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!

On a fresh but sunny Saturday morning, 9 GoodGym'ers met up at St Mungo's Reconnection Post to help sort and tidy clothing donations. Some had either run or volunteered at a local parkrun beforehand, while others had run and walked various distances from their homes post-breakfast!

Amongst many H&F regulars, it was really lovely to welcome the ever-smiley Camilla along for her first GoodGym experience and good deed! Hope you had fun!

The sort shift

Despite the slight confusion when the team arrived at St Mungo's Reconnection Post, one of the Reconnection Workers, Lucasz, sorted out all the bags, labels and pens needed for the task at hand. St Mungo's Reconnection Post provide valuable services to vulnerable and homeless adults with complex needs in the community, such as the 'No Second Night Out' service where new rough sleepers are identified on the streets of London and are offered a bed; they also attempt to reconnect people with their family and support networks so that they do not have to sleep out for a second night for the night - sadly, with the number of rough sleepers on the rise, this is a very valuable service.

We had visited St Mungo's Reconnection Post on a couple of group runs back in January and had made great inroads into organising the room FULL of donations, all that was needed was one final push to tidy up the labelling and clothing on the shelves...well that's what we thought anyway! When the door to the room opened again it was quickly apparent that the room had once again been filled to bursting with donations - these ranged from bags to bedding, and everything inbetween!

This is how we two do it

So as to maximise the space and efficiency, the team quickly divided up into two groups, one in the room and one in the corridoor. 'Team room' quickly set about transfering the masses of unsorted bags out of the room into the corridoor so that 'team corridoor' could begin the big sort! With everyone working together like a well-oiled machine it wasn't long before there were lots of nicely sorted, folded and stacked piles of various men's and women's clothing attire. Team room worked quickly to put the many pairs of shoes and socks scattered around the room away in the cupboard space so as to clear an area with which to work in.

You're taking the biscuit!

Amongst the polite calls of "men's shirt", "women's jumper" and "more labels please" there was also the discovery of some rather interesting objects that were definitely not 'donation material', these included: bourbon biscuits (sadly crushed, as were Johnny upon hearing this!), an empty cider bottle, copious amounts of empty lighters, cystitis treatments, and Bex's second favourite item*, the dead cockroach!

Bags of fun

With many bags now sorted, filled, labelled and lined up in the corridoor, the room was now much noticeably clearer, but not cleaner due to a dearth of biscuit crumbs and rubbish. Thankfully an upright dustban and brush was located and Jason proved a dab hand at providing a quick clean sweep of the room. With the room swept, all that was left to do was for the team to work in trusty human chain formation and get the nicely sorted and labelled bags of donations back into the room, ensuring space was left around them so that people could actually move in the room and easily locate donations - mission accomplished!

On a brewtiful morning we didn't want to get shot of each other

The team posed for a nice group photo in the sunny courtyard area before either heading home or through Shepherd's Bush market in search of caffeine! Awesome work team, hope you have a great rest of your weekend.

*Bex's favourite item was obviously the baseball cap...

Having looked at the weather forecast in the morning I was slightly trepidacious that the weather would put some runners off, I mean who wants to run in torrential rain and snow?! Turned out I needn't have worried as a massive 27 GoodGym runners in Hammersmith & Fulham were keen to do precisely this in order to run to do good in their community. It was great to see so many new faces, a big welcome to, Alice, Georgina and Claire who all joined us for their first GoodGym run. Hope to see you all again very soon, hopefully the weather will be kinder next time! It was also lovely to have along GoodGym tourists, Mathilde, India, Jen and Africa who joined my wonderful regulars on a very cold winter night with adverse weather conditions! Thank you all for coming along.

Since the rain was coming down with some force we sheltered under the Better Gym car park for the intros and a quick round-up of the week’s news.

The news this week, a run stop shop

1. JANUARY CHALLENGE 2019! - We're into the last few days of the January Challenge. The GoodGym targets of 6,000 good deeds and 80,000 kms run are in touching distance, will we make it?! As a group we hit BOTH our 2019 targets for good deeds and distance run last week and have a trophy for each as a reward. We're also sitting very nicely at the top of Division D. Awesome work H&F team, great team effort! Track the January Challenge progress here.
2. The Vitality Big Half (10th March) - GoodGym has some £10 community entry places for the Big Half. If you're interested, please email bighalf@goodgym.org Deadline for applications is Wednesday 30th January. Names will be drawn at random from those who want a place.
   
3. London-wide GoodGym social - Thursday 7th February at the The Prince Arthur Pub, near Old Street - Celebrate GoodGym, Heroes of the months, January IPOTM (International Pun of the Month), IPOTY (International Pun of the Year) and January Challenge Results! Sign up here.
   

Lots of racing at the weekend too, big well done to Tom and Chris in the very muddy and hilly Maverick Trail Race down in West Sussex and to Johnny and Sarah who ran the Morden Hall Trust10 Trail Run AND ran their 50th different parkrun! Impressive! Well done all, great running.

Following a name and number count we headed out into the heavy rain to get ourselves warmed-up (well sort of!) and headed up on our short 2km run up to St Mungo's Reconnection Post. Stopping briefly for some jumping jacks and squats when waiting to cross the roads we arrived in super quick time at St Mungo's Reconnection Post and were met by one of the Reconnection Workers, Marcia. As Marcia located the keycard for the room that we were going to be working in, I briefly explained to group about the valuable services St Mungo's Reconnection Post provide to vulnerable and homeless adults with complex needs in the community, such as the 'No Second Night Out' service – as well as providing 25 beds, they also work with the residents to get them reconnected in the community or repatriated back to their country.

All-sorts of clothing, snow many clothes!

Tonight's brief sounded simple but in reality was quite a challenge. We had been asked to help organise one of their store rooms which had become filled full to bursting, quite literally, of a fantastic array of donated clothes by the public and previous residents. A few weeks ago we made a start on the room but due to the sheer volume of clothes and bags within the room had only been able to get so far. This week we were back to (hopefully....maybe) finish the job off!

A different kettle of squish

One bonus of tonight's task was that it was inside, however, we were very limited with the space in which to work and with 27 GoodGym bodies we had to be both creative and extra efficient with all our sorting. With the group divided up between two rooms and along the corridoor it was time to sort. Jason provided a brilliant contact point between the two rooms and corridoor, and even participated in the well known challenge, just how many coats can one person carry?! With excellent co-ordination, communication and all round teamwork it wasn't long before the room started to look clearer and the shelves fuller with neatly folded and stacked clothing - plus we could now see the floor! Half an hour flew by as always and the task came to a nice natural end point, for now!

Too clothes for comfort

Since we could now get in the room I decided this was the perfect opportunity for a group photo, despite it being a tight space everyone got up clothes and personal, well neatly packed in and we managed a great team photo in the room we had sorted. Andrew also providing a brilliant photo op - check out the photo of him sat on the throne (chair) admiring the wonderfully sorted and folded clothes now on the shelf and in boxes. In just two half an hour bursts it's amazing what you have all achieved, the room is unrecognisable from our first visit - well done all, great work!

Check out the transformation...

Snow joke, the weather really was that bad!

We said our goodbyes to Marcia and headed back outside into the driving cold rain. With many shivering and with snow just starting to fall we unanimously decided to forgo the fitness session this week and head straight back to base. With base only a short 2km away it wasn't long before we were all back and having a quick stretch off inside the warmth of the Better Gym Leisure Centre. Cold and damp to the core it was time to call it a night and we headed off for our monthly social which comprised of drinks, food, chats and general merriment - a perfect way to end the night.

Thank you all for coming along, hope you had fun and have now all warmed-up and dried off! Have a great week. Sign up for next week's run here.

Thank you to Jason for backmarking and many thanks to Catriona for the extra photos and for organising the social!

What a way to get up and running in 2019!! It was lovely to be back after the festive break with lots of new shiny running gear from Santa on display and the beaming smiles and sea of red t-shirts somewhat taking over the BetterGym reception area.

A whopping 25 wonderful GoodGymers joined me for the first run of 2019, including Margot, Corinne, Charlotte and Kat who came along for their first GoodGym H&F group run, lovely to have you along! It was also great to welcome along our special GoodGym guest Rob, the new GoodGym Solilhull Trainer and of course my fab regulars. What a group I had tonight!

In line with our usual formalities we all headed outside for the quick intro and round of the week's news.

I Guess That's Why They Call It the News...

1. GoodGym H&F Starter Session (Saturday 12th January) - Fulham Palace parkrun, plogging & Christmas tree collection/recycling. Sign up here.
2. January Long Run (Sunday 13th January) - This month's GoodGym long run is an 18km run led by Ealing Trainer, Liv along the river and though Richmond Park. Meet outside Kew Bridge for a 9.45am start. Sign up here.
3. JANUARY CHALLENGE 2019! - As a group we need to run as far as we can and complete as many good deeds as humanly possible to achieve (and hopefully surpass!) our 2019 targets - 80 good deeds and 1,000kms run. This year we are in League D against Bromley, Hounslow and Stockport! Let's go H&F team!

One nifty fifty!

And a BIG well done to Sarah for completing her 50th good deed!! Obviously this called for a mega cake and biscuit celebration, after the run of course!

RUN-derful running goals for 2019

Following a name and number count and the return of the icebreaker question, "What running goal do you want toachieve in 2019?", for which there were some fantastic goals and first time marathons, half marathons and PB aspirations we had a quick pulse raising warm-up and headed up on our short 2km run up to St Mungo's Reconnection Post. When we arrived at St Mungo's Reconnection Post we were met by one of the Reconnection Workers, Lucasz. Lucasz briefly explained to group about the valuable services they provide to vulnerable and homeless adults with complex needs in the community, such as the 'No Second Night Out' service they provide – as well as providing 25 beds, they work with the residents to get them reconnected in the community or repatriated back to their country.

All the lost clothes

Tonight's brief was to organise a fantastic array of clothes donated by the public and previous residents that had become slightly disorganised due to the sheer volume of clothes within one small room. As the room and space in which to work was only small the group split into two, Team Trainer Beth and Team soon to be Trainer Rob!

Clothing all sorts

After a slightly disorganised start, Team Beth, in human chain formation, got to work on organising the donations, sorting through the many t-shirts, jumpers, trousers, skirts, socks, hats- you name it, it got sorted. Alice did a fantastic job as chief labeller of the bags (word on the grapevine is that the bags had very much missed Sarah over the festive break!) ensuring that all that got sorted remained clear for others to see, and the rest of the team efficiently placed each item into the correctly labelled bag- what a team! Meanwhile outside, Rob began his fitness session, putting his team through their paces with sprints, basketball squats (Yay! Another type of squat!), lunges and a tough wall sit/sprint relay which left all legs feeling a little tired. Then it was time to switch!

Team Beth was led out to begin their fitness session which included some sprinting, fitness exercises and core strength partner work, whilst Team Rob got to work on the organising and sorting, continuing the good work already done!

One impressive chain line running to time

With some efficient human chain action from both groups, in just over half an hour twenty bags of donations had been sorted, filled and labelled. With the sorted bags placed back into the room and the rubbish cleared away we posed for the massive 'piggy in the middle' group photo and the cheeky group photo where we all pointed at Rob, to show our appreciation and love for our Trainer guest!

With everyone head counted in it was time to say out goodbyes to Lucasz and began our short 2km back to base via Brook Green for a quick 1km time trial sprint lap 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, Jason kindly provided the manual stopwatch option so hopefully everyone has a time to aim for when we return this year. Chris expertly led the first of four groups around the Green, and I assume everyone used the post-run cake and biscuits as added motivation as it wasn't long before everyone was back at the start having completed the 1km lap in super quick time. Brilliant effort all!

TREE-sy does it!

Next week we have a TREE-mendously fun task in which we will be running and scavenger hunting for discarded Christmas trees, great fun and a great upper-body workout! Sign up here. Thank you all for coming along and for all your efforts, what a start to 2019! Have a great week and hopefully see you all on Saturday or next Tuesday.

Thank you to Jason for backmarking and many thanks to Catriona and Rob for the extra photos!

There was definitely a chill in the air on our penultimate run of 2018! Perfect for the outdoor gardening task we had tonight at St Mungo's Reconnection Post, on the plus side it wasn't raining, frosty or snowing!....

Despite the cooler temperature, 16 of my wonderful regular GoodGymers joined me, with some brilliant festive attire on display, think elf shirts, elf leggings, Santa hats, Reindeer ears, a shear delight, what a festive array. Tonight was going to be a fun run, with the added bonus of some Peri-Peri Christmas Celebrations post-run!

In line with usual formalities we all headed outside for the quick intro and round of the week's news.

1. Community Mission (Fri 14th) - Supporting Evolve Housing - volunteers are needed to lend a hand packing shopping bags to raise money for homelessness projects at the Asda in Roehampton. All the details if you'd like to sign up are here.
2. South London Long Run (Sun 16th) - Thames Barrier to Tower Bridge, led by Dom - all the details here.
3. Christmas Lights Run (Weds 19th) - Some Wandsworth GoodGymers are putting on a fundraising Christmas lights run, it starts from Somerset House at 6.30pm and will be around 7km through all the awesome lights and decorations around London, ending in a pub near Victoria. Check out their event page here or email me to sign up for what will be a Christmas cracker of a run!

And a BIG well done to Steph for all her recent PB's!

Before setting off on our short 2km run up to tonight's task we did a quick warm up to get the blood pumping and pulses raised followed by a name and number count. Nicely warmed up and with Strava's set we all set off up towards Shepherd's Bush with trusty back-marker Jason, ensuring that no one was lost en route....unfortunately we managed to lose both Jason and Emily! Luckily we made contact with Jason and all regrouped at the task.

Looking out for everyone's 'elf and safety!

When we arrived at St Mungo's Reconnection Post we were met by one of the Reconnection Workers, Neil. Neil briefly explained to group about the services they provide to vulnerable and homeless adults with complex needs in the community, such as the 'No Second Night Out' service they provide – as well as providing 26 beds, they work with the residents to get them reconnected in the community or repatriated back to their country. Neil finished with a lovely anecdote about how he had previously worked in Claridges, quite the contrast but was really enjoying his work here.

Third times a charm!

Tonight's brief was simple, finish tidying and weeding the garden. We'd made great progress on their garden in our previous two visits and tonight was the night we were going to finish the job! Philippa, the Deputy Manager at St Mungo's Reconnection Post kindly gathered the gardening bags and gloves, and laid out all the gardening tools - a mix of shears, large forks and smaller weeding forks. Everyone quickly gloved up, Catriona even went for the new fashion of double gloves, and chose their gardening tool of choice as everyone quickly set off to work weeding the sides and back of the garden, and cutting back the large bushes in the middle as requested.

No ho(e) ho(e) ho(e)'s! Fork this way!

Helen and Jason expertly used the forks on offer to dig over the side flowerbeds, coming across some intriguing biohazard tape as they dug. Sophie and Jonny took the shears and made 'feather-light' work of the 'feather-like' bushes in the centre of the garden, giving them a nice even cut all over! While the rest of the group got stuck in to the weeds with either the small weeding tools or the manual option of their hands, Andrew systematically went around the garden provided the finishing chops to the larger trees.

Hand and deliver, hand by me!

As Catherine took up the job of holding the bag, much to everyone's surprise, and possibly with a little panic from Sarah, as it wasn't long before she too was helping hold open the bag for the piles of garden waste and weeds to be easily loaded in. As always, half an hour flew by and it was time to pack away the tools and unloaded the two filled garden waste bags into the bin outside, but not before some obligatory team photos with some super 'handsy' action...

Garden tidied and cleared we said our goodbyes and wished all the staff at St Mungo's Reconnection Post a Happy Christmas before we headed off on the short run down to Brook Green. As it was a particularly fresh evening the group did a quick numbers based warm-up game, a very simple run around within the circle until a number is shouted and get in to groups of that number, those that weren't in a group got some bonus jumping jacks or squats - which in the end everyone joined in with so as not to stand still and get cold again!

It's the most run-derful time of the year!

Slightly warmer the group headed off to Brook Green and completed a quick 1km time trial sprint lap around the outer perimeter of the Green with Chris expertly leading the way. I assume everyone used the post-Nando's Christmas dinner as added motivation as it wasn't long before everyone was back at the start having completed the lap of the Green in super quick time. There was some close run sprints, with Tom just pipping Sarah to the line, with claims of "dogs across her path, cars pulling out of side roads...". There was some excellent 'pockets to sockets' technique and good postures displayed, and post-lap everyone had significantly raised pulse rates, heavier breaths, with noticeably redder and sweatier faces, and the runners sniff. Brilliant effort all!

A forking cracker of a night

We had a nice gentle cool down run back to base past the wonderful Christmas lights at St Paul's Hotel. Back at base we finished off with some stretches, with the thoughts of a well-deserved Nando's very much on our minds.

GoodGym Wenceslas

Everyone headed over to Nando's for some much needed fuel and some festive fun. There was an impressive amount of festive jumpers and lovely chat around the tables in the area we had very much taken over. Catriona provided the pull with some crackers that contained the tiniest of hats, perfect for balancing on top of Santa hats so it turned out. The questionable Christmas jokes were of course read out with possibly more sighs accompanying them than all my puns! Before every headed off, in true Santa and Christmas style, small gifts were handed out to all, with a couple of hidden special surprises and slightly rubbish gifts amongst the sack (plastic bag). With full stomachs and nice neat piles of crackers and wrapping paper adorning the table it was time to help tidy up before everyone wished each other a very Peri-Peri Christmas and Happy New Year and headed their separate ways.

Next week the task is still be TBC, sign up here, and keep an eye out for updates! Have a great week and lovely Christmas and New Year if you cannot make next week's run.

Our first Tuesday evening run in November with one noticeable difference, there was still no appearance of multiple layers, wooly hats (aside from Johnny's stylish number), gloves (I'm not counting gardening gloves!) and no considation rising when we all ran and talked. It was one very mild November evening in Hammersmith and Fulham last night which was very welcome since we had an outdoor gardening task at St Mungo's Reconnection Post!

A wonderful 14 GoodGymer joined me, including Hazel who came along for her first GoodGym experience, great to have you along! It was also lovely to welcome back Steph and Rebekah for their second GoodGym H&F group run in as many weeks and to have GoodGym Camden tourist, Sarah join us over in the west for the evening!

In line with usual formalities we all headed outside for the quick intro and round of the week's news.

I Guess That's Why They Call It the News...

1. November Long Run (17th November) - This month's GoodGym long run is the 'Southwark Circle' starting at 11am from Waterloo Station. Sign up here.
2. Adidas City Runs Fulham 10K (18th November) - If you're running the Fulham 10K next month, sign up here. If you'd like to volunteer and earn a 50% discount on the entry price of another Adidas City Run event, sign up here. Email Danny (daniel@goodgym.org) if you have any questions.
3. GoodGym H&F Christmas Party - will be on Monday 10th December at The Distillers. To help us get an idea of numbers for the evening, please sign up here.
4. GoodGym London Christmas Party! (1st December). Hosted by GoodGym Southwark. Fancy dress theme - the first letter of your GoodGym area. £4 donation. Lots of killer tunes and dodgy dancing! Sign up here.

And a BIG well done to Tom for his Thames Meander Half Marathon at the weekend and to Helen for her Weymouth Ironman Run!

Before setting off on our short 2km run up to tonight's task we did a quick name and number count, and warm up to get the blood pumping and pulses raised. Nicely warmed up and with Strava's set we all set off up towards Shepherd's Bush with trusty back-marker Jason, nicely fuelled by his pre-run coffee, ensuring that no one was lost en route. Much to everyone's delight (...well Andrew's eyes definitely lit up!) we made a couple of stops on our run up to regroup which allowed time for some bonus squats and wall sits!

When we arrived at St Mungo's Reconnection Post we were met by the Reconnection Workers, Chris and Lucasz. Chris briefly explained to group about the services they provide to vulnerable and homeless adults with complex needs in the community – as well as providing housing, they work with the residents to get them reconnected in the community or repatriated back to their country. Tonight's brief was simple, concentrate on tidying the bushes in the centre and along the buildings. Lucasz kindly gathered and laid out the gardening tools - a mix of shears and weeding forks - gloves and bags on the garden table, and everyone quickly gloved up and chose their gardening tool of choice and set to work weeding and cutting back the bushes as requested.

To weed or not to weed

As is often the case, it wasn't long before there was the question of "are these weeds or not?!" followed by contemplation and the decision that in this case we were not sure so best to leave them be for now....

The group had nicely split into three groups to tackle to the garden:

• Group one tackled the bushes in-front of the building offices and entrance;

• Group two tackled the bushes and beds down the side of the building; and

• Group three (aka "group tickle" – see this week’s totally unstaged cover photo with a plant prop....) tackled the bushes in the middle, giving them a much needed trim and tidy.

Bench (im)pressing

With some efficient weeding, cutting and sweeping, in just over half an hour four large bags (bags that very much missed Sarah holding them open!) of gardening waste had been filled and it was time to say out goodbyes to Chris and Lucasz and pose for a group photo. A group photo which this week was very much a question of "how many GoodGymers can we fit on one garden table?" - answer: quite a few became benchwarmers or table toppers! With everyone head counted in we began our short 2km back to base via Brook Green for a quick fitness session.

Squat,squat, goose

First up was a twist on the classic children's game, duck duck goose, but much to my dismay quite a few had never played this as kid! With the rules explained - in this version there was the addition of squats or power squats - we had a good few rounds of close sprints, with those who missed out on being a 'goose' having a quick sprint to tree at the end.

One-hit number

Next up was fitness by numbers, the group split into two and numbered themselves 1-7. Amongst some planks, frog jumps and leg raises when I called their number they had to run to the tree to their left and back to the middle, with the winner each round being the one who was first to touch in on the first aid bag. It was closely run throughout and even featured a cheeky first aid bag grab and run...otherwise known as "you didn't say we couldn't move the bag!!"

With Andrew's fitness fix not quite achieved, he began a set of 10 burpees which the group wonderfully joined in on - impressive work guys! All that was left was a short run back to base followed by a cool down and stretch, nicely finished off with small celebratory slice of coffee and walnut cake!

Next week we're off to St Paul's CE Primary, sign up here, and don’t forget the last social on the year on Thursday in Bethnal Green! Have a great week!

Many thanks to Catriona for the extra photos and to Jason for providing a very handy portable floodlight last night!