23 GoodGym'ers ran 3km to help Springvale Residents Hall with a treat of a task - weeding, sweeping & window cleaning!

Everyone is loving the lighter and warmer evenings it seems as a massive 22 GoodGym'ers joined me in H&F to run and do good! Amongst all my wonderful regulars tonight, it was lovely to welcome along Katie and Suzie for their first H&F group run and many second and third timers back for more!

There was lots of running to celebrate from the weekend...Eloise got a parkrun PB at Gunnersbury, Johnny & Sarah ran the Morden (almost!) 10km, Catriona ("this is the last hill") led her first GoodGym long run up and down the rather undulating Wimbledon Common, AND the good deed machine of January aka Helen ran the London Marathon in a superb time and with a big smile on her face despite injury...stairs and walking sound like they have been a struggle since and Helen had a well deserved evening off tonight! Well done to you all!

Other news...

1. London Marathon Ballot 2020 - Feeling inspired to run a marathon? Well....the London Marathon ballot for 2020 is OPEN until Friday 3rd May, I'll just leave the link to enter here - there are also many other options such as Manchester, Brighton & nohtaraM ehT!
2. Fulham Palace parkrun GoodGym takeover - Saturday 29th June! - Our friends at Fulham Palace parkrun will celebrate their 300th parkrun event...and the best news is that GoodGym will be helping out with a BIG takeover event! - Sign up here please fill out the spreadsheet on the sign up page with your preferred volunteer role or pacing time.
3. Next Socials - save the dates! The next GoodGym 'all areas' social is on Thursday 9th May in Peckham & the next GoodGym H&F social is on Tuesday 14th May. Locations TBC, check the WhatsApp group for updates.

Having sailed through the hardest part of the evening, the name and number count, we completed a quick warm-up and set off on our short run to Springvale Residents Hall. Upon arrival we were greeted by the ever-smiley and enthusiastic Berni, chair of the Springvale Tenants' and Residents' Association and the Hall's gardener, Tom. Berni explained that the hall was going to be used for the upcoming elections at the end of May but needed a big spruce up as there were quite a number of weeds that had sprung up again, tougher and thicker than before!

Weed, sweep, clean, repeat

With the odd peeping resident from the adjacent flats (thankfully admiring all the GoodGym work that Berni had told them about, not gearing up to throw rotten tomaotes or eggs!) the group spread themselves around the hall and tackled the following jobs:

• Weeding of the overgrown garden at the rear
• Weeding and sweeping of the patio
• Weeding and sweeping down the side of the hall
• Cleaning the outside of the windows
• Removal of all the cobwebs on the outside of the hall

Heavy nettle

As always, the group got quickly stuck in to the jobs at hand and began pulling up all the weeds and nettles from the garden area and down the side of the hall at a rate of knots. As the weeders were forming piles of unwanted weeds, the window cleaners, with the assistance of the ladder, were thoroughly cleaning and wiping all the windows back to the former shiny glory.

Taking the biscuit 🍪...

Berni had very kindly left some biscuits and sweets for the group as a thank you, and to keep everyone fuelled throughout the task. Not one to miss a biscuit or food based snack, Johnny went in seek of them having, in his words "done some work to earn them first" and began serving up a 'sugar rush' with his refreshments partner, 'I've only had five biscuits' Alice to everyone in the group. The sugar hit break was very welcomed by all and everyone got stuck into their biscuit or sweet of choice with not one crumb left behind - though if there had been, the sweepers would have ensured a clean sweep of the area.

Transformation at the weed of light

Forty minutes flew by and the transformation was striking! As they say, pictures say a thousand words so...

Just a small snipped from the evening. Impressive work!

Papa-paparazzi

With Berni and I furiously snapping away with our phones, and the surprise late arrival of Chi armed with his professional camera, there was very little of the evening that wasn’t captured on film! 📸. About a thousand snaps and four group photos later, with no staging whatsoever, everyone’s best angles were captured. All that was left before we headed over to Brook Green for tonight's short fitness session was for us to say our thankyous and goodbyes to both Berni and Tom.

Totally ab hoc

Tonight's fitness centred very much on the core. First up was the closesly contested plank tennis ball relay 🎾, Team 1 came out on top, just!

And since we had Mr 'Abs on Tour' in our presence, everyone was also treated to a five minute abs blast which included bicycles, leg raises and heel taps, all while being papped by Chi of course. This was to the delight of Jonathan who was after that magic new Tinder profile picture, which I believe Chi managed to snap, and for which Lucy gave him the winning bio quote, team work in action.

As we said our thankyous and goodbyes to Chi, there was just time for part II of the new weekly feature by popular demand... the nostalgic and amusing 'Tom's CV' series told by the man himself. This evening's short anecdote was from his time working at Burger King, stay tuned for part III next week!

Plank you very much, that's ball folks!

All that was now left was a short run back to base and a quick stretch off. Great work tonight team!

Next week we’re heading back to Flora Gardens Primary to finish off the last of the painting in ‘The White House’. Sign up for next week’s run here. Have a fab week and long weekend!

12 GoodGymers ran 9km to deliver flyers for the WANDerful charity WAND UK

Well that was one scorcher of an Easter bank holiday weekend! The t-shirts and shorts are finally out from everyones drawers...and good job too since it was a very warm evening for our long run up to, and back from WAND UK. A big welcome to Lucy who joined us for her first GoodGym run - hope you enjoyed it and hopefully see you again soon! - and a big thank you to my regulars for coming along and resisting the lure of ice creams, and pub gardens!

The weekly news to amuse

1. April London Long Run - Wimbledon Common & Putney Heath - join Catriona this Saturday from 10.30am as she leads a scenic run loop around Wimbledon Common and Putney Heath (10km & 17km run options available), followed by lunch!
2. London Marathon Cheering - on Sunday put on your red GG tee & come down to Victoria Embankment, behind Somerset House (around mile 25) to give all the marathon runners a BIG cheer, especially our very own, Helen!! The more noise the better! Good luck to Helen & everyone else running.
3. GoodGym Olympics 2019- represent H&F on Saturday 3rd August in events from the Egg & Spoon to 5000m!
4. Jonny's Marathon Article - have a read about Mr Jonny Knight's first marathon experience at Manchester!

As a special treat this week, you're spared from any more of my waffle and have the aforementioned Mr Jonny Knight's take on the evening!...it's a good'un & will have you laughing from the first line! Have a fab week and hopefully see you at the weekend.

Over to you Jonny...

The sun was still in the sky, they put their red t-shirt’s on which seemed to have a mirrored illustration on them of a recycling symbol and the word ‘GoodGym’. It must be the dreamy silent heroes from the borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, out to do good and who is this with them? In a 2017 Great North Run Finisher shirt, she must mean business, it was Lucy on her first GoodGym Group Run.

After they had warmed up their typical running formation resumed, one team running as one, tackling the obstacles that this urban jungle threw at them, Jason Cheung made sure no one was left behind, which is their way of saying “no one gets run over at GoodGym”.

Around 4 kilometres later they arrived at the St Charles Centre for Health and Wellbeing where the group was given an array of flyers explaining that WAND UK, was not a stick used to conjure spells but a charity that addresses the problems facing women in isolated and excluded communities through drop-in sessions, outreach services and networking events.

Task number 1 was to combine the different flyer types into a single pack that could be placed through letterboxes. Tom Clough reminisced about his time as a paperboy, an occupation worthy of a spot on his CV, especially as he was in his element here.

They headed on to Latimer Road as per WANDs request, there is a housing estate there called Lancaster West, which you will see actually looks like a ‘W’ from above, for the next WAND flyering mission they will be covering flat blocks that at least look like an ampersand.

The group split into three teams, and there was a short amount of time to fill letterboxes with flyers. How did they get in? They are heroes... they walked through the front door after explaining to the residents that they were a charity, helping a charity.

To cut a long story short, they regrouped and ran back, but with their heads held high that they did good in the community on this fine summers evening and then Jonny Knight agreed to write his first Run Report, and thought a third person narrative would make him look fly-er.

16 GoodGym'ers ran 3km back to school to paint 'The White House' blue & green

You can feel the warmer weather coming (honestly it is, the Met Office says so...), the evenings are lighter and longer, its the best time of the year for running and GoodGym! Following a quick downpour before we all arrived we were lucky that despite the grey skies the weather was set fair for the rest of the evening - yippee! Amongst all my wonderful regulars tonight, it was lovely to welcome along Bilal and Francesca for their first H&F group run - hope you both enjoyed it and hopefully see you again soon!

News yourself in all this week's news...

Firstly there was lots of superb racing to celebrate from the weekend, well done to Eloise and Matt who ran the Fulham & Putney Half and got a nice new shiny PB! Well done to Bex, Catherine and Tom for their Towpath 10 runs - and a big beltated Happy Birthday to Catherine! 🥳 It was also great to have Jonny running with us again after a deserved week off following his amazing Manchester Marathon run! Plus of course some parkruns! 🙌🏼

1. April London Long Run - Wimbledon Common and Putney Heath join Catriona on Saturday 27th April from 10.30am as she leads a scenic run loop around Wimbledon Common and Putney Heath followed by lunch.
2. Fulham Palace parkrun GoodGym takeover - Saturday 29th June! - Our friends at Fulham Palace parkrun will celebrate their 300th parkrun event...and the best news is that GoodGym will be helping out with a BIG takeover event! - please fill out the spreadsheet on the sign up page with your preferred volunteer role or pacing time.
3. GoodGym Olympics 2019 represent H&F on Saturday 3rd August in events from Egg and Spoon to 5000m!

Another nifty fifty 5️⃣0️⃣!

AND, a big congratulations to Tom for reaching his 50th good deed - some awesome work & good deeding over the past year and a half, Tom!!

Too school for cool

With the name, number count and short pulse raising warm-up completed, we headed off on our short 1.5km run to our task tonight at Flora Gardens Primary School. With one quick wall sit completed en route - for some weird reason, Johnny 'no mates' joined the group this week on the same wall, madness! - it wasn't long before we arrived at the school gates and were buzzed inside by the school's Business Manager, Jeanette who was waiting for us inside the school's 'The White House'.

Jeanette (the honorary GoodGym member and avid parkrunner!) welcomed us into 'The White House' and into the main room that the team had painted in previous weeks, it was all beginning to look a lot more vibrant and colourful throughout the building thanks to all the efforts and hard work of my GoodGym team (and of course, from the wonderful, Jeanette!). Jeanette explained to the group that in the building the school run a before- and after-school club where meals and snacks are provided so that no child goes hungry. Unfortunately like most schools, they were facing tough financial pressures so did not have the Monet to pay for full price paint and professional redecoration of their school buildings. Thanks to Community Repaint, a brilliant scheme that redistributes leftover paint into their communities at around a third of the price, Jeanette had managed to source around 60 litres for under £150 and for the second time, the many helping hands of GoodGym runners to help revamp some white rooms. What a steal!

No bog standard blue & green

Tonight's task was to apply the second coat of the bright 'Gilbert Green' and 'Heavenly Horizon' colour to the once white and dull walls of the conservatory and toilet. The team split into two groups, with Jonathan pretty keen to take up his painting battle with the toilet again..who could deny a man this opportunity?! In 60 minute makeover style, half of the group had quickly armed themselves with paint brushes and covered up their valuable GoodGym tees and sportswear with the free oversized L'Oreal t-shirts that had been sent to the school - normally used for when the children do arts and crafts so as to protect their school clothes, genius! Jason oversaw the painters and took some fabulous photos of the transformation (and thanks to popular demand, more fun eccentric filtered photos - make sure you check them out!).

Ball for your core needs

While half of the group were painting away under the watchful eye and camera lens of Jason, the other half headed outside for this week's fitness session.

Queens and Wimbledon may be a few months away yet, but tonight one Wimbledon tennis ball 🎾 would provide the team with a tough core workout.

First up was the plank circle, everyone had to hold the plank position as a tennis ball was passed round the circle, with the bonus of a press up when the ball landed in their hands.

Next up was the line twist, everyone sat in the v-twist position and the ball was passed up and down the line, amazingly, no one dropped it in either of the groups...further v-sits avoided (phew!). Everyone seemed to love these core exercises as there were no challenges or asks for deuce...just the sighs and heavy breathing of hard work, great work all!

Upon arrival at the school we’d noticed a short felted track complete with a timer...this of course had to be test run by everyone. Despite the corners proving tricky to negotiate on two feet, everyone successfully made it round. The time of 13 seconds was definitely the modal result, with an impressive run of 6 in a row at 13 seconds being the highlight!

And finally, there was the numbers game, a short 5m sprint battle to the tennis ball when your number was called. Johnny very amusingly ‘won’ his round as he spotted another tennis ball in the playground that was closer - aced it, Johnny!

New balls please...

With the rotation of the groups seemless, the walls in the conservatory had had their second coat of paint efficiently and skillfully applied and were now looking a lot fresher and brighter than a couple of weeks ago, and the toilet was markedly improved, with one final painting session needed to apply the finishing touches. With time ticking on, the team helped Jeanette clean-up the paint brushes and I captured a lovely team photo amongst the backdrop of the 'this is what we've painted before' green and blue main room - instead of jazz hands this week, we went for hands in the air (like you just don't care) to mix it up!

There is tow alternative but to take the path back to base

We said our goodbyes to Jeanette and headed out of the school and headed off on the final part of our run down through Furnival Gardens, along the towpath and back to base - with a couple of bonus squats and spotty dogs thrown in when we regrouped. Everyone ran a strong pace back and aside from a couple of quick stops for the traffic lights, there was no stopping everyone! Back at base we all regrouped and completed a quick cool down and stretch off (with the reward being cake at the end!).

Cake no bones about it, it was the best gingerbread cake EVER

Cool down and stretches complete the class were dismissed to enjoy some delicious and all-round epic homemade gingerbread cake made by the very talented baker, Catherine, in celebration of Tom's 50th good deed! Thank you very much, Catherine - what a treat and fantastic way to finish off the evening!

Next week's task is TBC - keep an eye on the WhatsApp group and the weekly fitness email that I'm sure you all read every week ...Sign up for next week’s run here. Have a fantastic long weekend and Easter break!

The fairy godmothers (and fathers) were out in their numbers in H&F tonight to help the elderly residents of Maystar Estate.

We were also lucky to have visiting fairy godmothers, Katie and Aiste, from the neighbouring kingdoms of GoodGym Camden and Greenwich along with new joiners James and Clare on their first group run.

It all started early on a Tuesday night when 22 GoodGymers stood in a circle and desperately tried to remember their names, a number and come up with an un-embarrassing favourite film. After the warm up, which featured The Shining (much concern), The Lion King (overall approval) and Harry Potter (once again – general nodding) we set off with a reminder that we hadn’t seen Clueless, Pretty Women or Mean Girls in far too long.

Arriving at Maystar Estate we were met by Pauline who had a fine display of various gardening tools. Choosing our weeding weapon of choice we were split into teams of five and six and set off to work our magic on the gardens of the elderly residents. Nearly 20 bags of garden waste/weeds later we were rewarded with smiles from the people who lived there and a great selection of biscuits and squash from Pauline.

After all of the weeding weapons were back in line and meeting the one and only Danny Cocaine (write it down everyone) we made our way to the river to do some interval training to get us back to Hammersmith Bridge.

And so, the fairy godmothers and fathers made it back to the Better Gym in Hammersmith and lived happily ever after - knowing that they would be laughing at everyone’s toddler photos in a few weeks time.

A special thanks to Beth for leading tonight’s run and to the wonderful Jason who keeps everyone company at the back.

---

Big big thank you to Bex for writing this week's run report!...if anyone's missing their left slipper, please let Bex know!!

You're saved from my terrible puns this week but a quick reminder of all the news this week....

1. Community Mission - On Saturday 1st September (that's right, this Saturday!), there will be a community mission to help out at the amazing White City Adventure Playground, sign up here - Wormwood Scrubs parkrun followed by breakfast will be organised pre-mission! Please come along and lend a hand if you can You do not need to be DBS verified to get involved with community missions.
2. GG London-wide 'Hamingslow' Social - On Thursday 6th September, GG Hammersmith, Ealing and Hounslow will be uniting and hosting the social! It'll be in Hammersmith upstairs at The Rutland Arms! Sign up here.
3. GG H&F's 2nd Birthday - On Tuesday 11th September, part two of the birthday celebrations with a post-run social! Venue TBC. Important pre-social request - Please email or whatsapp a photo of yourself aged 2 to Bex before the date for the baby photo quiz round!
4. 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.
5. Donations Wanted! - Catriona is going to Calais in October to volunteer for a couple of weeks with an amazing charity called Help Refugees, who among other things, give support to people who were displaced from the Jungle when it was torn down by the French police. Do you have any of the items listed here that you can donate? If YES, please let Catriona know!

And, well done to Jason who FINALLY (suprisingly Back to the Future isn't his favourite film?!) received his well-earned winged t-shirt for his 100 good deeds.

Next week it's part one of H&F's 2nd birthday celebrations, we will be off on a party run to St Mungo's Reconnection Staging Post to help give their garden a revamp – sign-up here.

Thank you all for pitching-in on another garden task and for entertaining my photo posing requests and the questionable group selfie attempts! It was lovely to see Joyce, Luke, Sophie and Missie repping their nice and new (yet to have paint splashed on) red GG-tees, great to meet and welcome along James and Clare, hopefully we will see you both on another group run soon! And lastly, thank you to the GG tourists, my three-legged race buddy, Katie and Greenwich's finest, Aistle.

Ramble done, have a fantastic week all and hopefully see you either on Saturday or next Tuesday!