As the title already mentioned, it was back to the Baby Bank again!

The pull of the Baby Bank meant there were 9 names on the list for this evening, with 6 assembling at our base. This gave us the chance to welcome two new faces for Redbridge - Mark & Helen, who chose this warm evening & gt task to reconnect with Goodgym after a little break.

Introductions done, the 6 set off on a jog to the Cornerstone Church, to meet walkers Linda & Helen plus cyclist Kathryn on site.

As always, Adam was waiting with bags of clothing to sort... and jugs of water to help keep hydrated. Almost without noticing, we fell into the now usual groove of sorting through the donations while chatting & catching up, Mark & Helen fitting in as if they had been around for ages!

Bags emptied, we helped Adam clear everything away before setting off the way we came, run & walk & ride.

a little stretching session back at base and it was time to head home to refuel.

Next Monday will be a Hainault session.

P.S.... as per one of the uploaded pics, Julia was seemingly so excited at the prospect of visiting the Baby Bank that she rushed to get ready and might have been too hasty.... see if you can spot what happened 🤣

Last night we ran along to Covent Garden to visit Rhythms of Life, a superb charity who feed, educate and provide clothes for the homeless.

Rebecca came along to her first ever group run tonight - give her a cheer for using her run to do some good on a Tuesday evening! Egg, the trainer for GoodGym York also paid us a visit, and it was lovely to have her. We had a little reminder of the Thursday running fitness session happening in Vauxhall this week (the final one of the series before it moves to another area!), and wished everyone luck in their upcoming races. Next week we also have a one-off lunchtime group run for University Mental Health Day! It's on Thursday lunchtime and you can sign up here.

We did some warm up exercises to activate all the muscles we'd be using for our run before doing a headcount and finding out which company everyone would like to be the CEO of. Answers ranged from the likes of Cadbury and Itsu (I suspect for never ending free goodies), to the V&A, the Dog's Trust and London Zoo - all very worthy organisations! If anyone makes it, let me know, as I'd like some special perks for helping you realise your goals!

The task: As it was just a short run there, we arrived in super speedy time, and met Faris, who told us a bit about the charity and showed us to the different rooms where they had tasks that needed doing. Once small group took on the Atrium, where they needed to remove lots of the furniture that was cluttering the room up, to make space so they could use the room for activities for the homeless. The main bulk of the group set to work on the clothes donation room. The charity are very lucky and get a lot of clothes donations, however it currently takes their volunteers hours to find the right piece of clothing as it's not in any kind of order. We helped to categorise all the clothing by putting it all in crates with labels. A splinter group removed all the bags of clothes that didn't have labels on, rifled through them, and put labels in the top so we knew what was in there as soon as the bags were opened. This will make it easier for some of the regular volunteers to sort through the items (or for us next time we come!). There was so much to do and so we could only make a start today, but we will be back to keep working on the task soon.

After washing our hands, and getting a quick photo by the Rhythms of Life sign, we headed off into the night to make our way back to King's. When we arrived back we used the hill outside for our hardcore fitness session. This week we combined a typical speed skater's workout, keeping in theme with the winter olympics. Speed skaters have to generate a lot of power in their legs for their initial sprints at the beginning of their race. They do this by integrating lots of pylometric exercises into their programmes. Pylometrics is a type of jump training where your muscles exert a huge force in a short space of time. This helps with building the power! We split the group in half, and while one half did the hill sprint (focussing on an upright posture and pumping their arms), and easy run back down, the other half completed an exercise such as frog jumps, jumping squats and tuck jumps. They then swapped over, and did it all again!

Thanks Gosia for the photos as always!

Next week, Rachel and/or Sophie will be leading the run and you're going back to the YMCA charity shop by Goodge Street to sort through some of their donations. You can sign up here. Plus don't forget the lunchtime group run, leaving from our King's Sport Health and Fitness Waterloo Gym on Thursday 1st March. Sophie and Rachel will also be leading this and you'll be heading to Oasis Farm Waterloo - a fab task! You can sign up for that here.

Tonight we visited St John’s Waterloo to drop off some items for their food collection that they do for the homeless on Wednesdays. We also managed to run about 3km and practice our running technique.

We had three new runners tonight - Catarina, Katrien, and Helen – give them a cheer for using their run tonight to do some good in the community! We heard all about the GoodGym Social happening on Thursday at the Square Pig in Holborn – so close for us. We also celebrated Gosia’s fab mission (which you can see the report for here) from the weekend and her CRUK Winter Run Race, plus Mara’s amazing feat at achieving almost 30km already so far in Feb.

We ran out over Blackfriars Bridge, laden with our goodies, featuring nappies, toothpaste, pasta, cous cous and a can of ready-sliced carrots for the collection, arriving at the church in great time.

The task: We had to enter the church nice and quietly so we didn’t disturb any services going on, and left our small haul in the reception area box ready for some volunteers to sort out the next day with the rest of their food collection items. All the food is being used to support some of the homeless communities in Lambeth.

For our fitness session today we focussed on our running technique, working on the drive and flight phases of our strides. After lots of walks, skips and fast feet up and down in the park, we were ready to make our way back to King’s. We split into two groups with Dom leading the group with the shorter run back over Waterloo bridge and Gosia wonderfully back-marking the group with the longer run back over Blackfriars Bridge. The longer-run group must have been going with some serious pace as we managed to just about beat the other group back.

We made the most of our early arrival back at King’s by doing 3 sets of core triathlons, which if you want to try at home is as follows:

• 20s of “swimming” planks

• 20s of bicycle abs

• 20s of mountain climbers

• 20s rest

Join us next week for Sustainability week at King’s, where we will be planting some trees at Oasis Farm Waterloo!