Team Brent bagged it at Ashford Place!

Ten jewels in the Brent crown braved the unpredictable weather (Storm Angus will have to do better than that to stop this bunch doing good!!!) to run to Ashford Place, London's first 24-hour shelter for the homeless dedicated to promoting inclusion and reducing isolation.

We were delighted to see a rather more hirsute Dan back in the ranks after a break and a brief foray into GoodGym Barnett - but we forgave him ;-P... especially as he's been busy growing a Movember moustache, good for you Dan, keep it up! We also welcomed Fausto back to the fold after a few months' break, and long-standing and newer runners, Elisa, Tania, Deborah, Tabitha, Enrique, Clare Mouse, Mel, and cover run leader Claireybell.

Our friendly group managed to recruit two more runners for next week's run before we even left our base at the Queensbury pub, good work guys!

We managed to tear ourselves away from the glowing pub fire and out into the night (which wasn't as cold as it looked from indoors!), leaping over puddles and piles of wet leaves like sprightly pixies to avoid soggy socks and squelchy shoes.

After a short run and a quick stretch, we arrived at Ashford Place where Alan met us and explained what he wanted us to do, opening the door to a room bursting with bags of donations and furniture - our task - to make it look "different"... So we rolled up our sleeves and hauled out bags and bags of clothes, bedding and toiletries, sorted, re-bagged, and labelled, a jumble of chaos into an orderly oasis of organisation and calm - it was one of those jobs that you would put off forever if you had to do it on your own as it would have taken 2 days, but ...

with ten pairs of hands, we had it done in about 20 minutes!

We still had time to fit in a run to Gladstone Park where we set to some tempo runs cleverly disguised as a game... we ran a loop of the park in single file, with the person at the back having to accelerate to make it up to the front of the pack again, the person at the front setting the pace - there was definitely some healthy competition going on with Deborah and Tabitha leaving us in the dust as they vied for the lead. We finished off with some cool down stretches and a jog back up the hill to base again.

A quick reminder, if you are interested in coming to a GG Brent Christmas meal and/or drinks (no run involved, lycra and high-viz optional, name badges will be provided for identification purposes...), there is a doodle poll on GoodGym Brent's Facebook page, we will confirm the date by the end of this week.

Well done guys, keep shining your light around Brent and beyond!