This weekend we put our GoodGymers to the task of plogging in their local park or cemetery if they dared! They did not disappoint...

Sevan and Kash went full Halloween mode and dared to enter a spooky cemetery to collect the rubbish that was cluttering up the graves. How spooktacular!

Rob and his son went to the park and picked up food and drink detritus that was left by a careless soul.

Well done to all that went out and tidied up their local streets and parks.

Please send any further images to rachelwhite@goodgym.org and I can add them to to the report.

I have found some litter on the green and tidied it up

On a drizzly Tuesday morning, a few of us went to Elm Park to do a bit exercise and pick up as much rubbish as we could find. It wasn't easy to get out of bed and get motivated to do this as the excess of Christmas was making us all feel sluggish and tired... However, a few minutes in we started to get our mojo. Rubbish collection day had left a lot of rubbish on the roads, unfortunately, so we picked up half a bags worth before getting to the park. In the park, there were wrappers, face masks and an enormous amount of beer cans. Dave tidied up round the children's play equipment whilst Jen and myself tackling the drinking corner. A mutual friend, Ellie, spotted us in the bushes and came over to see what we were up to and she ended up helping too - a new recruit, perhaps?! The kids had a great time with the litter pickers and between us we managed to fill 2 and a half bags of rubbish. Elm Park looks so much better for our efforts and we felt warm and fuzzy for getting out in the fresh air and making a difference.

Meanwhile, at the slightly less glamorous location of a hospital car park, Samia litter picked along the pedestrian walkway with a detour around the car park to Costa, collecting several paper cups, lids and face masks.

Goodgym Kingston runners Rob and Kate met Lorena and her sister Milena at Las Aguas to begin our great debut plinternational ( plog international)! The goal was to clear the walkways leading up Monserrate of litter. Monserrate is a hill that dominates the city center of Bogotá, the capital city of Colombia. It rises to 3,152 metres above the sea level, where there is a church with a shrine, devoted to El Señor Caído.

Rob was keen to lead the stretches and warm up inspired by our Kingston run leader Mark. While Kate was pleased to point out that because we were warming up for our jog and task at 11:30, we’ll still be mid -plinternational at exactly the same time as our Kingston group run was warming up outside the Guildhall, because they’re 6 hours ahead of us in London. It’s like we’re doing a split task litter pick on two continents with team Kingston Goodgym this Tuesday!

Post warm up and we were all stretched and planned out. Lorena came prepared and got out the bin bags and she donned her gloves. There was plenty of plastic litter to be picked up provided by Coca-Cola and Gatorade as well as many plastic cups, countless plastic straws and lolly sticks, plastic spoons, sandwich bags and water bottles. We were so pleased to be able to clear up the area and couldn’t bottle it up! The climb soon became a bit trickier and Rob mentioned feeling a bit dizzy from the bending down to pick up litter at over 1500m at that point. It seemed like the hill kept on going and we were getting tired but we knew we’d get over it! We kept a positive altitude and felt better after a little encouragement from some locals. We passed many people on the way up that saw us gathering rubbish and said ‘muchos gracias’ and ‘buen trabajo’! Someone even stopped us to take a photo of us and say that he likes what we’re doing and is happy to see us cleaning up the rubbish. He also asked Lorena about our Goodgym group. As we’d almost filled two bags of rubbish we were relieved to find some larger bins to deposit them into near the top and could continue the climb on what was more than merely a slight incline as Mark might say but was certainly a solid hill! The views of all of the city of Bogotá at the top were a great reward!

We were taskless! Well we had one but unfortunately our scheduled task owner had to cancel our visit and we were left with no good to do on a Tuesday night

UNTIL...

Our Run Trainer came to the rescue and remembered that Kingston GG had yet to experience a leafleting task. Thats right, there were about 1,000 Goodgym flyers (advertising what we do to potential runners) that were calling out to be delivered and since Kingston had gone almost a year without ever delivering a leaflet it was now time!

We gathered around the table in room 41 in Guildhall like some secret service about to get the low down on their next mission, there were runners, walkers, little miss inventor (thats right!) An array of maps, task sheets , backpacks and elastic bands - we were ready!

But first we had to pass 'the physical' Mark devised a circuit to develop our fitness for delivering leaflets - think lunges and squats to get to low letter boxes, agility moves to avoid low hanging bramble and slippery steps, and push ups and pulls for tough garden gates!

Do a circuit @PtBarun said, it will be fun he said ....AND IT WAS! #volunteering #runninggroup #goodgym #kingston #tuesdays #circuit #workout #training #exercise pic.twitter.com/39lNUkDvJt

— GoodGym Kingston-upon-Thames (@GoodGymKingston) 6 March 2019

Preparation for what lies ahead - pulling open those gates to those lovely big Kingston houses #goodgym #volunteering #leafleting #flyering #kingston #task #training #circuit #exercises #ptbarun pic.twitter.com/0Q2z9J8u7Q

— GoodGym Kingston-upon-Thames (@GoodGymKingston) 6 March 2019

NOW we were ready! Stravas on we split to walkers and runners groups and those that ran took the route along the river into Surbiton where we divided and conquered the streets. No house was safe from our good intentions, unless 'no junk mail'? (Well one persons junk is a Goodgymer's treasure!!)

The task also allowed us to see more of the borough and on close inspection we were pleased to discover that there are a number of attractive options of pubs in Surbiton for a GoodGym social....potentially another task owner too!

We were so keen to deliver as many leaflets as possible that we even tried to sneak them into letterboxes on the route back to base and still remain at a speed that got us back on time - stealth mission accomplished!

We arrived back at Guildhall where we discussed our adventures - swapping stories of the struggles with those letter boxes with the strange broom like bristles, preferences on 'inny or outey' letterboxes, excitable dogs and the benefit of an in depth safety briefing before the task, (that paperboy knowledge came in handy!)

Super bit of co-ordinating, fitness and fun around Kingston sharing awareness of the 'Good Stuff'

Well done to those that ran Bushy at the weekend and good luck Nik with the half this coming one!

Look forward to seeing you all next week and look up the community missions going on at the weekend if you can't wait until then as we are soooo booked up! What a force Kingston has!