Weeding flowerhouses!

On a perfect evening for running, 8 other GoodGym’ers joined me to run and do good for their community. It was lovely to welcome along Naveed for his first Group Run following his Community Mission last week, and to have GG tourists, my wonderful GG H&F runners, Sarah and Johnny join me for their third group run of the week!

You snooze you news!

1. The GoodGym Olympics is this Saturday at Parliament Hill Athletics Track, if you aren't signed up to compete definitely still come along and support! The events start at 1pm on Saturday. There's also a veg and cake competition! The post-GG Olympics party is at The Vine, details here. Everyone can also get involved with the 1km 'race' known as "The Nationwide race", details here.
2. Next Thursday (8th) is the August GoodGym Social - location TBC!

AND...a big well done to Dave for completing his 50th good deed tonight!

What's squat to like?

We started off with the same warm-up as last week, two coloured tennis balls were passed round the circle and everyone had to complete the corresponding exercises 🎾🎾 - yellow = 5 star jumps and blue = 5 squats. Everyone executed the exercises very well, and only one ball went astray! We finished the warm-up with some high knees and heel flicks and completed the name and number count as we did so - multi-tasking in action! We were now ready and primed ready to run. With Tash kindly backmarking we set off on our run up to a brand new task at Gunnersbury Park.

We headed off at a nice steady pace, pausing briefly to regroup at Acton Park tube station and then again when we got stopped by the traffic lights. It wasn't long before we arrived at Gunnersbury Park.

We fort it would be simple to get in, but it felt like the gate escape!

We entered the park and quickly saw 'North Lodge' where all the wheelbarrows containing the forks, shears, buckets, gloves and sacks were locked away, albeit rather Fort Knox style - two paddlocked gates and two different number combinations! Luckily, we cracked both of them first time...well essentially we used the codes that Chris, the Park Manager had kindly given us.

Orange you glad we had a map!

With the wheelbarrows of equipment for the evening acquired we now had to get The Orangery. We referred back to the handy map that Chris had provided which contained a red 'X' (North Lodge) and blue 'X' (The Orangery) with a green line to indicate the route via the paths. Amazingly, we didn't get lost on our way down the hill, and only one red barrier was temporary moved to allow the wheelbarrows, expertly guided by Johnny and Dave, to pass. As we approached The Orangery we saw some distinct red GoodGym tees, as we got closer we could see it was Alex and Georgia who had come to meet us and provide some extra helping hands.

Go go flower rangers!

Chris had provided some very thorough instructions about what needed weeding this evening, as well as what the main weed in the area was....'Impatiens parviflora'(also known as a small-flowered touch-me-not) yellow flowers with exploding seed heads that pull up very easily! There was absolutely masses of this weed and many other weeds in the area which needed digging up - they all had to go! Wasting no time the team gloved up and set about pulling up all the impatiens parviflora, nettles and digging all the other weeds up at the roots.

GoodGym'ers have no patience parviflora!

In record-breaking time, the first patch of impatients parviflora had all been pulled up and placed into the large white gardening sacks. Johnny and Sarah took the shears and began to attack the next patch of weeds around the path while Alex, Georgia and Naveed tackled another large patch of the impatients parviflora. Tash meticulously eradicated all the weeds from the path and in the gap in the wall, and Remy was very much on a mission to clear ALL the weeds in every single area as she popped up all over the place, pulling and piling the weeds high!

Bags of fun!

After half an hour of hard work we downed tools and called it a night. All that remained was for us to clear away the last few remaining piles of weeds into the bags. Incredibly, 3 massive white sacks were filled with the impatients parviflora and other weeds, and the area was markedly improved and very much weeded out. Check out the transformation below. Very impressive stuff!

All you weed is love

Before we headed back up the hill to North Lodge to return the tools we took a totally unstaged group photo complete with the wheelbarrows, in one of the many spots where the weeds used to be. With the wheelbarrows and tools safely locked away all that was left to complete this evening was the 2.5km run back to base. A speedy pace ensured that it was long before we were back at base and stretching off. Stretches complete we said our goodbyes and headed for home. Great job tonight team!

You'll probably get a task, ANA hard fitness session next week!

Next week, your amazing and lovely trainer, Ana will be back to lead you! Sign up here - sadly the task is now TBC and no longer Ealing Church...keep an eye on the WhatsApp and group run listings for an update. Thank you for having me these past few weeks, it's been absolutely fab! Have a lovely rest of your week and weekend.