Wednesday 18th July 2018
Report written by Anastasia Hancock (she/her)
1 massive milestone
10 superstar runners
125 bags of woodchip
540 seconds of hardcore circuits
What a night at GoodGym Hounslow! We kicked things off by saying a big well done to Remy and to Beth who smashed the British 10k in some sweltering conditions. Nice work team.
Some exciting news is that on the 1st August Gardener's World want to film little old us at a community garden - if you fancy meeting Monty Don and his lovely dogs, then get yourself down there - details to come!
Perhaps the biggest piece of news of the night though was that our very own Natasha had hit that golden 50 milestone - now that is a huge achievement and shows real commitment to community, doing good and to fitness. Well done Natasha - give her a cheer GoodGym!
It was a muggy old night in Chiswick, so with our bottles of water to hand, we headed outside to warm up further. After a series of high knees, heel flicks and, in Adam's words, other ritual humiliation, we did our headcount and at the same time collectively agreed on Tasha's general loveliness.
There was a mile run ahead of us, so we set off at a nice clip, meeting Kate along the way, and less than ten minutes later we had arrived at Cultivate London. This organisation is an urban farm and social enterprise in West London who train unemployed young people in landscaping and horticulture. We had been there previously to help bag up the world's biggest pile of woodchip, and had only got halfway. This time we were back to finish the job.
Now our previous record had been 120 bags of woodchip, but we had longer that time, and more people. So this was going to be a challenge. With most of us pairing up, we immediately started shoveling and the bag pile started growing. Keeping a tally as we went, and some fast and furious work from the team, the woodchip pile grew smaller and smaller until, finally it was totally bagged up. Absolutely sterling work. And the good news is - drumroll please - our final tally was 125 bags. Smashed it!
We'll be back at Cultivate soon to help out with some other jobs, so waving goodbye to Rosie, we trotted off back to a very yellow Turnham green ready for some circuits. With 9 stations and two options per station, everybody worked hard. Some beautiful dead bugs there, people. All that was left was to nip to the pub to toast Jo's birthday!
Sign up here for next week's dose of do gooding. Until then, hydrate, do good and run happy!
ps Shout out to Beth "sometimes I think in puns" Nelson for today's title!
Hounslow
Help Thames21 to plant 200 bulbs in Isleworth