On a lovely Wednesday evening 23 GoodGymers ran between 4-10km, delivered leaflets and did some DIY.

Wow lots of newcomers to GoodGym, welcome to Kat, Lucy, Mara, Sylwia, Rosie and Frederic. Fantastic to have you along!

In the news this week:

1. GG monthly drinks, an opportunity for everyone from GoodGym to meet up, is on Thursday 6th October (Pritesh's birthday), sign up here
2. Well done to Danica who completed Richmond Half Marathon on Sunday in 1.59.29 - completing her sub-2 hour goal. Well done #proud.
3. Also well done to Steve Moody for doing Hull Marathon at the weekend, he is planning to do a marathon a month between now and April, amazing!

Our tasks this week were to help Abbey Community Centre spread the word of their amazing work through leafleting and doing some DIY for C4WS, a national homeless charity.

DIY Run Report:

After a game of tag we did a short run to C4WS led by the wonderful Sophie Hedges, arriving to find a cabinet and desk to put together.

Ikea!

With Ikea instructions, great minds, allen keys, and focused hands we were sure to complete the task. We lacked a little space in the room so five of us headed for a run around the block while the other 10 split into teams, with Polly in overall charge, putting the furniture together.

With a swap of DIYers and runners we were only getting closer to finishing the mammoth task. Boom the cabinet was first to be put together, after a group pic 10 people headed to Russell Square while five team members stayed to continue the finishing the job.

We've done the Good now for the GYM!

Intervals - this weeks fitness session was based around a PYRAMID, using time as our tool. It went something like this:

• 1 min fast
• 1 min slow
• 2 min fast
• 2 min slow
• 1 min fast
• 1 min slow

Everyone did very well and really smashed the fitness session!

Meanwhile the DIYers continued to put together the table, with Steve, Arnulfo and Polly staying until 8.45pm! #commitment #good

Leaflet report written by Pritesh:

Tonight I had seven hardy runners joining me on my favourite run up to Abbey Community Centre. It was a great little group and we kept a good pace (including the ‘stomp’ up Primrose Hill) and had some nice chats about what we’d been up to over the summer and various race plans for the winter too.

Tower Block Climb!

We weren’t sure if there’d been a ‘cock-up’ as we arrived at the community centre as there seemed to be no lights on but Laura was awaiting us and was just saving some energy. Tonight’s task was some leaflet distribution in two nearby tower blocks to let the residents know about the various upcoming activities at the community centre. We had a 102 flats in each tower block and so we split into two teams (“How about girls vs boys?”) and Laura then led us out to the blocks.

Girls vs boys

The girls took on ‘Casterbridge’ and the boys ‘Snowman’, yup there really is a Snowman House – we suggested Steve might want to consider a new place here so he could have the address ‘Steve Coman, Snowman…’ Both teams went hard at the task but in the end the boys prevailed and were first back to the community centre. The girls were not far behind and Laura then showed us the mural that has gone up (we whitewashed the walls on a previous task so great to see the outcome) in the kids playground. There was some discussion over whether the boys might’ve taken the lift but the evidence was inconclusive and so thoughts turned to the pun…with ‘Snowman’ and ‘Thomas Hardy’ as possible references we thought we’d be in for a jackpot… we came up with nothing!

Lemonades!

So with that we had a quick group pic and some goodbyes and then we headed back into the night. We naturally split into a fast and faster group and headed back home for a good stretch and then a few lemonades at the pub. Smashing night – thanks all.

Thank you as always for coming along, sign up for next week's run here.

PB out.

Firstly huge apologies for the late-ness of the drinks report...I think I have just about recovered!

So a whopping FIFTY ONE, yup, 51 of you turned up to celebrate the heroes of August and generally just let anyone that was listening that South London is the place to be! It was a fantastic sight to see with so many of you there to hear yet another ridiculous speech from myself and just hang out and be so "GoodGym-y"! Loved it!

As this is late I am going to keep it short so here's a recap on what was said:

Heroes

As ever, until the 30th September you can hit this link to see the heroes data in more detail!

James Poole topped distance with 574.8km...will anyone knock him off the top spot? We had some honourable mentions for Paul Bown and Patrick Luong who hit 320 and 267km respectively - some full-on marathon training happening for both those guys!

In what I have recently termed the 'Bristol Leagues' we had a non-Bristol winner! Most cheers given this month by one Simon Loughran (that's pronounced Lochran btw) with an incredible 2139 cheers - did he actually manage to lead any of his runs?! A small number of those must've found their way to our most cheered runner this month, with 256 cheers it's Paul Becker...from Bristol!

Topping the good deeds table last month we had a return for Patrick Luong with 21 good deeds, couple with all his marathon training that is a great achievement!

Now to the coveted most new runners in the last month award...continuing our trend of new boroughs winning this accolade it's... Wandsworth with 62 new runners in August! Congratulations and keep telling everyone about GoodGym so you can boost your area's numbers!

I had some issues with my 50s and 100s data last month so apologies if I've missed you off but otherwise a warm and very well deserved welcome to Cecilia to the Black T-shirt club with 50 good deeds and getting their wings with a wonderful 100 good deeds is Graham Atkins and Antonia Kanczula! Congrats and make sure you give them a cheer!

News

Two of our previous guest speakers completed their challenges in the last month – Melissa 'Moosenshoes' got thru her #runtheboroughs challenge and George 'Ironman' Bright completed his first ever Ironman in an incredible time of 10 hours and 28 minutes! Fantastic achievements!

We also had Danica Priest completing the Rejkjavik Half Marathon and the Race for life Half marathon, Sarah Moore joining her in the Race for Life Half – well done to you!

We’ve our last (official) race of the year coming up in Cardiff – we’re looking forward to that and a number of other races are taking places with marathons over the next month for a number of GG runners – good luck!

International Pun of the Month

A great set of puns this month, 10 on the long-list, we had 46 votes on the night and for their first ever win with 17 votes (37% of the vote)…

Only tools and (task) forces from Wandsworth!!!

Well done guys!

Right that is that, thanks again for all coming and apologies for the delay with this. Look forward to seeing you all next month, we’ll be in Angel, it’ll be my birthday – it will be a blast!

Cheers,

Pritesh

p.s. Also thank you to Anonymous who found the time to pen me a letter during drinks - see pic!

p.p.s Massive thanks to John for taking some photos on the night as I completely forgot!

22 GoodGymers ran between 4-7km, gardened for Sheltered Housing, worked the Skip Garden compost machine and litter picked!

Triple tasking, love it! Welcome to newcomer Caroline, it's great to have you along and awesome to meet you!

In the news this week:

• We said farewell to Lucia Gobbi, Coach Runner Rep and awesome GGer, who is off to Italy to learn how to be a Roman for 4 months. See you soon LG!
• Tonight is GG Monthly Drinks down in Brixton, there'll be International Pun of the Month, Heroes and Pritesh standing on a chair! Sign up here and see you there!

Right triple tasking means triple reporting, first up Litter Picking by PB:

After an active warm up with the entire group we split in three directions to do good and get fit in the wonderful Camden. Litter picking, as ever is important and helps keep our local parks and community areas cleaner and more welcoming. Seven of us headed over to the local Somers Town Park to do just that, getting into pairs we spread across the park and picked all the rubbish.

Beer bottles!

After 15 minutes of picking up bottles, cigarettes, cans, wrappers and more. With a surprise final weigh in Liv and Arnulfo were the winners. We then ran over to Skip Garden to meet the other group.

Skip Garden Run Report by Lucia Gobbi

Seven of us were greeted at the skip garden by the lovely Paul and given three jobs to do. One group quickly got to raking the gravel as gaps had started to appear and it needed some 'tlc'. The rest of us worked our arms at the compost machine. We turned and also sieved the compost coming out, it was warm and VERY fragrant! Mmmmmm....

Did it smell LG?

With the two task groups combined we headed to Granary Square to do a fitness session. It went something like this:

1. Socket to Pocket Technique session
2. Progression Running around the square
3. Drill & tag game - mountain climbers, squats and an amazing looking at the moon pose!
4. Monthly Time Trial!

Time Trial results:

3.14 - Sarah H 3.16 - Anthony 3.18 - Lucia 3.22 - Arnulfo 3.31 - Laura 3.39 - Damaris 3.53 - Becky 3.56 - Caroline 3.58 - Freya 4.10 - Sarah R

Sheltered Housing Run Report by Pritesh:

Eight of us headed up to Kentish Town, it really wasn't a night for running with it being very humid and hot. We had a two mile journey and were ably led by Chris. We arrived at Ashdown Crescent Sheltered Housing and there met Cathi, the Sheltered Housing Manager. She outlined the task, we had some leaf collecting, digging and pruning to do! We all split in to our groups and worked solidly for 30 minutes! The garden looked great and it was a really nice task. Before we left we were treated to some refreshments (shock horror - biscuits in C and learned all about the Sheltered Housing scheme which helps adults 65 and over who need some assistance but can still live on their own. It was really good to learn about who we were helping and we hope to come back and help out more! With that we headed back to base for a good stretch down!

Sign up for next week here.

PB out.

Unlucky for some, 13 runners took on a shed surrounded by lots of cobwebs and flower pots as well as 3.6km, a hill and some sprints.

We welcomed some travelling GoodGymmers as well as some first timers who got straight to it.

After a long run to Surrey Docks Farm last week, we had a shorter and more familiar route to Grove Park Allotments. Though up hill and a bit sweaty, we all made it in one piece and with no drama.

Lots of people are away at the allotments so there was lots to do... Strimming, watering, path clearing, paint brush cleaning, web clearing and shed waterproofing. A team with yoghurt pots to hand (big up Helena for bringing her own) got to work on the shed and the community board after sweeping off lots of cobwebs. We were a bit sad that it wasn't a more colourful coat but I guess waterproofing for the winter is a little bit more important.

what colour would you paint your shed?

The rest of us were spread across the communal areas in the allotments, lots of need for strimming though the strimmer was of the more lively variety! Lots of watering and weeding and dreaming of having a London garden and then, all of a sudden, time was up.

A quick round up and team pic and we were off. We took a different route home and stopped in Warwick Park for a quick pyramid session. As time was short, the group only had to do 4 rounds...60% effort lap, 1 Burpee, 70% effort lap, 2 burpees, 80-90%effort, 3 burpees, all out lap, 4 burpees. And then we were done.

After a quick jog back and a stretch whilst Pritesh told us about the next big goodgym social and we were off to the Rye Pub. We made it in time to see the GB men win our first gold medal for the diving & to eat some yummy post-run fuel.

See you next week folks.