It was all cocktails and shenanigans for 9 Goodgymmers tonight as they partied by the pool at Lordship Rec.

Kudos Corner

Everybody make some noise for Nasser who smashed his first run, task, and social with us tonight. Talk about multi-tasking! And he did it all with grace and a smile. Hero! Come again...

And what a sight for sore eyes was the return of our prodigal naughty daughter Alex, who paid us a visit all the way from Glasgow, on her birthday no less! She had clearly missed us as the puns rolled out effortlessly through the night non-stop. GGH loves ya, Alex. See you again soon.

Plumbing To New Depths

It was a stick-your-fingers-in-dirty-cracks, going-off-the-deep-end, retelling-stories-of-scatological-bathtub-shenanigans kind of evening for our Goodgymmers tonight. And it all started so well!

Joan, from the Lordship Rec Friends group met us with some newly-acquired hand tools by the Lordship Rec Hub and tasked us with removing weeds from the cracks between the paving stones by the paddling pool and cutting down the grass by the benches overlooking this popular body of water, in the hope of coming sunshine. Any hopes of summery vibes were washed away immediately when Neil promptly informed us that according to the news earlier that day, it's going to rain for the next ten thousand days or thereabouts. Nevertheless, we live in hope and we threw ourselves into our jobs with naked abandon.

Our Goodgymmers worked the cracks between the paving stones professionally and efficiently, while shooting the breeze and catching up with our favourite putative Glaswegian Goodgymmer.

Gramps obviously took the opportunity to take the plunge into the pool and was vocal in his disappointment that no one had followed him in.  

After around an hour of honest graft, we had managed to cover a large chunk of the pool surroundings and Joan seemed very pleased with our progress.

With the clock now tickling 8pm, Nurjehan's timekeeping spider sense kicked into overdrive and began hurrying us along. And good thing it was as well, as we had to make our way to the pub where we had reserved a table for our social and where we knew a rival running group was meeting tonight too. It was our goal to beat them to the bar - Reader, we did.

Join us again next week for more fun and games.

8 sun-kissed Goodgymmers spread some good vibes and water across green fields in North London as they lent a hand to the Friends of Lordship Rec.

Kudos corner

Francesco absolutely veni vidi vici-ed his first ever task with Goodgym and smashed it right out of the park. He loved it so much, he's already signed up for two tasks next week. A natural. Boom!

And thanks to Niamh for today's pun title and to Sarah for the one below. Rock stars.

Water way to spend a summer evening

Is there anything more quintessentially Goodgymy than hanging out with some lovely folk in red - glistening in the glow of post-run perspiration and bonhomie - on a beautifully green park in a glorious summer evening as you chew the fat and water some thirsty trees in the middle of a British heatwave? Bliss.

We met Chuku from the Friends Lordship Rec last night who wasted no time in being absolutely charming and putting us to work straight away.

Some youngling trees and a large flowerbed were looking a little worse for wear in the hot weather so our help was needed. Armed with bottles, watering cans, and a really big bucket we spent a good 45 minutes making sure the cute saplings had a good drink. It was hot and heavy work but our Goodgymmers loved every second. We did such a good job we ran the allotment water reserves dry! #SorryNotSorry

Along the way, an unnamed Goodgymmer (who we Khan't name for legal reasons) decided to haze by way of initiation our Francesco by giving us all a good soaking. Under the blistering North London sun, the woman-made drizzle was a welcome relief.

Dave, Sam, and Nurjehan also managed to pack a good litter pick along the way and there were some shenanigans with some discarded tights but I reckon that's one we'll keep off print, again for legal reasons or something.

We then helped Chuku put away the tools we used and headed to the skatepark in the Rec for some selfies.

A lovely, quintessentially Goodgymy night indeed.

And there will be another one next week with not ONE but TWO tasks. Join us!

6 awesome GoodGymers teamed up on a beautiful sunny evening to help Caroline from the Friends of Lordship Rec pull up thistles from a meadow area.

We donned our gloves (and then donned a second pair of gloves) and got to work pulling the thistles up by the roots. This is to prevent the fast-growing thistles dominating the meadow area and outcompeting other wildflowers.

After pulling up some thistles, we already saw the signs of buttercups, bedstraws and knapweed coming through which will provide lots of colour in the future as well as providing food for our minibeast friends.

Thistles are good for nature too! And the other side of the path we left another meadow area where the thistles will be allowed to thrive for ladybirds and butterflies to enjoy.

We piled the pulled thistles high in the compost bin, Nurjehan came up with this week’s pun, and we made our way home admiring some hidden street art on the way!

This week, the Friends of Lordship Rec needed a team of volunteers to help maintain their wildflower meadow. Caroline and Colette wanted us to pull up fast-growing thistles to allow other species to grow and thrive. They saw the 11 GoodGymmers and thought, “THISTLE do!”

So we ROSE to the challenge, donned our (FOX)GLOVES, and got to work. The idea is for the thistles in that area to be removed once and FLORAL.

We put the PETAL to the metal, and while we were busily working, a rival running group ran past. We shook our fists and thistles at them saying “THISTLE show them!” to get them off our TURF! Just POLLEN your leg - we hope they enjoyed a nice run too.

Unfortunately, Euclides wasn’t able to join the task after a fall on the way to the task and he hurt his (PEO)NIES (his knee)! But we are all ROOTing for him to have a speedy recovery and hope he’s feeling BOUQUET.

At the end of the session, we piled up all our thistles, said goodbye, and headed off in search for home, food, or ping pong tables.

The heat got to our 10 Goodgymmers last night as they went wild at the meadow in Lordship Rec in a thistley frenzy.

Big Shout...

...to everyone doing the Camino Ultra London race on Saturday - not least our very own Ultra GGHers <3 Win it for us, team!

Thistle Be A Day They Won't Forget

Caroline from the Friends of Lordship Rec welcomed us with open arms and clear, succinct instructions - the thistles were taking over the meadows and the prickly twits needed to be shown who's boss.

Before you could say 'we gotta save them Lady's Bedstraws', our goodgymmers had jumped into the meadows in the shadow of the always beautiful Broadwater Farm Estate and started handing out life lessons on the circle of life to the thistles.

In a warm evening when Goodgym got desperately close to tipping over the 250,000 Good Deeds mark, our GGH Fam pulled well into the evening without a care in the world. Thorny On Main Indeed.

Conversation ranged from the undeniable superiority of bocadillo as a long distance nutritional aid, to our resident GGH doctor diagnosing a few lazy asses. That's the medical term and I'm sticking with it. Just don't ask about how she conducted the physical.

We even had time to stop and glare at a rival running group who kept doing laps around us. Gramps considered briefly leading a group to introduce them to the circle of life curriculum we had been applying to the thistles all evening, but we remembered ourselves and instead waved at them. We'll be back before you know it :)

We have an action packed week coming up: Traid on Monday at 6 and then Luos on Wednesday at 7. You should definitely join us.

Peace

It was arctic cold, it got dark before we even set off, and the batteries in our head torches had gone kaput over the sunny days of summer gone while they were in storage. Did that stop our 9 intrepid Goodgymmers? Of course not. Winter, bring it on!

Mama, just killed a tree...

9 chilly Goodgymmers are standing around an adolescent sweet chestnut tree on a cold and dark Wednesday evening performing a truly heart-rending rendition of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. How did it come to this, you ask? Le's rewind!

We met at HQ, where Euclides was very pleased to see everyone dressed sensibly for the cold weather. We had an intense warmup session, that included mainly nominating Kapil for revenge burpees as it was his idea to "play" the Burpee "game". We also welcomed Rob, visiting us on the tourist trail, by targeting him too for the burpees. Don't say we don't know how to treat our guests!

We set off for Lordship Rec for a night of hay-doughnut-making and we were grateful with the run warming our weary bones.

At the task, Sally from Friends of Lordship Rec gave us a quick briefing and we started our job of creating doughnut-like rings around young trees, to help keep their moisture through the cold winter coming.

However, some Goodgymmers had different ideas and treachery was afoot - the target: a young sweet chestnut tree, with a melancholy bend to it. We won't name names but for the sake of this story let's pluck a couple of names out of thin air for the culprits - let's call them, oh I don't know, Niamh and Nurjehan.

These two unnamed Goodgymmers didn't get the memo and instead of making a doughnut around the poor tree, they Frankesteined a weird hay-sausage-shaped contraption encasing the poor sapling, and all but assuring a slow death for our victim.

Thankfully, they realised the error of their ways soon enough and with some help, we mended the situation. Sally had mentioned earlier in the day that some trees had been serenaded by a choir over the summer and they seemed to be doing really well from it. So Niamh and Nurjehan led us on a very spirited rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody. Sally has promised to keep us informed whether we have a future as tree whisperers.

On the way back to HQ, we played 'sprinting whilst not stepping on the cracks' and we even found time to push a stalled car up a hill only to see it stall again - how very sisyphean.

Good times. Come and join us next week for more shenanigans!