Tuesday 9th January 2018
Lisa Thompson has done their first good deed with GoodGym.
Lisa is a now a fully fledged GoodGym runner. They've just run to do good for the first time. They are out there making amazing things happen and getting fit at the same time.
Mon 8th Jan 2018 at 5:15pm
Southwark Report written by Sarah Place
It was a pretty chilly Monday night but it didn't stop 16 lovely runners from the London Marathon office getting a run in and doing a good deed!
This one off GoodGym run was part of a week-long well-being initiative which involved a yoga class, Crossfit and a mindfulness session, as well as loads of other stuff too... sounds awesome and a great start to 2018! As we arrived at the office around 5 o'clock everyone began to flock downstairs, all seemingly eager to find out what we were doing.
The place that needed our help was local nursery called St Patrick's Montessori who provide care for children aged 3 months to 5 years from the local community, including those with special educational needs, disabilities or complex medical conditions.
After a little speech about GoodGym from Ivo, we took a group photo and then Joel led us to the task. After 10 minutes or so we arrived and were greeted by the lovely Lynnsey who explained the tasks that needed doing. The biggest and likely the most problematic task was constructing, or reconstructing should I say, an indoor children's climbing frame in one of the rooms. There were some photos of it from when it was once assembled and we had to fetch the parts from outside and try and recreate the masterpiece! Basically like building an Ikea bedside table... easy peasy.... or so we thought...
The second task, and definitely the most fun thing I've ever seen on any GoodGym run, was cleaning out the rabbit hutch! Which also involved some obligatory rabbit cuddles afterwards- amazing!!!
The third and final task was chopping down some ivy in the garden and disposing of the trimmings into black bags... so LOADS to be getting on with. Everyone split up into groups, assigned themselves a task and got stuck in!
15 minutes in and it was going well. There was some rubbish which also needed to be put in a big skip bag which had all been done by this point. All the straw and sawdust had been removed from the hutch and it had been sprayed down and cleaned up nicely! Operation climbing frame was in full swing indoors and there were also a few people getting started on the ivy. Nice one!
Another 15 minutes later, the hutch had been cleaned out with lots of nice fresh clean straw put in (a little too much straw by Lynnsey's standards but I think the rabbits will have appreciated it!). It was therefore time for the little bunnies to be put back in their homes.... SO CUTE!!!
Joel's team were making good progress with the climbing frame but there was one pesky piece missing. Thankfully for the nursery, this crew were determined and were not going to leave this job unfinished! They carried on for a few more minutes while I took the rest of the gang out for a longer run and a fitness session in Jubilee Gardens with a perfect London backdrop!
A little circuit on the benches including some step ups, a few single leg squats and some tricep dips and then we finished off with one speedy lap of the gardens! After everyone had got their breath back, we had a nice steady jog back to the office, did a few cool down stretches and we were done.