17 GoodGymers had a litter Tuesday pick me up as they trashed out a 3km run and litter pick

Tonight we had another rubbish task but were excited to have a Bexcellent GoodGym special guest join us from Edinburgh! Welcome back Bex!

It was also lovely to welcome along, Marc from GoodGym Croydon, thanks for joining us!

Trash in the pan news

With everyone ready and raring to go we headed outside to our intro and warm-up spot, which had been made slightly smaller due to a skip placed in it...who'd do such a thing?!

First up, we congratulated Alice, Lucy and Speedy on completing The Big Half on Sunday 🏅🙌.

1. Race volunteers needed - Volunteer at adidas City Runs: 1 hour - Sunday 5th April and Hackney Half Aid Station Volunteering - Sunday 17th May.

2. Community Missions - Lots of Community Missions happening this weekend! Help sort surplus donations at City Harvest in Acton sign up here. Check out all the other upcoming Community Missions here.

3. Vitality Running World Cup - Represent your Country! First round begins on Thursday 5th March. Read all about it and sign up here. To join the GoodGym Team click here.

A litter bit of improvisation

Having lasted out the intro speech and news as long as I possibly could to ensure all those who were running late 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️ could catch us before we set off, we finally started the warm-up.

We began with some high knees, spotty dogs, Biscuit's favourite and some dynamic stretches - lunges, squats and shooing of the chickens before fore a quick round of the 'number exercise' challenge 1️⃣2️⃣3️⃣4️⃣,

Excellent co-ordination and the ability to tell the left from the right was something we discovered Bex did not possess tonight which very much amused us all (especially me!) 😂. We finished off with some fast feet and headed off on our run.

Matt lead us along the river to The Crabtree Wharf, a beautiful inlet on the River Thames where litter-ally all the floating rubbish washes up and accumulates 🚯. We've found some weird and wonderful things down in this inlet - who can forget the plastic seagull and marine radio from the summer?!

Inlet - "a small arm of the sea, a lake, or a river". Everyone gloved up 🧤 and carefully made their way over the brick wall into the inlet. Upon first look the inlet didn't look too bad, well certainly not as bad as we've seen it previously! Fingers crossed this was down to people littering less and recycling more ♻️, or even better, using less plastics.

Spotted first up by Biscuits was a can of 'Rich Matt' paint which of course we got Matt to pose with, alongside Eloise. Mary, Cookie, Francesca, Marc and Biscuits efficiently combed through the overgrowth and space on the right-hand side of the inlet gathering up handfuls of balls, wrappers, bottles and bottle tops amongst other litter.

Sticks turned into fishing rods for Lucy and 'taller' Beth as they went fishing for litter. Shoes, balls aplenty and a contact lens to make a pair were safely rescued from the river and bagged up, and even more surprisingly, Lucy didn't fall in! 😉

Yucky slushy mud was no match for the team as they worked their way around their inlet. Brambles however, now they were a slightly trickier challenge with many getting caught in their spikes! This week's 'bag lady' was Arba as she held out her bin bag for everyone with handfuls of litter, posing triumphantly.

Out closer to the river, Rowena, Alice, Tom and Bex worked diligently to gather all the litter that had gathered in and around the tree roots, while Speedy carried and opened his bin bag to perfection and ensured no litter was dropped. With 4 bin bags filled and time ticking, we called it a night.

Under the tree of the inlet, beautifully lit by the street light and floodlight, Mo took charge of the artistic direction for the team photo tonight. "Oh it's lovely that!". Another top photo taken by the camera pro, Mo 📸 👌. The team then headed out of the inlet back over the wall, with 'taller' Beth wonderfully styling out a slight slip!

Bin bags were all responsibly disposed off in the industrial sized bins 🚮 before we began our short run back to base, 'the long way' along Fulham Palace Road.

Everyone seemed to pick-up the pace on the run back and we were all back at base in super quick time! Was it the 3-letter word of pub spurring us on I wonder 🤔. Back at base we had a stretch off before heading to the Hop Poles, or home!

Xtremely good work tonight team! You're litter-ally the best! 🙌 Thank you all for coming along.

Next week we're heading back to John Betts Primary to help label the library books and other jobs in and aroudn the school! Sign up for next week's run here. Have a great rest of your week and weekend! 😃 See you next week!

Unless you're heading back to Edinburgh 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿...