23 wonderful runners ran 3km to help out at More 2 Childcare!

We had 3 new runners last night! The lovely Darryl who started with GoodGym on Tuesday at Bromley... well done getting so stuck in Darryl, that's the way to do it! We also had my baby bro Seb and his girlfriend Ari make their first ever GoodGym appearance, so welcome all! Hope you had a good first run in Greenwich!

We started off talking like pirates, as you do, and then toddled off to do a quick little warm up before organising everyone into their groups for the task.

It was already getting a wee bit dark so we set off to make the most of the remaining light. We arrived and Eve was just pulling in, perfect timing! Everyone gathered in their groups and got to work. There was loads of little jobs to do. We had one group out the front painting the fence, painting a table, planting flowers in the beds and weeding the paving slabs. Another group were in the childrens garden sweeping, planting heather, laying woodchip, painting a wendy house and painting a picnic bench. And then we had Chan and Andy (aka Chandy) painting in the toilets!

We had half an hour and loads to do. Dark was setting in fast but it didn't stop everyone from working hard and getting it done! After 20 minutes, the place was looking great. The paving slabs out the front were now weed free, the tables and fences had a nice fresh lick of paint (who knows if it was the right colour?! Eve might have got a nasty surprise when arriving at work this morning!) and the flower beds out the back had a new lease of life with lots of lovely new heathers planted. B-E-A-UTIFUL!

We finished off by giving the plants a good ol' water, tidied everything into bin bags, washed the paintbrushes and away we went, running back to the uni the nicer way round along the river ready for a few minutes of form practice!

Arm swing

Having come fresh from the Coaching in Running Fitness course at the weekend, I thought I would give a little lesson on one of the things I learned, and that was ARM SWING! It's something probably none of us really think about but actually it can make you a much more efficient runner. Here is a great video from one of my favourite runners that explains it in a bit more detail.

So we focussed on 3 things: Making sure the arms did not cross the mid line, driving the elbows backwards, and trying to maintain a 90 degree angle in the elbow the whole time and not extending the arm back when you swing back.

Hopefully this will give you something to think about and work on during your next few runs. It will feel weird and unnatural to begin with but stick with it. The main one is the rotation through the midline. That one creates a lot of wasted energy so if you're going to focus on ONE thing, let it be that and just try and drive the arms forward and backwards rather than across the body.

We did a few laps trying it out and then got into pairs to observe each other because it's so hard to tell if you're doing it correctly yourself! After a few attempts we called it a night and finished with a stretch.

Great job last night everyone! We got so much done so you should be really pleased! It would have taken Eve a whole day to do what you guys did in just 30 minutes so really well done! See you next week!

8 Westminster GoodGymers ran 7k to make sandwiches for One Big Family Homeless Charity.

Great to have you all along for a massively important task!!

With the nights drawing in earlier the strain on the charities who support the nations homeless population increases and no where is it more evident than in Westminster!!

One Big Family- Victoria are a tiny charity who provide food twice a week to Victoria’s homeless community with its main day being a Wednesday night.

We make such difference by essentially taking care of one week a month of the food preparation to allow the other volunteers to concentrate their efforts on the other 3.

A touristy Run South down to the Ebury Estate states off our evening raking up a solid 3.5k run along the way.

Meeting up a couple of the organisers we set about our task with speed and no less circular cutting precision!!

Bagging 80 pastries while wearing rubber gloves is no easy feat not to mention buttering 7 loads of bread, pate spreading and cheese arranging!!

A slick production line made light work of the task and in 30 efficient minutes we had completed the task!!

The trolley was locked and food loaded for a evening of distribution!!

A sharpe run back to base rounded off a very enjoyable evening!!

Look forward to next week for some more fun on the run!!

Smooth Running

Joel