Frances Collier-Wright

Achilles International are an amazing organisation who link guide with blind and particially sighted runners, and they are looking for potential guides for future training sessions.

Goodgym (and parkrun) communities have been very supportive of this team over the years, so we are looking to see if we can introduce more runners to the world of guiding.

Paddington Rec Track Running

From this Thursday through to Spring, Achilles International will be hosting their weekly VI running group session at Paddington Rec Track, an open access 400m track, 5 minutes walk from Maida Vale Station.

How do I get involved?

We are looking for volunteers to come and help our runners from Maida Vale station, over to our meeting spot near Paddington Rec Track, and back again afterwards. TFL staff are on hand to assist with the runners journey to and from Maida Vale.

We are looking for guides to navigate the runners during the session (paces and distances will be discussed beforehand), and to look out for obstacles and hazards during the run.

Open to runners of all guiding experience

If you are not confident with guiding a runner at first, you are welcome to run with a guiding couple to watch their techniques and how it is done.

What do I do now

If you are interested, sign up here.

We will contact you on Wednesday, and link you to the Achilles International WhatsApp group to discuss our plans for Thursday evening.

Introduce yourself, and let us know your guiding experience, and we will work together to create an awesome group!

Oh what a night, late May back in 2022.... This was a really fun one and a task where our GoodGymers could really get their teeth into, let's see what we got up to.

By 6:30pm the sun was still shining and it was a balmy 22 degrees - summer vibes indeed! I had bumped into Maya one of our GGers on the train earlier who informed me that the weather forecast had changed from 50% chance of rain at 8pm to 90% which simply wouldn't do. ☔ 🌂

Unbeknownst to the runners the AA formulated the warm up into an anti-rain dance, weaving intricate patterns and side steps which were almost perfectly observed by all the runners. The result of course is that not only did the rain rain stay away but it's not coming again until Thursday!! ⚡

This week's category was airlines (favourite, least favourite, simply name any) and we should send a special shout out to Wizz Air for taking care of our Lindy once when she was 'not very well' on one of their flights.

It was a short run to Loughborough Park 1.35 kms each way but that meant lots of time for the task. We were helping out Stephen and Bill from Urban Canopy who are working with the Friends of LP to create an educational garden where there once was a Japanese gravel garden (possibly back in feudal times as now all that was there were lots of weeds)!

Lydia, India (a GGer herself) and the volunteers from Friends of LP were all there so we could get stuck in together with a strangely satisfying weeds clearance task. Stephen explained that the plan is to clear away as much as possible to be able to plan out exactll where and what to plant and create a self-nourishing forest floor garden with each different planted item working in harmony with those around it. ✅✅

We had a solid 45 minutes to attack the pathways and managed to clear a decent chunk of weeds however by the end looking around it was clear there is still so much to be done. Not a problem though, the team will be down there this week and next to continue the work and we will be back next Tuesday to pick up wherever they have got to and take it forward. We are very excited to see what lays in store at the end of it all! 😍

Check out the photos, we managed to add a little to the huge pile Shauna generated all by herself..... 💪

Thanks to the team at Friends of LP, their volunteers and of course Stephen and Bill for having us and Sarah for being back marker for the evening.