Marathon week had arrived and the buzz was in the air from the very start — excitement, some nerves, and plenty of discussion about Sunday’s big event. If you’re around, come join us to cheer — it’s one of the best days of the year!

Last night we headed out in both walk and run groups towards the allotments in Chiswick, where our friends at Wild Chiswick had plenty lined up for us. We had a great turnout, so with all hands on deck and no shortage of jobs, we got stuck in.

There was watering to be done, a leaky pipe system to wrestle with, raised beds that needed weeding (carefully avoiding the fragrant mint plants), trees to be planted, and even the construction of a dead hedge. Everyone found a task and got moving quickly all set in beautiful surroundings. We even had a very friendly duck who was there to oversee our activities (hope there were no anatidaephobics there last night...).

Despite the season, it was surprisingly chilly — though the good news is that there are perfect conditions expected for those gearing up for the weekend’s races.

Good luck to all our marathoners taking on Sunday, to Florian heading to Hamburg for the half marathon, and of course to everyone getting their parkrun fix. A proper weekend of racing lies ahead, built on the back of a great evening of doing good together.

Same time next week — we’ll be back at Chiswick House!

The day was set to start well when we found out that the new Goodgym rising star, Augustin was set to join Breda and myself for this task! Initially fearing the rain that fell on us when enjoying our post-parkun coffee (from our sheltered location), the weather cleared out a bit and there was no rain for the full duration of the task. Then, we went looking for the location. Beyond Baron's Pond, locked in behind 2 gates we managed to find the secret garden, near a ground sponsored by London Marathon. It is a community garden that Cultivate London support. A very neat place, except for compost bins full of everything but compost and massive compost areas full of weed. Armed with shovels and pitch forks, we manage to clear out the compost bins and the excess in the weed compost area, but short of a full team we but put a slight dent in these overgrown weed piles! Thought of the day was how can people manage to throw massive amount of plastic on top of perfecticly good compost... Augustin managed to secure a trash bag that he valiantly brought home to avoid having that plastic in the middle of the compost... more to do clearly !

It was a bumper night in every respect last night—with so much to celebrate across the group. A huge shoutout to everyone who made the trip over to Cluj, racing everything from 10km right up to the marathon—seriously impressive stuff and plenty of great race reports filtering back. Add to that, there was lots of exciting news buzzing around the group, and it really did feel like a special evening from the outset.

We were also delighted to welcome Eleonora to her very first session—fantastic to have you with us! And big news - Eleonora is the brilliant new Area Activator for Elephant and Castle —watch this space for upcoming runs there.

A mighty group of 21 runners and cyclists assembled, ready to do good, and for the first time in months we made our return to Chiswick House. With the sun shining and temperatures firmly in the “is this really April?” zone, all the ingredients were there for a cracking session.

We made our way down to the estate garden, where we met Freya, one of the gardeners, and followed the cart down stacked with dozens of watering cans. We got straight to it, hydrating the new plants and giving everything a much-needed drink in the warm weather.

We then got stuck into digging up stubborn ivy roots and tackling plenty of weeding. Great teamwork all round.

With the task complete, it was onto fitness. Taking full advantage of the dry ground, we powered through a continuous 6-minute core blast. No breaks, no mercy—just solid effort from everyone. Strong work!

Then it was time to head back, easing out the legs with some well-earned stretches and soaking up the last of the evening sun.

Looking ahead, we’ve got a big weekend coming up: Maxime will be leading his very first session on Saturday—heading to Popesfield Allotments this Saturday

And next week, we’ll be teaming up with Friends of Turnham Green for more good deeds in green spaces 💚

Goodgym Ealing : we know what you did last April in Hanwell!!Yes and we were up to it again at the Hanwell stables. Conor, Sevan and Steph Ducat ran in the streets of sunny Ealing to Hanwell to meet Breda, Harvey and Maria who were waiting outside the stables. Andrea was here to open the stables so that we could do what we did last year - this is not a horror film but the scene would be perfect as poor lighting inside, loads of cobwebs and spiders, loads of branches lying around, abandoned sofas, chairs etc...creepy but we were safe.

Task was to move all sofas and chairs outside and give them a wipe, but also for Andrea to assess which ones would be used at the Hanwell Hootie this year. At one stage we had a human chain getting the green chairs from under the stairs. Maria helped Andrea upstairs for a while to tidy some items ...we think they went for a small nap.

We had the vintage leather chairs, the down to earth sofa(no legs), the psychologist(speak to me Harvey), the 3 legged sofa, the comfy sofa(Steph sofa surfing), the nature sofa(green leather sofa), the spring chair(iron springs), the matching cushion chair and some others with legs going haywire.

Once all cleaned we played Sofa Tetris as needed to put them back in the middle section of the stables ready for the festival next month. Sofa La Vista, Baby and we will be back!!