It was great to be joined by 14 other GoodGym'ers for tonight's Hammersmith & Fulham group run, following a wonderful weekend of racing in York for the final big 6 races of 2018 - have a read about the very inspirational and emotional story of GoodGym York runner, Sean here. It was lovely to welcome Charley and Harriet along to their first H&F group run - great to have you both along, hope you enjoyed it! And for the second week in a row we welcomed back GoodGym tourist Alex.

As it was a very welcome dry and mild autumnal evening, we all headed outside for a quick round-up of this week's news...

Firstly, a huge well done to all those that raced in the very wet and windy conditions at the weekend, Tom & Fiona in the Royal Parks Half, Alex in the Yorkshire 10 Mile and Jason in the Cabbage Patch 10.

1. October Long Run - this month's long run will be this Sunday! (21st October). A 19.3km run along the Capital ring - East Finchley to Hackney Wick and will be led by Simon Fitzmaurice. Sign up here.
2. Fulham 10K (Sunday 18 November) - If you've entered, or are thinking about entering. Sign up here.
3. The big C word......GoodGym London Christmas Party! (1st December). Hosted by GoodGym Southwark, fancy dress, killer tunes, dodgy dancing! Sign up here.
4. GoodGym H&F Christmas Party - either on Monday 10th December or post-run on Tuesday 11th December. Please vote for your preference here. Please vote by next Tuesday's group run!

Chariots of flyer

This week we had a flyering en masse task for 3 wonderful community organisations:

1. Family Friends - a small charity who provide a parent befriending and child mentoring service in West London. They use volunteers to support the service and are currently looking to recruit new mentors and befrienders.
2. Doorstep Library - a charity that recruit and train volunteers to go into some of the most disadvantaged areas in London to help introduce children from ages 1-11 to the pleasure of reading and inspire them with it.
3. Acknowledging Youths - a project that was set up to raise the aspirations and make a positive impact on the life of disadvantaged young people in London. They provide education and training to help prepare the young people for interviews and ensure they are ‘work ready’.

In the line of flyer

Following a quick name and number count the group split in to two teams: 'The Red Devils' (Route 1) no resemblance or link to Man United! - Will, Jason, Catherine, Bex, Charley and Martynas, and the 'Hammersmith Flyers' (Route 2) - Sarah, Johnny, Harriet, Alice, Alex, Joyce and Helena.

Fast flyering

To add a bit of fun and friendly competition to the task I had devised a scavenger hunt for the group to accompany all the flyering! Each team had the same sheet of items to find or actions to complete on their designated route: a red car, a team selfie, a wild animal, a pub named after an animal, something beginning with H or F, three flyering puns (definitely not to cheekily help with my run report punspiration!), a stop sign and a joke ideally running based, tell someone about GoodGym, wave at another runner & the bonus point round....road scrabble, find a road name with the most scrabble points!

I briefed both groups on the shops and areas that they were looking to target and hand out the flyers to, with the key instruction that both teams were to meet at the corner of Askew and Uxbridge Road at 8pm. The flyers were distributed amongst each team and plans for efficient flyering, whilst successfully scavenger hunting were formulated by both teams.

Come flyer with me, let's flyer let's flyer away

Plans formulated, Sarah led the 'Hammersmith Flyers' off on their route up Shepherd's Bush Road and along Goldhawk Road, while I joined 'The Red Devils' on their route down King Street and along Askew Road. Each team quickly ducked in and out of coffee shops, libraries, newsagents distributing the flyers, whilst also on the lookout for lengthy road names and other items from the scavenger hunt list.

No flyers on me

Time 'flyered' by and it didn't seem like half an hour had passed as the clock struck 8pm. Will and Charley from the 'Red Devils' had bumped into the 'Hammersmith Flyers' en route as they either intentionally - possibly on a secret sabotage mission - or unintentionally - accidentally took the scenic route! To my great relief both teams arrived at the meeting point only a few minutes late, and thankfully there were no missing runners lost around Hammersmith! With heaps of flyers distributed around the Hammersmith area and the group as one again it was time to head off on the short 2.5km run back to base. As we made our way we stopped for some bonus squats, lunges, high knees and back flips...otherwise known as heel flicks!! There was also a quick stop for a group photo before everyone began to part their separate ways.

Flyer me to the moon/back home

Back at base we had a quick cool down and stretch, both teams then re-huddled and had a final debrief on their scavenger hunt. With both teams applying the same tactic of noting down multiple road names they saw while running, there was of a lot of referring to the scrabble tile photo and adding up before they brought their attempts and photos over to me for some 'official judging'. There was some brilliant lateral thinking on some of the items, with the 'Hammersmith Flyers' presenting me with a (bus) stop instead of a stop sign. It was very close between both teams with each amazingly finding a road that equated to 32 points!! However, with the full compliment of three puns (all included within this report!) the victory went to the 'Hammersmith Flyers'! Fab flyering and scavenger hunting this week, each charity is very grateful for your help!

Next week, we hopefully have two tasks, a shorter 3-4km run back to Hestia and a longer 7-8km run out to Ray's Playhouse. Sign up here.

Thank you all for another fun night, hope you have a lovely week! Thank you to Johnny of the 'Hammersmith Flyers' for this week's pun! And thank you to Clare who biked home to distributed some flyers around the Fulham area. And thank you to Helena and Bex for the extra photos!

I'll leave you with my favourite jokes from the night....

What do runners do when they forget something? They jog their memory!

What do you call a runner behind a car? Exhaust-Ted!

From Richmond to Redbridge and Hammersmith to Haringey, twenty one GoodGymmers came together from across the capital today to spread some cheer volunteering at the second Adidas City Runs Shoreditch 10K.

More and more English by the second...

After a bleary-eyed breakfast in the welfare tent we were welcomed and briefed by Mathilde, our contact from operations at CSM and then sent our separate ways throughout the race village. With the weather turning more and more English by the second, the majority of us headed over to bag drop, mercifully under cover. The rest donned Event Organiser cagoules and braved the rain to keep the competitors buzzing in the start kettles.

Into high-gear

At the bag drop, what began as a trickle of people soon became a flood and before long us slightly sleepy volunteers were tripping over the bags and one another to negotiate the curious numbering system. As the flow of people intensified, so did the rain and some swampy puddles inside the tent were added to the elements in place to keep things ‘interesting.’ With the competitors now queuing in the rain, our tenacious GoodGymmers switched into high-gear and were turning them over by any means necessary.

With the later waves still bringing their stuff to the bag drop, those of us at the start were leading them through warm-ups with staff from FitBit, and making sure GoodGym shirts got as much time in front of the video cameras as possible (including an old shirt without New Balance branding no less, for optimum corporate diplomacy.)

Just as well as Princess Leia

With the gun fired and the race underway, quiescence fell over the race village and we were all able to prepare for the return of the competitors. With some expected back after just 34mins, those at the start were taken off and shown how to administer medals to people just as well as Princess Leia does.

"I loved cheerleading!"

The first competitor to return to bag drop had trimmed the sleeves from his top (tip there for anyone planning a City Run in better weather) and with us still beaming at him in admiration, he strolled off nonchalantly in silence.

As with when the bags were dropped-off, the trickle quickly became a flood and it soon transpired that almost everyone had come today with a black rucksack, so differentiating people's bags amongst the piles was something of a challenge. Nevertheless people seemed really buzzed to be reunited with their belongings and huge amounts of goodwill and smiles were exchanged.

At the finish line, this was Victoria’s experience of distributing the medals: “The conversations I got to have with finishers made the day for me. Some firsts, some PBs, some 15 kilogram weight losses, lots of hubby wife teams, families, sisters. Such a happy atmosphere! People were curious about my GoodGym t-shirt and with my expert knowledge of which areas run on which nights, I led an inadvertent recruitment drive pretty effectively. I loved cheerleading!”

Our work done, those of us at bag drop left the 'bag ladies’ (their words) the lovely Annie and Angie with the last few items and went with Mathilde to reunite with the start/finish line cheer crew and collect ourselves some medals and more free scran from the welfare.

As a token for their valiant endurance of the dim and drizzly morning, Our GoodGym volunteers each got an Adidas shirt and medal on the day, and will get 50% off entry to a subsequent City Runs race, the next one being the Fulham 10K next month, which we may have volunteers at also.

A new PB!

Big-ups to Juliet for help before, Victoria for help afterwards, and to both for photos; really appreciated! If you’ve read this far, you can prove it by going and giving them both a cheer!

Finally, congrats to Becky and Kat from nearby Tower Hamlets GoodGym who competed in the race, including a new PB for Kat! Boom!

Last night at H&F a fantastic 16 GoodGym-ers joined me for the part II celebrations of the 2nd birthday of H&F. With no new runners to welcome this week we quickly headed outside for a quick round-up of the weekly news....

1. September Long Run – 22nd September. This month the long run will be the Wandle Trail led by yours truly and Andy from GG Hounslow. There will be two pacing groups and the option of a shorter start point along the way. Sign up here.
2. Adidas Shoreditch 10K Volunteering - Volunteer for Adidas City Run Shoreditch10K on Sunday 14th October and earn half-price entry into another Adidas City Run! – sign up here.
3. The GoodGym Eurotrip 2019 will be to Sofia in May 2019....racing, pubs, spas, buffets and more! - come & join the fun! Sign up here.

AND a big well done to Jason for his Thames Path efforts at the weekend - his 105th race since he started running 4 years ago! (one of many fun facts learnt from Bex epic quiz last night!).

Following a quick warm-up and name and number count (this week without any of my questions that provoke the fear and quick thinking to think of a socially acceptable/non-embarrassing answer) we headed off on a steady 3km run up to Askham Court with my trusty back-marker Jason in place. Once we arrived we were met by Richard and Orin who gathered up all the tools and bags required and led us round the back of the block of flats where we came face-to-face with a Lake District sized amount of bindweed!

Amongst the slight danger of a very useful but efficient machete tool the group got to work on pulling up all the bindweed from the garden plot. It wasn't long before heaps and heaps of bindweed were piled and bagged up - so much so more bags had to be fetched mid-task! Luckily the rain held off so the bindweed and ground didn't become wet and slippery and provide any hindrance to the group's super quick bindweed clearing efforts. Within half an hour there were 8 full bin bags of bindweed and the soil was visible on the garden plot once more. With the darkness upon us the group posed for a quick photo around the filled bin bags and began the run back to base the marginally longer way - we had a democratic vote on whether the group wanted a quick fitness session or a slightly longer run of 0.3km, surprisingly the latter option was the overwhelming winner!

Back at base we all had a cool-down and stretch with the thought of the pub very much on our minds. Cool-down complete, it was time to head off to the pub for 'Part II: Pub Edition' of the H&F 2nd birthday celebrations - 2nd birthday = 2 celebrations! A well-deserved thirst quenching drink, food, cake, a quiz! What more could you want?! Thank you all to those involved in organising all the birthday celebrations, what a fun night, what a fun few weeks!

What has been learnt....

Heaps of fun are always had at GoodGym H&F

All the gardening and weeding always gets done

Puns are always pretty fun

Post group-run celebrations in the pub are the one

You always have to be prepared for the scenic route to a task with me in charge

2is better than 1

No-one is left behind with trusty back-marker Jason

Do good, get fit, eat cake!

Bex does the best pub quizzes

Impressions of birds are nailed by Catriona when she has a party hat prop

Running + Doing Good + Fun = GoodGym H&F

There is never staged posing (at my request) for photos at the task

Hands down have the best bakers - Catherine's carrot cake, Johnny's rice crispy cakes, Jason's Japanese cheesecake & Catriona's coffee and walnut cake are amazing!

Deeds, all the good deeds

Andrew makes some both wonderfully delicious and wonderfully interesting brownies with the most unlikely of ingredients

You never need to ask Will his name when he wears his red GoodGym tee

Hats, party hats! No one seems to questions these as we turn up to tasks wearing them

&most importantly to note...Sarah ALWAYS holds a bag!

Finally.....the group welcome new runners & GoodGym tourists with open arms (especially if they come with treats hint hint)

Next week’s task is more gardening at Askham Gardens – sign-up here. Please bring gardening gloves and some long-sleeved layers as it looks a bit of a prickly one. Have a lovely week and hopefully see you then!

p.s. Johnny, big GoodGym H&F love, hope you feel better soon, your rice crispy cakes were ace - I assume you were at home watching Bake Off for ideas on your next baking delicacy!