A good-sized group!

What a turnout for our last group run of 2018! A great sized group of us made our way at a speedy pace to our favourite city farm just over a mile away from our hotel meeting point.

Ha y & herding

On arrival, task owner Tom wasted no time in telling the team what was expected: mucking out the goat pen and herding goats. As you would expect in the middle of East London. And what fun it was.

The teams completed tasks ahead of time as usual, and so proceeded to the second pen to do the same all over again. Floors were swept, bins emptied, hay wheeled and piled high into compost bays, goats herded (sort of - they did nearly escape despite being surrounded by 28 runners. #YouHadOneJob).

We were all soon gathering for tonight's fitness session, The Great GoodGym Glute Off, where Chi and I led the runners through a fine selection of glute exercises leaving no buttock area untouched. The runners performed amazingly, none more so than Alfie, who effortlessly whizzed through speedy reps of pistol squats putting even the most decent of our infinitely shallow-er single leg squats to shame.

And then we congregated in the barn where Tom suggested a nice position on a neighbouring ledge, the other side of the stable, for he & I to take a couple of pics. After some nail-biting gate-climbing, we were soon perched on, well, the wall, it seemed, but we got some good pics.

We then promptly said our cheerios and headed back to the hotel, where Chi had brilliantly brought a selection of some of the finest spirits for us to savour alongside Sarah's delicious mince pies.

This week’s shout-outs

So a great big hello, and welcome, to Pistol Squat King Alfie,whose first GG run it was, and a massive hello to Debs and Paul, who joined us while visiting from Bristol. Lovely to see you both.

Thanks to Chi for delivering a fab fitness session, and for organising and supplying the most post-fitness fun we’ve had in a long time.

Thanks to Leanne for backmarking this evening, and a big thank you to everyone who brought food and snacks for tonight’s social.

And so to 2019

...when we'll be kicking off the New Year with a brand new task! Details are here.

Until then, have the happiest of Christmases, a wonderful rest, and I really hope to see you in the New Year.

Back to school

It was a task-with-a-difference this evening as 31 of us headed off to the Royal London to undertake some intensive training, under the care of fabulous task owners Nancy and Richard of Barts Volunteers.

Preparing to head onto the wards...

We've enjoyed a few tasks at the hospital over the last few months and so with runners previously expressing a desire to visit patients on the wards, Nancy and her team arranged for us to participate in an evening's training at the hospital's Education Academy. The training covered not only the logistics and health & safety aspects of going onto the wards, it also gave us an insight into what's involved when visiting wards which treat patients suffering with dementia.

No sooner had we arrived at the hospital, were we all seated on benches in the lecture theatre, and learning about what goes on inside the Trust, and watching invaluable and moving footage of a hospital experience through the eyes of a dementia sufferer. The runners became absorbed in the training and engaged well - well done as usual, team!

Nancy also took this opportunity to thank the runners for previous work undertaken at the hospital, explaining that the litter-picking and gardening previously blitzed by Good Gymers in the hospital's John Harrison garden had been really well maintained, and, Nancy felt, had contributed to an improved perception of the hospital's green space, leading to less litter being deposited. What a thing to hear! What a thing to be responsible for! Another well done, team.

Greyhound and hare-ing it back to base

And then a brief hour later, we were heading back to base, playing our favourite greyhound-and-hare game, with Danny leading the greyhounds who caught us up at...the first set of lights, before co-hosting the stretching session with Leanne.

It was a really great night, and we look forward to returning next week to pick up where we left off.

A record number of first time runners!

And what a fabulous number of new runners joined us tonight! A big hello and welcome to our 8 first time GG runners: Hannah, Jess, Pippa, Lynda, Sarah, Sian, Sean, Sophie and Cath (new to TH but not to GG).

Monday night medalists

Tonight's Group Run thank-you's go to: Leanne and Lisa for back-marking; Leanne and Danny for leading our post-run stretching session (great job!); Danny for leading the greyhound runners, and to Joel for this week's perfect pun.

Come and join in next week! (even if you didn't come this evening)

Next week we're returning to the hospital for Week 2 - but if you didn't attend this evening's training - don't worry, there'll be tasks available for you to do that don't require training!