GoodGymers met on a lovely Saturday morning.

We split into two tasks: One team put on their waders and got into the pond to pull out the overgrown weeds.

The other team weeded and tidied up a path in order to make it wheelchair accessible.

Was great meeting everyone and the community gardens was looking great! Well done everyone :)

Another balmy evening in Ealing saw 15 GoodGymers out for a night of sweeping success at The Log Cabin!

Get your buts in gear!

We started with a series of warm up drills including some glute activation exercises, lots of runners (very much myself included) don't activate our glutes when we run so we did some simple glutes squeezes to see if we could wake them up before the run! I mentioned a kneeling hip flexor stretch you can do that's great for activation too - check that out here

On with the run!

Chris led the group on a slightly longer run around Walpole park while Alex expertly back marked a shorter route through the middle. Myself and Jenni led a run 1 minute / walk 1 minute group for those of us who are building back up from injury or are new to running, so many options available to get involved!

On with the task!

We arrived at the The Log Cabin to find a whole host of tasks that needed doing around the playground. Lots of weeding, sweeping, trimming and general tidying needed doing so we wasted no time in getting stuck in. We split off each taking on a section to make look tidier and nicer for the children who use this amazing facility.

Harvey, Jesse and Madiha all took on the task of rearranging the storage area and I must say it looked so much better when we were done with it! Milie and Tash took on some nasty nettles, while others worked to smarten up the edges and clear debris from the playground, great work everyone!

There was just time for a quick photo on the swings before locking up and heading to Lammas Park for the last of the evening light where we blasted through a fitness session. In teams we did sprints and a series of leg exercises for an extra workout before heading back to base for stretches and goodbyes.

See you all again next time!

13 runners, 6km of street pounding and hundreds of bitey red ants! All in an evenings work for GoodGym Ealing helping Trees For Cities.

In the mix last night we had Samina, brand new to GoodGym (and running full stop!) she smashed out 4 miles and got stuck in the the task at hand. What a great achievement! Much like the ants I hope she's been bitten by the running bug! We also had tourist, Jenny, from GoodGym Barnet join us for the evening, great to have you Jenny!

After some introductions and some warm up exercises (not much needed on such a muggy evening!) we weaved our way down to the canal where we met with tools and shown back to the spot we had started to clear a few weeks ago. There was still so much to do and many more trees to unearth so we all got stuck straight in.

Once bitten...

It wasn't long before we realised the stinging in our legs wasn't the familiar nettle sting we were all used to but we had in fact been joined by hundreds of bitey red ants! The key was to keep moving and not stand too still, all just adding to the exercise for the evening. Undeterred the group ploughed on and continued to unveil lots of hidden saplings now being given the space to continue to grow.

Although a little stingy at times, everyone really loves this task. It's great to see the difference we've made straight away and we all left knowing that we'd helped with a really important job that would otherwise struggle to get done.

Last night was a biggie! An amazing 21 GoodGymers came along to get stuck in with clearing space around the saplings planted by trees for cities a couple of years ago!

Joining us this week were two new runners Samar and Jenny who both did an awesome job on what was quite a long run and heavy task. Go and give them a massive cheer!

Much needed maintenance

After a group warm up to get everything moving after lots of us had been sitting at work all day, we meandered towards to canal where we were shown the mammoth task that needed doing. Good job we had our biggest turnout since January! The task this week was facilitated by our good friends at The William Hobbayne Charity who kindly came down and gave us all the tools we needed to get it done. We were told how so much time, money and effort is put into planting new trees but unfortunately the same amount of resources are not put forward for the maintenance so it was great that we were able to step in and help.

The thorny issue and a sticky situation…

The saplings planted a couple of years ago couldn’t be seen and were getting lost under a mass of weeds, brambles and general overgrowth. Our job was to grab some tools, don some gloves and get to work tearing it all away. As we moved through the mini jungle we slowly started to undercover the tiny trees so that they will now have a good chance at continuing to grow!

40 minutes later we had a few stingy arms and legs but lots of happy faces! We packed up shop and headed back to base for a stretch before heading to the pub for the monthly social (ah that’s why numbers were so high!).

We’ll be back in the jungle in a couple of weeks to finish what we started so be sure to sign up again then!