volunteers loads of time.

From there, I led the group back to base, with Nina kindly back marking. On the way we made a brief stop for some extra running in Green Park. Using the lamp posts as markers, the runners could either do some interval running, or versions of progressive running over a 300 meter (ish!) stretch. Everyone upped their pace brilliantly and we made sure we caught our breath at the top for a moment or two. From there it was a quick run back to base. After a stretch and a round of applause we were done.

Well done everyone and I hope to see you all again soon.

14 GoodGymers ran 7k around Central London to do as much good as we could.

After our task had cancelled w had to make the most of the warm evening so embarked on something a little different!!

After welcoming to the fold our amazing GoodGym first timers we went through the Good List!!.

On the list we were challenged to do as many of the following as we could in 90 action packed Westminster minutes!!

~1 piece of rubbish per k run ~Speak to 2 homeless people ~Help 1 out of towner with local knowledge. ~Make someone smile ~High five/ fist bump 10 people ~100 lunges ~50 press ups ~50 squats ~5 minutes of planks

We set off with purpose racking up high fives straight out the store on our sightseeing tour around town. After a nice warm up we got to Green Park where we mobilised then lower body and core stabilised with a eclectic range of lunges, planks and skips not to mention a few press ups!

With our body turned we went to help out some out of towners outside Buckingham Palace by Creating a GG photo both, then taking pictures for everyone who wanted, plus some helpful London walking directions!! Creating a lot of smiling happy faces!!

Rounding into St James Park we got little picking clearing up the streets nicely. After a little debate about the Churchill War rooms we replaced the now silent Big Ben Bells with some singing and a big Bong!!

Heading into the River Thames we litter picked, created a finishing line ribbon that turned into a limbo pole, and powered through to Embankment where we hammered out a the second half of the physical challenge, planking, squatting, and press upping the reps away!

A burst along the Strand, Trafalgar Square and dropping some serious pace is up St James's brought us back to base having completed our task to spread the GoodGym love and get fit in the process!!

After a lover key drama 7 of us headed out to Chipotle for a very well deserved refuel and said a sad Goodbye to Ruth and Felicity as they head off on there next adventures!! Thank you both for your energy and enthusiasm every Wednesday!!

I am away next week, Damien will be leading the charge to One Big Family homeless charity!

See you in a couple

Smooth Running

Joel

12 all action GoodGymers ran 5k to the Oasis Community garden to help aid the gardens growing process!

We got the payoff this week after battling through the torrential rain of a week ago we were greeted with a beautiful summers evening.

We were joined by GoodGym first timers Lewis and David welcome onboard look forward to seeing you on many more group runs to come!

With everything in order we go down to business with a 2.5k loop out avoiding as much of the Wednesday evening Central London footfall as possible. But the Green man was not our friend and we played a bit of a game of how many lights could we hit on 1 run. Depending on how you look at it think we hit a perfect score!

Arriving at the Oasis community garden with bated breath as to weather the tap was going to work or would we with filling up watering cans from the outdoor showers! Luckily not only was the tap fixed but a new shiny nozzle was in place to aid the process.

Grabbing watering cans, randomly heavy buckets and even a washing up bowl we got to work giving the amazing flower, vegetable, and herbs a really good drenching! Great to see the garden thriving this summer, With so many things bearing fruit to be used in the local community.

We also had Howard and Ruth giving the garden a real good tidy, sweeping and clearing everything in sight. With 25 minutes of action the garden was looking well fed and totally on point!

So on the request on Emily we ran up to Bedford square for 15 minutes of circuit training. Reading between the lines of what Emily said I could tell she wanted an intense Circuit Blast!! hopefully I didn't disappoint!! 4 stations of fury hitting up every body part, strength, stamina, coordination and balance all being tested with a plethora of exercises!

With a great effort by all dominating with super enthusiasm, athleticism and honing our techniques in the process! Fitness was certainly increased in Westminster!!

Heading back on the longer loop back to base and finishing with the ever important static stretches only left to remind everyone at next weeks post Group Run Burrito 🌯 Social unfortunately it is to say Goodbye to GoodGym Westminster regular Ruth as she heads up North for her next Adventure! Would be great to have you all along for a chat, drink and refuelling bite to eat!

Have a great week

Smooth Running

Joel

7 energy filled GoodGymers smashed out 7.5k of running plus 2.5k of walking to deliver 250 leaflets for the charity Open Age!

After a brutal downpour during the day only the fearless remained!! Welcoming along 2 GoodGym newbies Neil and Adam for their first of many sessions with Red Thunder!!

Nipping and ducking away from as much of the Central London foot traffic as possible on out nearly 4K run out to the very North West of the borough.

Once we were there we divided out the plentiful leaflets to promote a multitude of free physical activities for the over 50's in Westminster. We then got Speed posting! Mainly in pairs and using the patented leapfrog technique we zoomed up the streets delivering to the houses/flats at hyper speed!

Loads of great chat and fun vibes talking about the world, training, running and GoodGym!

With a final sprint finish we had completed our mission!! Delivering 250 leaflets in 40 minutes of breath taking accurate action!

All that was left to do after a running group selfie was to amp up the pace for speedy run back to base! Zipping down Harley Street to finish the evening before we stretched out and headed off with a top task complete!!

Hope to see you all again next week! We are off to prepare the food for One Big Family homeless charity. Sign up and come along!!

Smooth Running

Joel

13 GoodGymers ran 5.5k to St Andrews Youth Club to have a bit of fun playing a few games with the youth Clubs summer scholars.

A muggy Wednesday greeted us at the New Balance store where we welcomed 4 new faces to GoodGym fold Natalie and our American friends Juliette, Eric and Adamon last day of the UK visit!

Wanting to give a little running tour we took in an extended 3k notching up a couple of Royal Parks and zipping past Buckingham Palace on our way to St Andrews.

After all our hard work over the first half of the year Adrian wanted to reward us with an activity session to show us what our hard work helps to create!

So we split up into groups and had a go at Table Tennis, cake decorating and Kin Ball.

Kin Ball kind of took over the evening it was a cross between Basketball, Volleyball and Football and it got loud, hot and intense competition.

We struggled early to get to grips with the passion and numbers of the St Andrews team not to mention falling very short compared to their dancing skills! But we gradually brought in the rest of our squad once the cake decorating and table tennis was complete. Once we were at full strength we got really stuck in and a titanic battle ensued!! The points ebbed and flowed we even mixed up the teams for a bit before returning to GG vs St Andrews for the final 10 minutes of all out effort!

No idea who won but I do know everyone in that hall had a great time!! Great to see young people having such a great time and being able express themselves.

Already looking forward to our Christmas time rematch!!

After a crazy workout with so much jumping, running throwing we took the direct route back to base with a smile on everyone's face!

All stretched out and ready to roll by 8 on the dot, hope to see you all again next week!

Have a great week

Smooth Running

Joel

P.S I forgot the amazing puns from the run back sorry!!

9 energised GoodGymers ran 5k to work our magic on the Green Gym community garden.

Perfect conditions brought yoga magnificent group for the evenings fitness action!

Heading off on our crowd avoiding detour taking in some central London back streets on our 2.5k loop. Reaching the Oasis nice and swiftly we grabbed the watering cans and headed to fill with water but we had a mechanical problem and no outside tap was available! Undeterred we improvised and filled the cans and buckets from the outside showers 🚿.

Amazing to see so much growing has been going on in the last month with courgettes, carrots, sunflowers blooming big time and probably most impressively a large grape vine with bunches of grapes everywhere.

With the watering going well we started the tidy up getting the beds and surroundings looking immaculate with some ninja sweeping!

After 25 action packed minutes we were off to increase the fitness!

A little rewarm over to Bedford Square where we Will had chosen some key body parts to work on!! We crushed 15 minutes of high intensity circuits, smashing out any number of lunge variation to go with some powerful plyometric squats to focus on the Glutes then finishing off the circuit by running down the pyramid with some High fiving partner press ups.

With our legs singing we kept a steady running flow back to base where we stretched out before heading off into the night!

Be great to see you next week when we visit St Andrews youth Club!!

Have a great week!

Smooth Running

Joel

14 sunshine drenched GoodGymers ran 7k to One Big Family homeless charity to prepare the food for the evenings homeless food run.

A glorious sunny evening caught many of us out with our running clothing so very handy to have the New Balance sale in full swing and many of the squad to full advantage!!

Heading out on out sight seeing tour of central London taking in Oxford Street, Mayfair, Green Park, Liz's house, Victoria and finally 3.5k later Ebury Youth Club!

Splitting up into groups we had the strong guns collecting water, while the sweet toothers tested their will power by bagging countless pastry's, doughnuts, apple pies, rhubarb pies, muffins and my favourite Cinnamon (don't) share buns.

While the cake slicers got sensory overload as the chopped up the most amazing smelling cakes in manageable pieces.

Great to see this tiny charity doing so well!! When we fist started visiting them there was minimal food and now the donations are huge allowing them to reach a much greater number of Westminsters homeless community!!

35 minutes of bagging action and we had cake mountains on the table tennis table to go with some pre packaged sandwiches and water.

Great team effort and even finishing in enough time to clean up our work stations!

With a job well done we headed off at a quicker pace flying up to Liz's house at a great pace really working at a speedy rhythm!

After a huge royal flyby with any number of dignitaries driving into the palace delaying our progress we decided to feed our legs some speed!! Hammering up the 600m Green Park drag we everyone feeling the satisfaction of the legendary gate touch!

A short jog back to base and stretch out had us done for the evening!

Thank you all for coming along and home to see you again next week when we visit Oasis Community garden to help keep the fruit, vegetables and herbs going. Sign up and come along!

Have a great week

Smooth Running

Joel