Tonight we welcomed first timers Clara and Andrew, Clara heard about GoodGym from a colleague at work and decided to give it a try while dragging Andy along.

Tonight 15 runners and walkers headed to Park Hill to help clear the nettles and brambles in the area being used for their forest school. On arrival at Park Hill School we were met by Esther who explained what she would like us to do. Upon receiving Esther's instructions we split up into groups and tackled the areas Esther wanted us to focus on. It was dark, cold and wet but we were not deterred as laugher and chatter could be heard throughout the various groups, conversations of food in the Canaries, Evolve's Big Sleep Out 2019, Volunteering at the Croydon Half Marathon, GoodGym Euro trip, the shindig and also who have been nominated to attend the upcoming GoodGym Olympics. We managed to clear a good amount of the nettles and brambles, filled two large sacks before having to down our tools and head back to solutions for our fitness session.

Gareth huffed and puffed but could not blow us off course

Last weekend saw GoodGym members in all areas taking part in a number of races more notably London GoodGymers were out in full force running and volunteering at the Vitality Big Half. Despite the strong winds of Storm Gareth we all stuck to our guns and ran from Tower Bridge to Greenwich. As if running the streets of London in strong winds wasn't bad enough Nicola took it a notch up by taking part and completing the Grizzly 2019 Trails of the Unexpected. Welll done Nicola, at least there's no videos floating on youtube that you know of showing your struggle during the storm, unlike Lukas Bates who completed the the Big Half in a Big Ben costume, can you spot any GoodGym members in the clip?

Next week we are heading over to Peppermint Centre to help them get ready for Spring, sign up here please note this will be a longer run and the option of running there and taking the tram or bus back is available.

Last night, we had a super evening at Tunstall Nursery, filling sandpits and skips!

A big welcome to Mike who joined us for his first GoodGym run!

We were also excited to see Mohamad return after his first run with us last week – lovely to have you both with us!

After a quick warm up at the start of the run, full of high knees and squats, the 10 runners set of on the long route to Tunstall Nursery – thanks to Nikki, Ian and Ingrid for back marking, leading the runners and navigating while I power walked round the quick way!

When we arrived, Jane had two big tasks lined up for up – filling up the sandpit that we had recently cleared out for them with new sand and moving some rubbish from the carpark into a big skip.

Zara and Kate set to work filling a wheelbarrow with sand and then pushing it round the obstacle course to empty into the sandpit. Meanwhile the rest of the group set to work on moving the rubbish into the skip – which seemed to be filled in the blink of an eye! After that, they swept up the floor where the piles had been and tidied up all the bins so the carpark looked neat and clean again. We also had some runners who swept up the playground to leave it looking lovely for the children tomorrow.

Most of the group then moved on to helping with the sandpit – after filling numerous wheelbarrows, moving the bag of sand itself, and avoiding a slight incident when the bag started to split, the job was done - all ready for sandcastles in the morning!

Jane was really pleased with all the work we had completed and thanked us for coming

After this, we completed a speedy time trial round our usual loop – I will include the times in the email so that everyone can compare their times with last week’s efforts.

Well done to everyone’s efforts this week and thanks for having me as the Run Leader for the week!

Next week we’ll be running to Park Hill School to help out in the gardens – sign up here!