This morning was a warm early start at Nonsuch Park for the Epsom and Ewell Race for Life.

I was marshalling on marshal point no.7 in the perfect spot by the amazing Rock Choir who kept everyone entertained.

Everyone came round the course with a smile enjoying the atmosphere. There were also some great costumes including all the Spice Girls, a unicorn and lots of tutus.

After lots of clapping, cheering and directing 500 runners, joggers and walkers a massive £31K had been raised for Cancer Research 🎉.

As the heat wave ☀️continued 3 hardy GoodGymers armed with water bottles and lots of energy got to work.

Weeding 🌱and leaf 🍁 clearing were first on the agenda before Julie and Emily headed off to the mulch 🍂pile for two wheel barrow loads. It was hot work shovelling the pile of decaying woodchip and leaves.

We decided to plant a few new plants 🌾 and after much deliberation on their position and digging some very dry soil we got them in.

This was followed by giving everything a very good water 💦. Our water collection from the river entertained a few park users and gave us very soggy trainers 👟 which soon dried in the sun☀️ .

With everything watered 💦we spread the mulch with Claire and Emily gathering another two barrow loads and then it was time to pack up until next time.

Fingers crossed for some rain ☔️

GoodGym Kingston attended one of our favourite local charity shops this evening - the Kingston branch of the British Heart Foundation.

After running, walking and cycling to the task, we were met by our BHF task leader, the ever-joking Christine. Before the task even began she decided to give us a quick behind-the-scenes tour of their massive charity shop. BHF Kingston is housed in what was once a huge BHS store and is set over three floors. Christine took us upstairs, through a couple of locked doors and into what used to be the old BHS cafe and kitchens... now looking more like a post-apocalyptic zombie movie set! Slightly glad that I wasn't alone in the space but fascinating all the same.

And so on to the task. We initially thought we would be setting up a fitness window display this evening but a delivery of sports equipment and tennis racquets had failed to arrive in time. Our attention was hence turned to checking if a load of donated exercise machines were functional. This involved running, cycling, rowing and crunching on a few dozen different machines. Quality control completed we moved a few of the machines from the storage room to the main shop floor and made a mini fitness area ready for the customers to peruse when the store opens tomorrow. Mission accomplished.

The team had a productive session tidying up at Squirrels today! Kicking things off with a real test of strength, with a very large roll of paper that needed shifting in the van - the perfect warm up! We then got stuck into some serious tidying with trimming a tree and clearing weeds and moss, leaving the area looking much neater. Great work, everyone, it's always brilliant when we make a visible difference!