9 runner hit the streets of Westminster to promote the new friendly over-50s choir for St Paul's Marylebone.

Nice one Emily and Meneka for completing your first GoodGym runs - give them a cheer!

It was bitterly cold before arriving at the warmth of our new start point at New Balance Flagship Store. Amongst the speeding manikins and selection of the latest fresh foam shoes we assembled and discussed our task.

The St Paul's Marylebone church was working with Open Age to start a new social singing group for the over 50s. They needed to let the local neighbourhood know when and where it's happening. This was our job for the evening.

"entice the local residents"

We were tackling about 2 square km of streets around the church hoping to entice the local residents into the (non-religious) singing sessions which aim to prevent isolation.

We headed bravely out across Oxford Street with Phil, who recently became a year older, bringing up the rear.

We focused on our footstrike working in pairs to try and identify where our feet were landing in relation to our hips. It was dark, so this was hard.

"the far north"

2.5km later we'd arrived at St Paul's Marylebone - we gathered in it's slightly-warmer-than-outside foyer and distributed the leaflets to our three extraordinary teams. One heading to the far north, one to the near north and a further team, to.... the South.

We gave ourselves 15mins to distrib as many leaflets as we could or until our fingers fell off with cold.

" The word was out there."

15 mins later the teams arrived back. We had about 20 of our 200 flyers remaining. The word was out there.

On the way back we did a mix of ethiopian-style-arm-waving and increasing a pace by increasing our cadence. Phil lead us out on a 1.5km effort along the south of the Regent's park and we hot-footed (and cold handed-it) back to NB HQ, getting into the warm was just wonderful.

Well done all, job done. See you next time.

30 runners hit the streets of London from New Balance's flagship store to run 5km and help clear some workshops for young people in central London.

In the bright lights of our new location a crowd of runners emerged from the throngs of Oxford street shoppers.
We had a massive crew of first timers and a good gang of Westminster regulars.

"amazing opportunity for young people"

Our task for tonight was to help Makerversity clear out their cupboard to make way for more making space for young creative businesses. The dark vaults of Somerset House now vacted by HMRC are home to a thriving community of designers and makers. Every 3 months they support two new young creative people to get their first studio and workshop space free of charge - it's an amazing opportunity for young people to get started in Central London.

"7pm cutoff"

Our gang split in two: one lead by Barnet run leader Damien - taking a longer, posher, faster route down Bond Street and passed he Ritz, while Ivo's group went as the crow flies - through London's busiest streets including the very monica for busy-ness - Piccadilly Circus.

We battled through the crowds (and waited fro many a green man) and made it to the location just before our security-enforced 7pm cutoff. Both groups arriving within minutes of 7pm.

We got to work quickly - one trip for each person was enough to fill a skip with the designated unneeded materials. In no more than 6.5 minutes the job was done.

"planks, squats and dead bugs"

A quick task meant more time for exercising under-exercised muscles. The steps from the Mall to Pall Mall were the back drop for planks, squats and dead bugs. Everyone completed 2 sprints and all three exercises.

The groups made it back at 7.45pm. A rapid, efficient and speedy start to our runs from our new home on Oxford street.

See you next time.

Massive thanks to Damian, Nina, Gillian and Millie for their help guiding us around town tonight and wishing a speedy recovery to Joel - our new trainer for Westminster.

Until next week, safe running.

Meanwhile in BestMinster...

12 GoodGym runners ran 6k to help at St Andrews Gym.

On a mild Wednesday night 12 GoodGym runners hit to the streets of Westminster for a 6k run to help out at St Andrews Gym and also bid farewell to our trainer Cory.

We welcomed 4 runners on their second run: Hermoine, Hannah, Felicity and Catherine. Hope to see you again next week?

We headed out down a busy Oxford street, with some dynamic sidestepping we beat the sale shoppers and sprinted down the hill to say “Hi” to the royals at Buckingham Palace. Nina was hoping for a secret spot of Prince Harry - no luck.

Swooning over the Prince complete, we then split into two groups - with the super keen runners opting for a leg round St James park, and a quick wave a the park keeper house. Whilst the sensible folk opted for the run through the park.

All back together, and it was time for some fun, or at least that is what Cory told us. We hit the curb for some step ups, and star jumps, finished off by a quick sprint to our location, St Andrews Gym.

Inside St Andrew’s Gym, we had time for a quick hydration stop, and it was straight back to work. 12 minutes on the clock, it was time to get this place cleaned up. Spray at the ready and we were off, treadmills (our least favourite thing), benches, weights - all spic and spam. With time still left on the clock it was time for a mini HIIT workout. 5 minutes Cory said, it will be easy he said.. Into the Yoga room we went, and along came the exercise ball - all on the floor and the mission was to pass the exercise ball round the circle whilst lying on the floor. A very secret AB workout complete and it was back the running.

A couple of straight kilometers back to our location, and we had some very happy runners who were glad it was on to the stretching.

One final thing - the farewell speech from Cory. We are sad to say goodbye to our lovely trainer Cory who has been helping us do good in Westminster for the last 2 years. Cory has helped lots of runner beat the fitness blues and do some great things every Wednesday, whether it is helping handout food to rough sleepers, clearing local church gardens, or helping out down at St Andrews. Good Luck Cory, we hope to see you running with us again sometime in the future.

Meanwhile in Bestminster 12 brave souls headed half a click south by south west to the Salvation Army strong hold in Regents hall on Princess street. Why? To help sort through clothing and help distribute to rough sleepers who were coming in to be grab some food at the soup kitchen before heading off to there accommodation.

We were joined by a few newbies so we gave them the fulllllllllll in depth briefing on the goodness that Is goodgym and why what we do is so important. A few announcements about Christmas drinks, races and missions and we were off.

Obviously we took the long way to get there arriving not long after we left lol, we were welcomed by the lovely staff at SA and given a breakdown of what would happen as well as the dos and do nots.

We split into 2 teams, 1 team downstairs sorting clothes into size order and taking orders from upstairs.

The other team upstairs was classed as FRONT OF HOUSE lol. Meeting and greeting those that came in then asking what clothes they needed. All info was jotted down and everyone downstairs prepared socks, jackets, tees, trousers, sleeping bags, shoes and anything else they needed.

We did this for an hour, made new friends and finally said our goodbyes.

We left, had a gentle warm up then began some cheeky lil sprint relays to finish the session on a high.... thanks for coming ;-)

On an evening where temperatures were dropping to -2, I was very excited to have a group of 5 GoodGym runners, who ran 6km to help a local community in Boscombe.

Lovely to see Caroline again after her trip to India....Ross, Daryl and Shauna, shout out to you and your commitment too!!!

We wasted no time running up to Eastcliff and to Churchill Gardens, stopping only to dance with traffic at a roundabout - we were literally stopping traffic in our high viz! 

Our task was to help the group who run the local Joy cafe in Churchill Gardens. We've been here before to help them out and think the work Becky and her group are doing is just brilliant in bringing together a fragmented community, reducing isolation and sharing resources. Her latest project is a new home to be used as a community resource, housing charity workers and hosting group events....like the upcoming carols and mince pie session! 

The place was HUGE and we were to help out blitzing the place as it was tired, mucky and just a little bit nicotine-stained! We found some interesting objects while working...spiders and a brain jelly mould (random). Apparently we missed the false teeth, found before we got there! Our two boys also help lug some furniture around and once we'd finished up and said our goodbyes we realised there was time and energy to spare.

A quick drill in the park opposite: each person ran a circuit, on their return they nominated next runner and an exercise for the group to complete while the runner was on the circuit. We learnt that hopping is VERY hard work and remembered the joy of squatting on a cold dark night with passing strangers heckling at you!

We dashed back to Boscombe Pier and finished the session with a couple of hill sprints up up and away from the sea.

Really excellent effort from you all and glad we all found the warm fuzzy GoodGym feeling despite the Baltic conditions!!!

See you next week!