The GoodGym high rollers got the hob done & it was anything but bog standard!

With the rain bucketing down all day and the Met Office issuing yellow wind weather warnings, amongst injuries (hope you had a RICE rest up this evening) and work, the Task Force and I were slightly trepidatious about the effect of these on numbers tonight. We neededn't have worried as a brilliant and hardy 17 other GoodGym'ers came out to do good and get fit at one of our favourite task locations, the brilliant White City Adventure Playground. Amongst all my wonderful regulars tonight, it was lovely to welcome along Mo for his first H&F group run - hope you enjoyed it and hopefully see you again soon!

Win, news or draw

1. GoodGym Shindig 2019 - weekend of 19th July, in Ironbridge. Register your interest by 21st March.
2. 50th GoodGym Area - later this month the 50th GG area launches & as part of the celebrations all the areas have been tasked with representing their area launch number pictorially with as many people as possible! GG H&F were area no. 24 so next we will be attempting to get creative with 24...ideas welcome!
3. Community Missions - Up for a weekend community mission? No DBS check is required for a community mission.

• Sun 17th March from 10.30am - plogging & some bootcamp in York Gardens, Battersea. Sign up here.
• Sat 6th April from 12pm - help sort food donations for City Harvest in Acton. Sign up here.

AND a big well done to all those that ran either the Thames Meander or Big Half at the weekend - Sapphire, Jonny, Johnny, Sarah, Eloise and Matt - some cracking running and times in those very windy conditions, well done guys and girls!

Wall present and correct

With the name and number count and short pulse-raising number game warm-up completed, we began the 2.5km run up to White City Adventure Playground with Bex expertly back marking. Tonight our luck seemed to be in as the rain had stopped as we set-off and something that was very much a rarity, we didn't get caught by all the traffic lights! En route we had one quick pause to get in our traditional 30-second wall sit (with some taking the word "wall sit" too literally!), wall sit done we headed across the zebra crossing and up to the entrance of White City Adventure Playground.

After a couple of buzzes at the door we were greeted by the ever enthusiatic and appreciative Deputy Manager, Koj. He welcomed us in and briefly explained to the group about the "can do" organisation that is the Play Association and the amazing projects and work they do at White City Adventure Playground - from delivering after school and holiday provision for local children aged 8 to 14 years, to specialising in providing play opportunities for disadvantaged children, and also teaching for children with complex special needs at weekends.

They see us rolling, we painting...

With all the equipment layed out and ready to go, Koj explained the jobs that we would be lending a hand with tonight...yes you guessed it, more painting for the team!!

• Paint the kitchen area - in a coastal glow and grey colour scheme.
• Paint the boys & girls toilets - in two shades of blue for the boys & yellow for the girls, and remove all the toilet tissue balls stuck to the ceiling (spit wads are apparently what they are known as, delighful!).

What was really nice about this task was that it was something that the children's council, which they formed themselves and meet every month, suggested as one of the ways to improve the centre, as well as choosing their own colour schemes for the toilets. Following a quick health and safety briefing the team split into two teams, 'team kitchen' and 'team toilets' and as always quickly and efficiently got armed with paint brushes, masking tape and ladders, and began tackling the tasks at hand.

No laughing ladder, this wasn't for the paint hearted

Within minutes Jonathan was up the ladder and scraping the spit wads from the boys' toilets ceiling, while Sarah, Steph, Eloise and Sapphire began painting the walls blue.

High rollers, without a royal flush

Mo provided a clean sweep of the area outside the toilets before he began the high roller job of painting the mapped walls in a fresh coat of coastal glow.

Yellow, is it GoodGym you're looking for?

Andrew, Bex and Jonny began the white wall transformation in the girls toilets to a nice mellow yellow, with the hand dryer providing an amusing suprise for Bex as she rolled over the dirt underneath.

We got so EMULSIONAL, life is a ROLLERcoaster

Team kitchen: Helen, Tom, Will, Alice, Matt, Catherine and Johnny (rumour is Johnny chose the kitchen as this was the most likely place the biscuits would be!) started by prepping the kitchen walls with masking tape so as to get a nice neat finish. Catherine was also introduced to her biggest fan by Koj, the cooker fan!

Both team kitchen and team toilets did an impressive paint makeover job in just over 40 minutes, with all the walls looking fresher and brighter than before - and we'll be back in a couple of weeks to finish the paint jobs amongst some other environmental jobs in support of the WWF and GoodGym partnership.

Last but squat least...we pushed through to the end

With all the paint pot lids put back on tins and the majority of the brushes and trays cleaned up and left to drain, we 'luckily' had time for quick indoor fitness session. After some incorrect guesses as to what tonight's music based fitness session song was, "Happy" by Pharell was revealed. The challenge was to either squat or do a press-up on the word "Happy" or "Happiness" - with the latter holding the plank position until the phrase was heard in the song. As Tom was going to be away for three weeks he had no choice in the matter, lots of squats for him so that he could fully get his squat fill! The song seemed very much longer than it had done on last listen but everyone did a cracking job and executed their exercises brilliantly, including Koj, great work all!

Before we said our goodbyes and thankyous to Koj, the team posed for a team photo around the GoodGym t-shirt and scrapbook that the children of White City Adventure Playground have been working on, all the photos and previous run reports are in the process of being cut out and pieced together into the scrapbook - such a lovely gesture, we love helping out here!

School runnings

Task, team photo and fitness session completed, we said goodbye to Koj and headed off on our 2.5km run back to base. We all picked up the pace for the latter part and aside from one quick stop for the traffic lights, it wasn't long before we were back at base completing a quick cool down and stretch off. Thank you all for turning out on what threatened to be a pretty wet night, next week we've hopefully got a Two Task Tuesday! We'll be helping out two local schools in the area with some painting jobs, sign up for next week's run here. Have a fab week!