Goodgym and Achilles International joined forces again for another smashing group run with sighted and VI runners at the Emirates Stadium last night. A record number of guide runners and VI athletes for the year so far- we had a blast!

Our Goodgym and Achilles International collaboration continues to grew with another excellent evening of VI running and guiding at The Emirates Stadium. It was certainly weird to think that the last time we were here 2 weeks ago, we almost cancelled due to the icy conditions.

For visually impaired runners, we had Andrew (and the beautiful golden Mario lending his assistance), Naqi, Asfaq, Tom and new VI runner Tassia joining us tonight. Goodgym guides included Lasma, Charlie, Michelle, Emily and new VI guide Michelle trying out for the first time. Achilles regulars John, Harriet and Lewis were also in attendance.

We had great variety of runs on the agenda today, including some groups switching in and out between guides and runners (Tom, Emily and Charlie were one team, and Lasma, Tassia and Michelle were another), and a walking crew for Asfaq and Lewis, who are both recovering from different injuries, but still want to remain active. Andrew and Harriet completed 7 full Emirates laps together while John kept an eye on Mario, while Simon and Naqi tried a variation of the loop, involving an extension up and down the Benwell Road access slope and across Danny Fiszmann bridge.

Fantastic running everyone. Looking forward to returning to Paddington Rec Track next week!

24 GoodGymers booked a trip to the library at John Betts Primary and made shhhh happen!

That old c word is very much the talk of GoodGym and the World, but it didn't stop 23 GoodGymers from joining me tonight to help out with a range of jobs at Eloise's school, John Betts Primary.

Tonight we welcomed along, Erica, Dan and Katherine to their first H&F group run, hope you enjoyed it! It was also lovely to have David join us and GoodGym tourist, Leticia, from our neighbours GoodGym Hounslow. Thank you all for joining us and lending some extra hands tonight! 🙌

The 'authoritive' red whistle made a return and helped us kick off the night where akin to obedient school children, everyone fell silent and headed outside as instructed. Once settled in our 'glamorous' cordoned off car park spot, we began the intros and news round-up...

Shoutouts 📣

• A big well done to Matt and Eloise for completing the Cambridge Half, with a few bonus miles thrown in at the beginning!
• Thank you to Cookie for backmarking and to Lucy for the additional photos and insta boomerangs!

The book end...a recap of this week's news

1. Coronavirus (COVID-19) - Please read GoodGym's current guidelines here 🦠📝. At the moment, all GoodGym activities are carrying on as normal but will be updated as the situation progresses. REMEMBER...Catch it. Bin it. Kill it! 🗑️

2. Upcoming H&F Community Mission - Last Saturday of the month...help out the Fulham Palace Volunteers, all the details are here.

3. Race volunteers needed 🏁 - Volunteer at adidas City Runs: 1 hour - Sunday 5th April and Hackney Half Aid Station Volunteering - Sunday 17th May.

We began with a pulse raising warm-up which involved some high knees, spotty dogs and inner foot taps, which seemed to more resemble Morris dancing for some...Lucy! With everyone warmed-up and stretched we set off to John Betts Primary School, with Cookie kindly backmarking to ensure no one was lost en route.

Having successfully navigated our way through the busy central streets of Hammersmith, Matt spotted the perfect spot for our weekly wall sit and thus began the most beloved 30 seconds of the session....

Wall sit complete, we sped off towards the front gates of John Betts Primary and tracked down Matt who was inside awaiting our arrival. Katie and Tom were both left in amazement and disappointment when they learnt that the 2 people in the picture they recreated on our last visit to John Betts were in the school last Monday! Both were completely gutted that they'd narrowly missed out on meeting royality!

Another toot of the 'authoritive' red whistle silenced the group and they gathered round in a circle. Matt and his daughter, Emily greeted the team and explained the jobs that they'd be tackling tonight:

*Sticking new labels on the library books 📚 *Moving 2 storage units from one side of the school to the other 🗄 *Helping to sort the school uniform back into the storage units👕

With Eloise being Head of English at the school it was only right she led most of the team to the library to begin the relabelling library book process. On the way into the library, we spotted the wonderful 'Welcome back GoodGym' PowerPoint slide that Matt had made earlier in the day...lovely!

Three weeks ago, the team had helped the PTA with categorising all the library books by genre. But now the fun really began...

Book us up

Each label represented a genre and all the correct coloured labels needed to be stuck on each of the library books, what could go wrong?! Green 📗 = Nature, Blue 📘 = Science and Technology, and 📙 = History, amongst many others!

Booking on gas!

The team spread themselves around the room onto the different tables that had been allocated with a genre and coloured label.

Book in the day!

With everyday being a school day the team learnt some interesting facts and stories, including one about the water cycle! Tom even discovered that many of the books preceded his birth!

Book in business

With a whole heap of books to get labelled, yes there really was A LOT of books in the library, who'd have thought it(?!) the team efficiently got a labelling production line going. GoodGymers labelled the books,then passed them to the PTAs who added the freshly labelled books to the shelves in the library.

While the others tackled the labelling, Cookie, Andrew, Biscuits and Matt headed upstairs to the storage cupboard where they were faced with a tiny room. In the room were two storage units that needed emptying and then moving across to the other side of the school.

Piles of uniforms, boxes and shelving were moved out of the storage room and from inside the cupboard into the adjacent room.

Treat yo' shelf!

With the storage units now empty, Team muscle, who had some extra muscle added with the arrival of Annabel, began to shift and wiggle the units out the room and up the stairs. Matt practiced his escapism and slid between the narrow gap between the doorway and unit.

When push comes to shove

Wth the storage units successful shifted, pushed and shoved (amongst other methods!) across to the other room the first job was to slide the shelves back in to the units.

Biscuits couldn't contain his excitement as he joined Matt, Cookie and Andrew in ferrying across the final few boxes from the storage room.

Some shelf indulgence

With the units shelved and ready, it was time to sort the uniform into ages and place them neatly on the shelf. Bags and organisation, this was definitely a job made for Sarah! Both Sarah and Erica helped one of the PTA members sort through the mountains of bags and uniform until they were all nicely sorted and organised.

With all the jobs completed the team reconvened in the hall with their eye on the climbing frame. Eloise was first to climb to the top, closely followed by Cookie whilst the rest of the team gathered round for a top team photo

Matt had kindly given out some glow in the dark wristbands leftover from a cycling proficiency course which also provided another excellent group team photo op.

We said our thank yous and goodbyes to Matt and Emily and headed outside for a quick fitness blitz. Upon hearing the word “fitness”, Team Nash waved and exited stage right as quick as a flash!

In front of the school, the team smashed out some frog jumps, pistol squats, snowboard jumps, supermans and partner squats before beginning the short run back to base. En route we had a brief pause that enabled Sarah to complete one of her physio exercises, some side squats - two birds, one stone!

Back at base we book ended the evening with a good stretch off and class was dismissed!

Next week, we'll be flyering for Open Age H&F around White City, please sign up here. Absolutely awesome work tonight team!💪 🙌 Have a lovely rest of your week and weekend 😊.