STOP! Hammerite time

On a pleasant summer's evening nine of Goodgym's most dedicated runners met in Wanstead to paint railings and ran almost 6km as a reward.

It's a quiet time at our base camp - Wanstead House Community Centre - now that all the regular classes are finished for the year. There's no street dance class. No photography group. And no creative writing. We're all alone. The good news is that the empty house means we can get on with some tasks around the House and make it an even nicer place for people to meet.

Over the past months we have been slowly but surely repainting the metal work around the House. It's a big job as the gates are large and they haven't been repainted in many, many years. We have to strip back all the paint, scrape off the rust and then repaint them. We've made awesome progress and were on the final pair of gates that mark the exit to the grounds.

Armed with two new cans of Hammerite, scapers, wire brushes and paint brushes the team set to work. Peter and James finished off painting the entrance gates with the rest of the gang prepping the exit gates for painting in future weeks. It's hard work and before long the team was building up a sweat. With 45 minutes on the clock tools were packed away and the squad headed off up the high street for Eagle Pond and Epping Forest.

After a 6km run all that was left was a short period of stretching, ably demonstrated by Dharmesh. Nice work team.

It's Bank Holiday Monday next week but we are still running. Make sure to sign up using the link on the top right of this page.