17 amazing GoodGymers ran 4k to help Rhythms of Life homeless charity.

A busy and bright Central London evening met is this week. We were on the charge to Rhythms of Life this week to continue the help with their recent move to their new home on Oxford Street.

Running a seemingly counter productive route to get us a little distance in the legs as a warm up for the task ahead. Looping up and around Harley street to avoid the irrepressible Oxford Street foot traffic. We made steady progress to the Rhythms of Life HQ.

Meeting Ali this week we had a mini introduction before breaking off into small groups to battle the tasks ahead!

Starting off by lifting and manoeuvring a fridge, a freezer and a shelving unit up and down multiple flights of stairs to find a new home in the rooms that were getting renovated.

Then laying the carpet tiles on the room we stripped bare last week we new black tiles made a huge turn around in 2 visits.

With all that complete we got stuck into the main task of the evening, painting!! Arming ourselves with as may painting instruments as possible we got painting!! Working with the standard colour combination of Lilac and grey we rolled our way to success expertly painting the room to bring some colour and flair to the refurbished room. A last minute expert cut in of the high and low areas finished off a great and almost artistic task.

A slightly shorter running route back to base plus a stretch out and we were away with an excellent Group run complete.

Next week we will be helping Open Age charity encourage more older people in Westminster to be active and social. See you there!

Smooth Running

Joel

The past two years have flown by in a blur of gardening, painting, human chains, cleaning, sanding and many, many squats. Last night we celebrated our second birthday in Wandsworth!

In this time we have done a colossal

3707 good deeds

184 jobs for older people

62 runs to our coaches

37 413 kms run in the process

That is pretty inspiring stuff!

It was a first group run for a some lovely people. Put your hands together and give a huge cheer for Alice, Emily, Alex, Isabelle, Rebecca, and Emma!

A huge shout out to Anil who reached a very special milestone last night, having clocked up a massive 50 deeds. Next time you see him in his black 50 tshirt, give him a high five for all the good he's done! A special mention should be given to Matthew who has not missed one single Wandsworth group run since we very first began. Way to go!

It was also lovely to have some great GG tourism from Lewisham, Hounslow, Westminster, Haringey and Lambeth - great to see you all!

Our task last night was a very well timed one given the ongoing heat. We had been asked by Leonard Cheshire, a fantastic organisation in Battersea that supports disabled people, to come and wash their fleet of mobility buses. So after a nice steady mile run down, we arrived to find buckets and sponges and a list of jobs to do.

While half the group got started getting those buses squeaky clean, and themselves a little dirtier, two other sets of runners got stuck into sorting out the garden and washing windows respectively. Forty minutes later, the place was looking much tidier, and we could see our hot and sweaty faces in the shining buses! Setting off for the park we were even 'treated' to a surprise watery ambush by Chi and Andrew from behind the fence. Naughty!

After a little jog over to the park, we eschewed the usual fitness session for a series of party games that still managed to get our hearts pounding. There was some excellent action from the ladies in the biggest British Bulldog game of all time, so amazing super strong Planking lions, and a semi successful game of Blob Tag.

All that was left was a run back to base, a good stretch and then to head over to the common to celebrate our birthday with a special Wandsworth picnic. There were laughs, there was cake, there were party poppers and hats!

Here's to you, GoodGym Wandsworth, for making our borough proud and putting so much into doing good. Happy birthday!

ps our special birthday video will be making an appearance on twitter and facebook, so keep an eye out for it!