What a great turn out of runners for a Tuesday night in Kingston! With 17 runners warming up outside the Guidhall our run leader for the evening, Samia, had us heel flicking, walking our hands out to a plank, lunging and going through the essential pre-run stretches to prevent injury. Before long we were all warmed-up and ready to do our quick run through the market square and off towards Canbury Gardens and on to our task for the evening!

It was to St Luke’s CE Primary School we ran this evening! With a link made by one of our own Kingston Goodgym runners, we were tasked with some clearing of leaves from the scooter and bike racks as well as the cleaning out of gutters and drains outside the classroom’s conservatories. While it seemed like they were big tasks to take on when we arrived, it didn’t take long before we’d divided to conquer our mission and got into the groove (between each rack over the gutters too). With great speed of scooping and sweeping, it wasn’t long before all gutters were cleared on the Key Stage 2 classroom side of the school and our task leader took us over to the Key Stage One side to continue while there was still time to clear as much as we could.

While the gutters were being cleared by half of the group, we couldn’t be’leaf’ how quickly a few bags were filled with the leaves from around the bike stands by the other half! Many hands made light work as the bags of mud and sludge from gutters got heavier! Once the last sweep left little ‘broom’ for improvement where the scooters stood, it was time to ‘leaf’ the bags by the shed and prepare for our run back.

With a final quick monkeying around on the trim trail of the playground, it was time for a group photo and school was out!

Well done to all on this Kingston group run for your support of a local school that has a big part in our local community. We were lucky to meet some new runners this evenings as well and send a big cheer to Scott and Moemen on their first group run with us and Owen and John returning for their second. Huge congratulations to Claire for her achievement of 50 good deeds and to Rob for 100 good deeds in Kingston! And thanks to Caroline for backmarking and Kate for being a wonderful taskowner and writing the run report! Our community is a better place because of your great contributions!

We’re back to school again next week so sign up to join us on a run and task to support St Paul’s CE Primary School next Tuesday!

Having enjoyed the comfort of some warm tasks on our group runs over the past few weeks we braced ourselves for a task in the great and rather cold outdoors. Once we had welcomed new member Owen to his first run and Emily back for her second Kingston task we decided how many layers we really needed before leaving the warmth of Guildhall.

Our first stop was the market square for a much needed warm up. Mark had us playing stuck in the mud with a few jumping jacks involved for good measure and then working in pairs on a set of squats and lunges to make sure we were fully warm for our run.

Then off we went running along the river and up into the roads of Kingston for 3km until we reached our task at Latchmere Recreation Ground where we were met by members of the Friends of Latchmere. Four GoodGym members headed off in one direction to get shovelling while the rest set off to get digging.

A large amount of earth needed clearing from a concrete area behind some storage containers so that a shed could be built and there was lots of earth for our GoodGym team to move.

Across the other side of the recreation ground 5 holes needed to be dug 2ft square and 1ft deep for fruit trees to be planted. This was easier said than done when we got through the turf and the topsoil to find lots of huge rocks. It was time for the pick axe to take over from the shovels to loosen those rocks.

Rocks removed we kept digging and emptying the holes until they were deep enough. Once ready we refilled them backwards with the turf on the bottom and topsoil on top.

They are now all ready to have fruit trees planted in them on Thursday when the Friends of Latchmere volunteers go to the park to complete the planting.

By this point the warmth of the run and the digging and shovelling had worn off and it was time for another 3km run back to Guildhall and a good warm down on the steps.

Well done to our Owen and Emily on competing their first and second tasks.

Thanks to Martell for being backmarker and Caroline for leading the walking group.

Looking forward to seeing you all next week!!