Always lead the fine sprint!

Last night the Hounslow team was all ready to help out again at the lovely Ealing Baptist Church, where the pastor, Roger, sets up a homeless shelter every week. Unfortunately Roger was unwell, so we had a last minute change of plan.

That didn't stop five GGers meeting Chiswick's Town Hall as usual, after a great weekend of running. Not content with nailing a Saturday Park Run, Dave also managed a 10k on Sunday. Great work! Donna bossed the Hampstead Park Run - and tells us that the temporary course has less 'undulations' at the moment, so if you're a first timer to the usually hilly course, now's your chance to try it!

There was a little bit of housekeeping to take care of first -

Don't forget the monthly GoodGym social, taking place TONIGHT in Croydon - help the group there celebrate their first birthday! https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/gg-monthly-social-on-tour-croydon

It's the GOODGYM OLYMPICS - are you more of a super sprinter or a welly wanger? Sign up here: https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/goodgym-olympics

Inspired by the amazing scenes from last week's London Marathon? Enter the ballot before Friday, you might get lucky! https://www.virginmoneylondonmarathon.com/en-gb/how-to-enter/ballot-entry/

There's a Hounslow mission this weekend, if you're about and want to do some good - and why wouldn't you - then you can sign up here:

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/help-mr-g-tidy-the-garden-and-walkway

With all that taken care of we took ourselves off for some warm ups, and found out everybody's favourite food - turns out pizza, pasta, chocolate and curry were all top choices, with one healthy option of tuna. Our bellies rumbling, we set off in the direction of Turnham Green to deliver some flyers for the upcoming Hounslow Youth Games . The London Youth Games is Europe's largest youth sports festival, and did you know that Hounslow has produced some sparkling young athletes? In fact, none other than our very own Mo Farah has represented the borough at the Games, as well as US Open badminton winner Rajiv Ouseph and 2006 World triathlon champion Tim Don. So we were in very good company as we spread the word last night, and got a good workout sprinting between the houses as we did so.

If that wasn't enough sprinting, after we had got rid of all our leaflets, we jogged over the park to take on the bleep test challenge. The idea is that you get progressively faster over 20 metres as the beeps grow closer together. It didn't help that last night it was a little bit damp so we had to slow down at the turns, but there were still some impressive performances from you guys. Special shout out to Andy who managed to hold on the longest. It's such a bleeping tough test, but a great exercise in pacing as well as being a fantastic speed session.

We took a nice run back to the Town Hall, with Claudia and Ana back marking, where we scouted around for a room to do some core exercises - after negotiating the building's maze of corridors and getting an extra work out on the stairs, we found ourselves a nice bit of carpet to do a abs blast - with 30 seconds of three different core exercises at a time. It was a toughie ("anything but Russian twists")! All that was left, after we had caught our breath, was to stretch it out. More next week! Sign up here:

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/helping-out-in-hounslow-plus-getting-fit