14 Westminster GoodGymers ran 5k to the Oasis community garden to get the garden looking great.

Great to have some new faces in the squad this week for our adventures. Breaking off on a longer 3k loop to the garden dodging the streams of commuters as we took in some central London landmarks.

Arriving at the Oasis community garden and quickly splitting up into mini groups to prune, water, sweep and clear all before us! Great to see the garden doing so well with all of the produce going to local community groups. 25 minutes of team work got the garden in pristine condition ready to do its best growing in the coming weeks!

Like a flash we were off! Getting a little rewarm on as we made our way to Bedford Square and got our body's moving with 18 minutes of multi stage Circuit Blast! Dominating an all body workout to test Agility, Balance, Coordination and strength!!

With everyone fully worked out with took the more direct 2k route back to base where we stretched out and got our High Five on.

Great work tonight team!! Hope to have you back next week for our visit to St Andrews Youth Club (and maybe a little social post run!!)

Have a great Week

Smooth Running

Joel

15 GoodGymers ran 6.5k to deliver 500 leaflets for Open Age charity. To promote their classes to improve Health and speaking English.

A lovely evening was made even better by a high quality crew of Westminster GoodGymers.

After a few DBS checks we headed out West towards Paddington on a steady 3k route through the Central London back streets.

Keeping a close eye out for the perfect location we struck Gold in the Hallfield Estate! 10 big blocks of flats was the target with 500 leaflets in hand we got going!! Working in small groups we powered up and down each block and in 35 action packed minutes the leaflets were all delivered!!

A lovely Hyde Park route started the speedy run back to base powering up the mean hill before we gathered at the top of Oxford Street for one last weaving push on an epic speedy dash through the late night shoppers!! Great fun, run and weaving from the whole crew was rewarded with a sea of High Fives!!

Next week we head down south to One Big Family homeless charity for some rapid food creation for the weeks food run. Be great to have you along!!

Have a great week!

Smooth Running

Joel

Eighteen wonderful Westminster GoodGymmers ran 7km tonight to help One Big Family Victoria, a brilliant charity for homeless people here in Westminster.

We gathered in our usual spot at New Balance Oxford Street with an incredible 6 (SIX) first time runners. Michelle, Aoife, Sam, James, Olivia and Rhys. Incredible. Sam even brought her documents ready for checking.

It was also Gabrielle's 50th good deed!! Amazing. A black t-shirt will be on it's way to you. Make sure you give her a cheer!

After a quick brief for our newbies, we had a short warm up and number circle before setting off.

It's a longer run than usual down to Victoria, so we tried to keep a good pace. A tricky thing to do down New Bond Street, Piccadilly, and Green Park, but our team did brilliantly and we arrived at our destination exactly on time.

One Big Family Victoria are using a basement youth club to do their work, so we all filed in and Mike was there to give us our instructions. The majority of our team, 11, helped in the kitchen. Here they formed a production line to spread margarine (or jam for a vegetarian option), grate cheese, put sandwiches together with ham, then bag them separately for the people the charity will be helping. We also had runners on breakfast duty, bagging pastries. Once all that was done, the runners speedily turned to slicing some delicious looking and enormous cake before bagging those up too.

The rest of the team helped in the main room. This involved filling the large water heaters ready for teas and coffees, and sorting through a variety of donated clothes to separate the most useful items and also divide into genders. Bizarre t-shirt slogans aside (and not all suitable for sharing), the work passed quickly and soon there were large neatly folded piles of clothes ready to be handed out.

25 minutes passed rapidly before we tidied up and filed out. Our task leaders were delighted with everyone's efforts, which save the volunteers loads of time.

From there, I led the group back to base, with Nina kindly back marking. On the way we made a brief stop for some extra running in Green Park. Using the lamp posts as markers, the runners could either do some interval running, or versions of progressive running over a 300 meter (ish!) stretch. Everyone upped their pace brilliantly and we made sure we caught our breath at the top for a moment or two. From there it was a quick run back to base. After a stretch and a round of applause we were done.

Well done everyone and I hope to see you all again soon.