I was delighted to see so many people engage with this Training Session. It's fantastic to see that so many of you are still getting out and about and appreciating you local areas during the lockdown. It was also wonderful to so many interesting and often stunning works of public and street art. The variety on offer was quite something and submissions ranged from bright coloured murals to children's lockdown chalk drawings, a locally funded sculpture of a Victoria Cross winning War Hero and a beautiful Henry Moore from one of my trips out to the Isle Of Dogs.

Stuff came in from all around the country too including submissions from Runcorn, Leicester and various parts of the capital. It's also brilliant to see new people joining us for activities in spite of the lockdown restrictions limiting our group activities; welcome Alexandra Winston and Adnaan Keshani.

Enjoy the photos, everyone.

Wednesday 6th May had the distinction of being the first Wednesday in the month, which can only mean one thing. Yes, it was time for the GGWF monthly social and since lockdown, this auspicious occasion has taken place online and has centred around a quiz.

The emerging tradition is that the winner of the previous edition serves as Quiz Master for the next one and on this occasion, the honour fell to Waltham Forest ex-pat, Alex Hughes. Alex put together a fascinating set of questions that included a picture round of guess which species the eye belonged to and other challenging but enthralling conundrums.

It was a close run thing with a nail-biting finish but eventually, Pippa pipped Kevin at the post to come out on top with 149 points. Kevin was runner up with 144 and Kirsty took third with 136. Thankfully, as a stewards enquiry might have been required if Kirsty had done any better, given that she was sitting next to Alex on the sofa for the duration of the quiz. Mind you she does have good form, finishing runner up last time, or was it the time before? I can't remember, anyway, she is smart, that's all we need to know.

So, it looks like I am rambling a bit here, so let's move on. We will be quizzing again 3rd June with Pippa taking the Jeremy Paxman role.

See you there, folks.

Good to catch-up with some of the GGWF regulars. Not planned at all, but it was a male-dominated session. Avoiding stereotypes, we hardly talked about sport at all. Having said that Ramon was on an exercise bike throughout the conversation, making me feel decidedly lazy.

This coming Wednesday, 6th May, for the monthly social, we will be Zooming in for a quiz. Prepared by last month's victor, Alex Hughes. Please join us for chats and a workout for your mind.

Well done to everyone who completed the Blue Plaque challenge this week. A great way to get out and explore your local area on lockdown.

Sign-up to next week's Lockdown Challenge here

It was great to catch up with some of the folks from GGWF on Wednesday. We shared some stories about fitness and stuff we have been doing on lockdown. I'll be online again this Wednesday for a chat and I'd love it if you could join me. Weekly Catch-Up

Fab to catch-up with some of the Waltham Forst GoodGymers. Great hearing about the things you have been up to to get survive lockdown. Also good to hear that you are all keeping fit.

Look forward to catching up again next Wednesday.

*This week's training challenge was *

1. Mini HIIT:

• 1-minute of plank

• x5 burpees

• x10 pushups

• x15 crunches

Repeat Session

1. Run or walk x3

Go for at least three runs or walks of at least 30 minutes this week. If you are walking make it brisk so. You need to elevate your heart rate so you should be swinging your arms a bit and having to take more deliberate breaths

1. Take a photo of a scene with no human activity going on

Now you might not actually have signed up to the challenge but if you posted one of the great photos on the WhatsApp group, I have assumed you did all the other things and I have logged you as a completer.

Well done, I loved seeing the photos. I hope you can join me this Wednesday for a Zoom catch up at 8pm. No quiz this week just drinks, chats and a special mystery game that I have organised.

See you there, invitation below Ant Withstandley is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Please download and import the following iCalendar (.ics) files to your calendar system. Weekly:

Join Zoom Meeting

Meeting ID: 736 5815 7940

Well all I can say is I feel sorry for the children at Ms. Loxton's school as she turns out to be the Professor Snape of the English education system. High Intensity Interval Training is defined by Wikepedia as alternating short periods of intense anaerobic exercise with less intense recovery periods, until too exhausted to continue. This was pretty much how I felt after 55 fiendishly difficult questions on topics including isoloceles triangles and plagues of the ancient world!

Writing this morning with my head wrapped in a wet towel, I can hardly recall the questions - perhaps I shouldn't have had that low alcohol beer!.

What I can remember is that it was yet another great evening with the lovely GoodGymers from Waltham Forest. Hats off the Ms. Loxton for putting together such a challenging and facinating quiz. Congratulations to Alex for coming up trumps and volunteering to do the next quiz, which will be in place of our monthly social on Wednesday 6th May, sign up here

We will also be Zooming every Wednesday for drinks and chats so sign up to next week's session here

And of course, there is still time to sign-up to this week's Training Challenge which you have until Saturday to complete. Sign-up here

First things first and a huge thank you to our quiz master extraordinaire, Ercole Lugari. What a brilliant set of questions stitched together on a slick online format that rewarded the fastest finger first as well as the correct answers.

Categories included Waltham Forest Flag Names Movies Athletics History Animals Politics UK General Music Food The questions came thick and fast with Kirsty (representing the NHS) and Joanna (representing secondary schools) emerging as the front runners and slugging it out for the top spot. It was a close run thing but eventually, Joanna won. Considering both of their employers have recently been noticed as just about the most important things in this country by a country mile, it seems only right that they did so well.

Looks like we will be doing the same again next week so I hope you can join us. Details to follow in my next weekly fitness email.