Tonight 15 runners gathered in Ealing to help the Canal and River Trust clean up our lovely towpaths in Hanwell. And although GoodGym Ealing has been going just 3 years we also celebrated 10 years of GoodGym as an organisation last night! It’s hard to believe that all those years ago one man had the idea to use his run for good and look where we are now!

• Over 166,000 good deeds up and down the country.
• Over 16,000 GoodGym participants.
• Over the past three years in Ealing we’ve had nearly 2000 group run attendances, 60 missions to help older people and nearly 180 attendances at community missions. That’s pretty awesome!

Tonight I was making a special little film about GoodGym Ealing (Coming to a screen near you very soon!) so we started off by warming up and asking everyone why they come to GoodGym. General consensus?

It’s a pretty fun way to do good things, get fit and get to know your community!

After our first flag picture of the night we headed off towards the canal, stopping only briefly for another flag picture pretty quickly outside the wonderful Pitzhanger Manor, an Ealing institution! Soon we arrived at the canal where we met Emilie, our Canal and River Trust superhost who met us with her van full of tricks so we could make a difference to the canal path.

Tonight’s task was all about litter, there’s a lot of it on the approach to the canal which makes in not such a nice place. Not to worry, GoodGym Ealing’s got this!

We split off in teams with head torches glowing in search of anything we could clear. The usual culprits didn’t take long to uncover, lots of spirit bottles, beer cans and our favourite, the discarded poo bag! Everyone took whatever was thrown at them in good spirit and were just glad to be able to make an impact in a short amount of time.

Slim pickings

I must say though, although we filled around 10 bags it was only really the entrance onto the canal that seemed to be bad, walking down the path further there was quite slim pickings which is great news!

After everyone had cleared up and sanitised (crucial in this task!) there was just time for a couple more quick flag photos before the run back to base for a stretch!

But wait the party isn’t over! There’s one more chance to get involved with the 10 year good deeds with this weekends Super Saturday of community missions!

Sign up for our plog with Decathlon at 10:30am on Saturday 21st September right here!

Tonight we once again ran the long 10km to Acton to continue to support Old Oak Community and Children's Centre with their fight to get the garden space revamped and also stepped in to help with some food prep ahead of their community BBQ tomorrow night.

We had 16 of us out tonight including Alex who despite hitting 100 good deeds isn't resting on her laurels and came straight back this week to start totting up the good deeds towards the next big milestone! We had the lovely Tash back with us after starting with GoodGym a couple of years ago, that's the great thing whether you come once a week or once a year, you've still made a huge difference and we always having you no matter how often you can make it!

After some quick introductions getting to know your fellow runners through some Mexican wave squats (yes, that's a thing!) we set off on what was a lovely evening for a run, bright and sunny but not too warm, perfect weather!

Our help is grately appreciated!

At the centre we were met by Elly who always has lots of great tasks for us to help with. These small tasks between 16 of us on one evening save her and the team lots of time and resources so well done team! Tonight we split into two groups, one outside continuing to weed and clear the garden space and one group inside doing some food prep for their community event. Tash definitely helped speed the grating process along and utilised her food technology experience to pump up the indoor team to complete the task at hand.

Meanwhile outside the garden was really taking shape and the before and after was really clear to see! Loads more crates of garden waste removed and a clean sweep for the playground, cracking effort all round!

After that it was just a case of getting the 5km back under our belts, well done to everyone who pushed themselves tonight on the distance. 10km is a long way and everyone got it done! After some stretches back at base we were done!

See you all next time!

You guys clearly love to save a sapling as we had 17 of you come along for the evening for the final round of clearing down on the canal.

It’s been a mammouth task over the summer but last night we went down for the third and final time to finish cutting back all the overgrowth so that these new trees have the space they need to continue to grow. Originally planted by trees for cities a few years ago the maintenance of these new saplings is crucial but sometimes forgotten task so we were on board to make sure this wasn’t the case!

We started by welcoming Katie to her first ever GoodGym run (give her a cheer!) and sadly said goodbye to Sam and Callum as tonight is their last run with GoodGym Ealing (at least for a while).

• Sam is off to South London and will continue to take part in GoodGym there (yay!). He’s been a huge part of our group over the last few months and has done 28 good deeds since March, he's been a regular on the group runs and community missions as well as touring around other areas, he’ll be greatly missed!
• And Callum is off to Dublin to do a masters at Trinity, he’s done loads of GoodGyming over the summer and is always a great asset to any task. We’ll get him back in the holidays but for now best of luck!

Milestone Alert 🚨

• First announcement this week is for our lovely Michelle who clocked up 50 good deeds this evening! She’s been an amazingly positive force in our group and continues to run, walk and take part in all the tasks despite now being heavily pregnant! We’ll be celebrating at the next social on Tuesday 3rd September for sure!
• Next we had Alex on number 99! She'll be doing the big 100 on her birthday in Hounslow tonight and we can't wait to see her in wings. Always friendly, positive and welcoming to new runners, she often volunteers to back mark and regularly does at least 2 good deeds a week in different places, we're so lucky to have her in Ealing!

So on with the run! After a quick game to warm up we headed out west towards the canal where Jane was ready with all the tools we needed to get the job done.

We had just one patch of clearing left to tackle and we wasted no time is getting to it.

I love this task, it’s so therapeutic!

Elena has been present at every task here over the summer and said she really loves coming and seeing a difference straight away, it’s also a good workout and ripping away all the overgrowth is a great stress release!

After half an hour of pulling, raking, chopping and digging we were done! What great satisfaction seeing a big clearing with all the saplings in full sight with access to the space they new to continue to grow now!

Great job everyone, we’ll be back to do it all again next year!