24 GoodGym'ers ran 3km as they went back to school to help out Flora Gardens Primary

20 GoodGym'ers met at H&F BetterGym on a grey but thankfully dry evening ready to do good for another great cause. Despite a month's worth of rain falling the evening before it seemed we were in luck tonight as despite the grey clouds the outlook was for a nice dry evening - but where is the lovely sunny June weather?! This week we returned to Flora Gardens Primary, a wonderful local school to help out with some painting, weeding and removal of a very well embedded fence!

Before warming up, we began with a round up of the latest GoodGym news, a welcome back from holidays for Johnny and Sarah and happy birthday wishes for Steph! We also welcomed Morning to the group for their first GoodGym run, welcome along, always lovely to have an extra pair of hands join us to help get the job done!

News

Firstly, well done to Tom who completed his 50th parkrun at the weekend! A big thank you to all those that lent a hand at the 'SOS Mission (Im)possible' challenge at WHite City Adventure Playground - the Play Association have again passed on their thanks to you all.

1. Community Missions - tomorrow at Age UK H&F and on Thursday 11th July for Solidarity Sports - Volunteer Award Ceremony.
2. GoodGym Monthly Long Run - Led by Andy and I along the Wandle Trail, 16/10km run options, for all the details click here.
3. GoodGym Olympics - entries are now open! Click here. Lots of event options! Deadline is Thursday 27th June at 23:59. I will create a Google doc and post it in the Whatsapp group later so we cover off lots of the events!

School runnings

Today's warm up was a quick one involving some high knees, lunges and fast feet, and with no rain in sight we all set off on the short run down to this evening's task.

On arrival we met Jeanette who explained how valuable GoodGym are in helping out with the school. Due to constant funding cuts, any money available goes directly into the education of their students, meaning money for maintenance of the school and it's grounds is limited - enter GoodGym! With an additional four runners joining us at the task, we were now a strong team of 24! Tonight we had two jobs...painting and fence removal.

The team split into two groups and set to work!

The group on the Monet...

Group 1: the painting group...the smaller but perfectively formed group headed inside of 'The White House' to apply the final coat of Gilbert Green to the small room at the back. With the final edgings applied and the clearing up complete, we declared the 'White House' completely transformed from slightly drab and uninspiring white walls to a fresh and bright colourful green and blue!

Fence and fencibility

Group 2: the fence group...the majority of the group were given the mighty task of removing a very embedded and stubborn piece of metal fencing. A coordinated team managed to detach the metal fence, rolling it up and away, just leaving the stubborn metal posts which proved quite a challenge! Matt, Eloise and Johnny used their brute strength to snap two of the posts off - amazing stuff! Mo, Jonny, Katie, Lucy, Alice and Georgina displayed incredible detemination as they worked together on one VERY stubborn post, wiggling, tugging, pulling and digging down and around the post...eventually revealing a huge piece of concrete! The team used the spades to try and leverage the post and concrete out but the shear GoodGym strength led to a spade casualty with it snapping completely in two in Jonny's hands! But the broken spade and concrete didn't stop the team who persevered on and eventually the post was lifted out triumphantly! Fantastic teamwork and a great upper-body work out!

Don't take a-fence, but we won't skip the fitness session

This just left time for a short fitness session led by 'Mr Abs on Tour'- Chi! We started off with a lunging walk followed by a sprint back to some squats, then press ups, burpees, and sit ups, all with a sprint across the playground in between. With all of us nicely warmed up again, we set off on the short run back to base. With everyone stretched and cooled down, we headed inside for cake to celebrate Steph's birthday! A well earned treat! It was also our monthly social so many of the group headed off to Wing Wing because as they say...you can never have too much of a good wing right?!

Thanks for a lovely evening all. Next week we're heading up to a new task at the Nubian Life Centre to lend a hand in their Josiah Braithwaite Community Garden, sign up here. Hopefully see you all there. Have a great week!

23 GoodGym'ers ran 3km to pave the way for a perfectly weeded path

It's a Tuesday, it's GoodGym H&F day! Definitely my favourite evening of the week.

It was lovely to welcome along Xiaolei for her first GoodGym run, and great to see Lucy sporting her new red GoodGym tee!

Stacks of news...

Before I launched into this week's news we heard about all the great racing from the weekend - from the hills of Ealing to the hot and undulating motorway (which was closed!) of Sofia. Excellent running by all, and a special shoutout to Sarah who came 4th woman in the 10km 🙌🏼.

1. May London Long Run - this Saturday, led by GoodGym Lamber Trainer, Mark around a number of South London parks (10km & 19km run options available), for all the details, click here.
2. Fulham Palace parkrun GoodGym takeover - Saturday 29th June! - I think you may all have heard, but...GoodGym will be helping out with a BIG takeover event & need some volunteers and pacers! - Sign up here & please fill out the spreadsheet on the sign up page with your preferred volunteer role or pacing time. Join the WhatsApp group here.
3. GoodGym Olympics 2019 - represent H&F on Saturday 3rd August in events from the Egg & Spoon to 5000m! Sign up here. The GoodGym Olympics anthem entries are now open and entry for the events will happen at the start of June.
4. GoodGym West Summer Party & Two Tunnels - On the weekend of 18th August it's one of the 'Big 6' GoodGym races - there will be a group of us heading down to Bath to camp and race. If you'd like to get involved in an H&F relay team, let Bex or Catriona know! For all the details, click here.

AND, a big well done to Bex who completed her 50th good deed!! 🖤🥳

As tonight's task was only a short 1.2km run away we had a quick warm-up before we set off towards Loris Community Garden for Hammersmith Community Gardens Association (HCGA), pausing as always for the much loved weekly wall sit.

Once we arrived we were greeted by the ever mysterious, 'Mr Abs on Tour', Chi who took some fantastic photos and then seemingly vanished!

A runderfully weedy path

The team were also faced with one very weedy path! One that they would be tackling tonight. With the padlock combination finally cracked, the gardening gloves, tools and bags were retrieved from the shed area.

Paving face

Armed with tools, everyone spread themselves around the deceptively long garden path and got to work removing the weeds and their roots from the path's cracks.

Katie, from the HCGA had also left us a chalkboard of tasks and a big thank you, however, this was only spotted by the eagle eyed Catriona at the end of task! Whoops! Luckily, we'd started with the weeding of the path as she had kindly requested.

Getting to the brick of it!

With piles of weeds appearing besides the paths, you could see the path's brick work slowly being uncovered to its former glory.

And wow! What a transformation there was in just 40 minutes. The path that when we arrived was overrun with thick weeds growing through the cracks was now looking freshly layed. With one last patch quickly weeded, everyone had to be dragged away as we called it a night. Fear not, as next month we'll be back to finish the job!

After much debate about where to take the group photo, we settled on around the path with the Banksy-esk graffiti wall art in the background...slightly less risky than everyone gathered around the pond with the ducks!

Planks a lot!

On our way back to base we had a quick stop off at Brook Green for a closely contested team plank-sprint off and some 'Z' shaped agility work before continuing on our way.

Gluten-THREE cakes!

Safely back at base with the cool down and stretching complete there was only one thing left do...celebrate Bex's 50th with not one, but THREE delicious homemade gluten-free cakes - I think everyone is hoping the GoodGym H&F cookbook with free samples will be available soon! What incredible bakers we have, a big thank you to Johnny, Catherine and Andrew for all their baked treats 👌🏼.

With cake in tow we headed to The Blue Anchor for our monthly social: cake, drinks and friendly company, what a perfect end the evening!

Next week's we're heading back to Springvale Residents Hall to help finish the weeding in their garden area and tidy-up around the front of the hall ready for the elections! Please sign up here. See you then, have a fab week! And good luck to those that are running the Hackney Half on Sunday!

If anyone can spare some a few pennies, the HCGA would love to replace the dilapidated glasshouses in Ravenscourt Park with new, more functional glasshouses . If they get lots of people pledging in the first few weeks to their crowdfunding campaign the mayor may give them £50k! The link if you'd like to make a pledge is here.

Oh how the lighter evenings are so much nicer for running...if only the warmer weather would follow suit!!! Tonight we were a smaller but perfectly formed group on a very fresh April evening. Amongst all my brilliant regulars, it was lovely to welcome along Helene and Mia for their second H&F group run, welcome back Lucy and GoodGym Lambeth tourist/mole (delete as appropriate!) Frances - thank you all for coming along!

It was also great to see Sapphire sporting her new shiny red GoodGym tee and weird to see Will in a GoodGym tee that didn't have his name on, how Will we know his name?! Good news, he'd like to be called "GoodGym"!

Without further ado, the news:

Firstly, a BIG BIG well done to Catriona and Jonny who both ran their first marathons in Manchester at the weekend and absolutely smashed it, both finishing in a sub-4 hours time and giving their legs a well-deserved rest tonight. Well done to Frances for got a parkrun PB at Dulwich parkrun and well done to Arba who ran the adidas 1-hour race. Some superb racing all round! 🙌🏼

1. Take the Bridge on Friday 26th April - the idea is that you hit a certain number of checkpoints throughout the city with your team on a 5km run - there are some great cash prizes on offer and a lot of fun to be had!
2. 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.
3. Bath Two Tunnels Races 2019 and GG West Summer party on the weekend of 17th August we're looking to get a big group of us down to camp and run in one (possibly two!) GoodGym H&F 50km relay teams - post in the Whatsapp group/speak to Catriona if you're interested in being part of a relay team (other races are available if you don't fancy the relay), come along & join the fun, we'll also be celebrating Sarah's birthday month!

Two much of a good thing

Tonight we were going to be helping out TWO community organisations that provide wonderful and valuable services in the Hammersmith & Fulham area:

1. St Mungo's Reconnection Post - deliver the 'No Second Night Out' service and provide 25 beds to vulnerable and homeless adults with complex needs. They also work with the residents to get them reconnected in the community or repatriated back to their country.
2. Acknowledging Youths - a project that was set up to raise the aspirations and make a positive impact on the life of disadvantaged young people in London. They provide education and training to help prepare the young people for interviews and ensure they are ‘work ready’.

With the name and number count and short pulse-raising warm-up completed we headed up on our short 1.5km run up to St Mungo's Reconnection Post. Stopping briefly for our weekly walk sit where Johnny was very much ‘Johnny no mates’ on the wall he chose, we arrived in super quick time at St Mungo's Reconnection Post. Once inside we were met by one of the Reconnection Workers, Chris.

There were two tasks that we were going to be lending a hand with tonight:

1. Tidying & sorting a room full of unorganised clothes donations 👚👕👖👗
2. Revamping their garden aka weeding 🌳🌿🧤

To room it may concern...

The group efficiently divided up into teams and Chris led Team Room into the room that I can only describe as “the gift that keeps giving...” - those that have visited before will know what I mean!!

What do you weed to know...

Once Chris had gathered the gardening tools it wasn’t long before Team Garden were pulling up weeds from the flower bed left, right and centre, and clearing the moss from in-between the patio cement.

GoodGym didn't start the flyer...

While Team Room & Team Garden were getting stuck in, Team Flyering set off down Goldhawk Road to deliver some flyers for Acknowledging Youths 🏃🏼‍♀️🏃🏻‍♂️📃 - they may have actually flown as they were all back, pretty much all empty handed in super quick time! In a case of 'many hands make light work' team flyering split into two and joined up with team room and team garden for the final ten minutes of the task.

Half an hour flew by as always, and with the light rapidly fading and temperature still dropping we decided to call it a night. Flyers delivered, a markedly improved and tidied room, and a wonderfully weeded garden, definitely a success all round! The group posed for the ‘much-loved’ jazz hands 👐🏼 group photo before we said our goodbyes and thank yous to Chris.

Running technique as per the brook

Once we were all warmed-up again (sort of!) we headed off on our short run down to Brook Green for the 1km time trial around the outer perimeter of the Green. We headed to the start of the Strava segment so that everyone's times could be logged and progress tracked. Andrew and Frances led the way, everyone displayed some excellent 'pockets to sockets' technique and good postures throughout, and post-lap everyone had significantly raised pulse rates, heavier breaths, with noticeably redder and sweatier faces. Brilliant effort all!

Off to our hoppy place

Time trial lap completed all that was left between the group and the monthly social (or home!) was a very short but gentle cool down run back to base, and a stretch off.

For most of the group post-run refreshments were in order as we headed to The Hop Poles to round off the night, where we joined by Catriona who was thankfully not hopping post-marathon. Great night all, thank you for all your hard work, energy and smiles!

Too cool for school?

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