Last December GoodGymers helped Earthwatch Europe plant a new Tiny Forest in Hanger Hill Park. You can see how small the snips had been back then in this story! What is Tiny Forest, you may ask. It is a native woodland of 600 trees planted densely in a tennis-court-sized plot. Tiny Forests mimic the features of a traditional forest while taking up minimal space. Earthwatch is conducting research across the country to help understand how these little woods have the potential to be a powerful tool in the fight against climate change and habitat loss.

To help our partners from Earthwatch, five Ealing GoodGymers: Claire, Freya, Steph Ducat, Sevan and Kash turned scientists for one evening to collect data on how the trees were growing and how much carbon they could capture. The endeavour involved plenty of tape measures and an uphill run!

It was the first Ealing session for Freya, who returned to London (and GoodGym) after a long break and established herself in our area. Great choice, Freya - and welcome to Ealing!

After the optional 2.5km run to conquer Hanger Hill, the task was pretty easy-going. It didn't require getting particularly physical - unless you count squatting to measure the diameter of a tree. That gave Kash an idea about tonight's fitness session - the Sally Up squat challenge! Check it out here if you haven't heard about it.

Another challenge was identifying some of the trees that didn't look like we were expecting them to look. Their tag said holly, but the Google Lens said eucalyptus.

Is there a koala on it?
No.
Then it's not an eucalyptus.

The samples didn't look anything like the above. The Earthwatch survey prompt suggested another option: goat willow. We looked the name up on the internet and found pictures of similarly looking trees to our sample, also called pussy willow or salix caprea. That seemed more sensible than Aussie trees in the UK.

After surveying most of the tagged trees and completing the Sally Up challenge, we treated ourselves to a gentle 1.5 km run down the hill, wondering how satisfied our legs would feel tomorrow.

Join us next week for a task in Hanwell, with a totally optional run, to help organisers of the famous free festival, Hanwell Hootie. Sign up now!

Last night 12 GGers met on lovely bright evening to transform the outside space of a community theatre and attempted a taskmaster themed fitness session that may or may not have gone entirely to plan....read on to find out more!

We started off the night with a warm up that tested our coordination and reactions, before doing our customary challenge. This week, as it was the Queen's birthday, we each had to name a different member of the Royal Family. There were perhaps some dubious answers, but between us we got most of the heavy hitters!

It was just a short run to the Omnibus Theatre, an organisation which is run as a charity and aims to bring the arts to the local community. We were met by cheerful Chris, who led us round to the back of the building to an outside space which the team doesn't have the capacity to maintain. The idea is that in the future it will be run as a community garden, but int he meantime we're happy to help keep on top of it!

There was plenty to do, and we got stuck in tackling the overgrown areas and clearing the (we hoped) weeds. Half an hour later and the area was looking a million times better - well done team!

We headed over to the common for our fitness session and an attempt to replicate last week's numbers-based task. The idea is that each person counting consecutively jumps on even numbers and squats on odd, and if somebody gets it wrong the whole group has to do a forfeit. We then added rules each time we actually reached 20. The result? Fitness based chaos - but a lot of fun! We then knocked out a plank waterfall, before heading back to base for stretches.

Don't forget our regular mission on Friday lunchtimes, plus next week we'll be having a group session but it will be slightly earlier than normal as its a bank holiday - watch this space!

Until then, happy running!

The sheer amount of donations the centre is receiving is overwhelming, as well as the huge numbers of people from all backgrounds who are coming to get stuck in. Everyone is pulling together to work as quickly and efficiently as possible to try and sort everything out and get it back out the door. What an amazing sense of community at such a difficult time. They will definitely need as much help as they can get so check out the times and get down there if you can! There's a cloakroom, toilets, hot and cold food, and a variety of drinks to keep you going.