Girl Power Monday - Squats of Fun

Third week in newbie borough Brent and I’m met with an all female crew. What an awesome way to start the week WHO RUN THE WORLD....GIRLS

At 7pm on the nose, we set off sharpish into the bitter cold night, weaving through the back streets of Willesden, with Cricklewood in our sights. Olivia and Bodil, were determined to test the use of the first aid bum-bag this week, by tripping over all exposed tree roots on the paths, “Barking” mad, but laughing all the way to the task.

In no time at all we had arrived at Ashford Place, a community resource center in the heart of Cricklewood, that provides advice and practical support on a wide range of issues including; homelessness.

The users who attend dinner service on a Monday evening are people who are often extremely isolated and alone, living in hostels and some sleeping rough in the borough. The group is also physically inactive and have health concerns as a result. …… Cue GoodGym Brent….

Upon our arrival dinner service was coming to an end and what we could see before us was lots of individuals who had eaten alone, despite being in a room full of people. Our role was clear, lets get this crew moving and talking.

Straight away we had everyone on their feet, first task – “Introduce yourself to someone new” so we did just that, worked our way around the room, shaking hands, learning names, looking into the faces of our new recruits, making every person feel included despite language barriers in some cases. Next task – What’s your favourite…… *colour, *food, *animal

Suddenly the room is filed with shouting and laughter, great we have them on side…..so now we introduce the real task for the night – The 100 challenge, 100 squats, 100 press ups. Gulp……. Are they going to play ball.

Bootcamp style we got to work and to our surprise and delight, every single body in the room joined in and finished for that matter, with smiles on their faces and ours.

We finished the session with a Q&A with our Ashford place peers where we found out interesting facts about each other, this led to us learning that we had an ex sprinter in the midst who would be up for a track session in a few weeks and someone who had dies and come back to life!!! With “Spirits” high, we thanked and said our goodbyes. What was wonderful about this task was that the GoodGym crew literally changed the energy in this room, created a joy and laughter and made every individual feel that they belonged for the brief time we were there.

As swiftly as we had arrived we took to the streets once more and to our surprise were met by none other than our good old pal Pritesh, tipping one in the favour of the male balance ratio, but we welcomed him none the less, like he was one of the girls!! After completing the 4k journey back, we arrived at Willesden in time for track sprints to finish off our night of fun. “Who Run the World…. Girls!!! (& Pritesh of course).

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