33 GoodGymers ran between 3-6km, made beds for the homeless and helped Skip Garden!

Thanks and welcome to all the new people that came this week; Chloe, Pierre, Enrica, Joanna, Marium and Emma. We also had a photographer and journalist from Runaway Mag, article and pictures to be released soon.

In the news this week:

1. Tom Benson is organising the GG race team monthly time trial on Sunday in Victoria Park if you want to take part. Full details here.
2. Next week is the GG monthly social, we're on tour down to Lewisham. More details here, it's gonna be good!
3. The BIGGEST TASK of the year is next week helping Grounded Ecotherapy lift and carry cement mix at the Southbank Centre on the Thames. SIGN UP HERE

C4WS Task by Frances:

Frances and Pritesh led 15 GoodGymers back to C4WS to help them make beds for the homeless shelter. It's a quick and simple job for us, but a great help to the volunteers organising the shelter.

Quick & simple

Most of the people in the group were either new to GoodGym, new to the homeless shelter, or in Axel’s case, new to making beds. Everyone got stuck in and made the beds in super-speedy time before we headed over to Granary Square to meet the others – ready for the Time Trial!

Skip Garden Task:

Fifteen of us headed to Skip Garden near Granary Square to help Global Generation. Our tasks this time:

1. Moving planters, pots, tables and bags of soil around the garden. This was like a massive game of jenga.
2. Turn the compost machine and sieve the contents to use as mulch in the garden.

We split into teams, got lots done and rotated the teams - well done everyone! After finishing our 'tasking' Gwen explained about Skip Garden and Global Generation the charity who runs it, here is some of what we found out:

• Existed for 12 years across four different sites in Kings Cross
• The team work with young people in the community to educate them on alternative living
• They keep bees who make lovely honey & there is a HONEY CLUB
• Also they keep chickens who provide lovely eggs for the cafe :)

Fitness:

First off we did a series of strength and conditioning exercises, including squats, press ups, tricep dips and plenty more. We mixed this up with some intervals and balancing exercises.

90 degree angle PLEASE

With both groups now combined we moved onto arm technique. When running your arms are as important as your legs, they are vital for efficiency and power. So to develop our arm technique we got into pairs and practised powering our arms at a 90 degree angle, have an open chest and no crossing of the arms!

Next we moved onto our monthly Time Trial - 880 metres around Granary Square. Everyone did brilliantly! Nice arms! I have a record of everyone's time, if you would like yours please just let me know. I'll be keeping an eye on times over the coming trials and I can keep you updated on your progress.

Sign up for next week here, we are breaking out of Camden and heading to the Southbank Centre to help Grounded Ecotherapy. It's a fantastic task,a really great charity and a big workout - come along and tell your mates too - it'll be a great intro to GoodGym for them!

PB out.

Four of us paid another visit to Ealing Road Baptist Church last night. After a 2.5k jog we met with Roger outside the premises who was wearing a new hat and explained how his wife often hides the hats of his that she doesn't like. I don't know why I included this in the report, it just seems funny :-D

So, to work...

Graham and Alicia set about emptying two large cupboards of various tinned food, packets of pasta, biscuits, tea, a dodgy perfume set and some strange biscuit/cream cheese combination that looked a bit scary.

While at the same time Andy and Simon carried some chairs upstairs and then organised a bookshelf.

As usual we got loads done in a short space of time and had a little while for Roger to offer us various items of food that were unsuitable for the food bank, such as out-of-date mince pies, which we sampled for a bit of fuelling for the journey back.

On the way home we stopped for a mini "leg-buster" challenge. A short lunge walk, followed by five squat jumps up and down a kerb and then repeat twice more. Gets you to just about the point where you don't want to walk any more. Ow.

That's it, I'm off now. Thanks for having me GoodGym Hounslow. It has been great fun and I'll see you at Gunnersbury parkrun on the 4th March

Ana from Wandsworth is taking over next week. Sign up here

Simon

Ten GoodGym Haringey runners new and old went to Chicken Town after our final run of 2016, with Dave definitely winning Best Dressed in his sequinned Santa hat. Though Olli came a close second with a cracker of a moustache (see the photos)....

Varon had already taken off on his Christmas holiday but his presence was felt as he had left a card and a stack of our Haringey Time Credits in the restaurant. Chicken Town are hosting a free dinner for disadvantaged local people so we decided to donate the rest of our time credits to people attending the dinner (after distributing the bulk of them to four local organisations).

Crackers were pulled, bad jokes were told, Christmas plans discussed, and the fortune telling fish told us all we are independent and fickle.

Have a happy Christmas and New Year everyone and see you all on our first group run of 2017!

ps thanks to Olli for the pun!

On the last run of 2016, 6 intrepid runners ventured all over Southwark to deliver Christmas leaflets for Time and Talents.

Despite Christmas Party season being well underway and, supposedly, half of London out boozing, we met up at Old Spike anyway. A quick check: one cold and one hangover but lots of enthusiasm between us all.

We were leafleting for Time & Talents, a brilliant community organisation based in Rotherhithe, who run projects for vulnerable people with high levels of need in the area and building a strong community with all of their amazing activities. Jemma gave us the leaflets with a giant hug of gratitude so it was ace to do a task that meant so much to an organisation as our last task of the year.

We had a group who ran the longer route to deliver up to Russia Docks Road Estate and around - an epic effort given that the hangover and illness resided in this group. They totalled an incredible 13.5km GoodGym run...

Superhero Christmas Elves

The second group still totalled an impressive 8.5km around Southwark Park Road and got to admire all of the pretty Christmas wreaths and the view of London's skyline from some of the higher blocks.

Given that it was 14th December, we all arrived back very sweaty but pleased with our efforts. A quick stretch off and then it was off The Rye Pub for our Christmas social. Not so raucous as the Big GoodGym one but a time to be grateful for a wonderful year or running, volunteering and making new friends.

GoodGym Southwark Runners: you rock

xxx

An amazing 23 GoodGymers ran between 4-10km, delivered 150 leaflets for Abbey Community Centre and shifted two tons of gravel for Skip Garden!

Welcome along to Sian and Harriet whose first time it was at GoodGym, great to have you along and seeing you get stuck in!

In the news this week: 1. Well done to all the Regent's Park 10k-ers and Tom Benson for doing the Grim last weekend! Some amazing PBs, first-timers and mud in there! 2. There is the GG London Christmas Party tomorrow and the GG Camden Christmas Party next Wednesday, we are planning to go for a meal after the group run next week. Please sign up by tomorrow so we can book a table. 3. Tom Benson and GG Race Team are organising the first monthly time trial at Battersea Park on Sunday! It's gonna be great! Sign up here

Onto the reports from last night. Skip Garden report below:

After an active warm up 12 of us headed to Skip Garden, which is managed by Global Generation, to help shift 2 tons of (not so pea) gravel around the garden.

Not pea gravel, bean gravel?

Gwen from Skip Garden explained the task and the need for the gravel to be spread over the garden in preparation for their FIRE FEAST this Friday. We particularly had to focus on the entrance, between the skips and around some of the buildings. We split into the following teams - shovellers, lifters and rakers!

Everyone got really stuck in and we were done after 30 minutes of shovel, carry, rake, repeat! Before leaving Gwen explained the amazing work Global Generation do with providing projects for children and an alternative perspective of life in the middle of King's Cross.

Onto to the fitness session, it went something like this:

1. Progression run around Granary 'Rectangle'
2. Three conditioning exercises using the benches
3. Interval run around the fountains
4. Two balancing exercises that engage the glutes
5. Final progression run around Granary 'Rectangle'

Abbey Community Centre report by Pritesh:

On the penultimate GoodGym Camden of 2016 we headed up to one of our favourite places – Abbey Community Centre. Close to the outskirts of Camden borough, ten of us headed out knowing we’d get 10k under our belts tonight and we were going to a party too!

We took our usual route heading over primrose hill, stopped for a breather and took in the view and made it with good time to the centre! Abbey were having their volunteer Christmas party and amid many offers of snacks, water and other more ‘fun’ drinks we found Laura who had our task ready for us! We had 150 leaflets to deliver to a local estate letting them know of the upcoming activities for 2017. We decided we would head on our way and get the task done before we partook in any merriment

Party!

Steve had leafleted on the Rowley Way estate previously so he told us the best way to go about getting the leaflets out and we split into pairs and were off. It didn’t take us long to get them all delivered and after a few photos (including in front of the best Christmas display ever!) we headed back to the community centre.

Christmas display

One of the community centre volunteers told us how much of a difference the work we did for them and that they had seen a number of new faces at the centre since we had helped with some leafleting drives previously – so good to get feedback and to know that we are making a difference.

We had a bit of time so took in some refreshments and then headed back to base! Excellent night and a pleasure to lead as always.

Thanks to everyone that came, next week is the last GG Camden of the year and our Christmas meal, sign up here.

PB out.

14 run to Cheviot nursing home to clear more leaves It was a crisp cold November evening, and having returned from the Cyprus International 4 day challenge the night before, I really felt the cold! (Who am I kidding, I always feel the cold, even in August!).

Still, merry enthusiastic goodgymers met at LeisureWorld for our usual Wednesday evening do-gooding. Tav finally had his t-shirt. And Deb joined us from Goodgym Bristol! She's on tour, and this run was her 50th Good deed, so well done Deb, and you're welcome to come back anytime.

As it was so cold, warming up was mega-important, and we even did our counting off whilst doing some squats to make sure we didn't get cold.

Then we made our way to Cheviot, making sure to give Deb and Emily the benefit of our knowledge of Colchester. I even stopped at the top of Balkerne hill to tell them about the Jumbo water tower - this wasn't because I was tired at the top of the hill, or because it was named after an elephant... honest!

Off to the nursing home, and I was glad that the runners knew exactly what they were doing having cleared leaves for St Leonard's church last week. David found a fantastic contraption for picking up leaves and the task was completed very quickly. Eventually everyone had to move out to the car park, as the most leaves were there, and the work was going along great until a van drove in and scattered one of our piles!

This didn't dampen the spirits of our group though, and these leaves were raked up, put in bags and then we were all done. 7 bags of leaves collected.

This run was an extra special treat for us, as to thank us for our work, the nursing staff left us some cakes and tea and coffee - we felt like lots of Santa's helpers as we munched on mince pies and biscuits, and the hot coffee was certainly welcome after being outside in the freezing temperatures. We couldn't stay for too long though, we had our social to get to.

So, we made our way back through Lexden, and to the Essex County Hospital, and here is where we split our group. Some went back to Leisure World, and the rest of us went to our new favourite pub the Old New Inn. Thank's again to Ian for arranging our social.

Next week, we will be doing a bit more wombling for Rivercare. Make sure you wrap up warm, with gloves and headtorches. Sign up here