Holy crêpe! 23 GoodGym'ers forgoed pancakes as they ran 3km back to school to paint 'The White House' blue & green!

Despite the light drizzle in the air and tempting thoughts of freshly cooked pancakes, GoodGym'ers came out in their shroves in H&F to run and do good! It was lovely to welcome along Hon, Alex and Raimonda for their first GoodGym H&F run - hope to see you all again very soon! It was also wonderful to see lots of 2nd and 3rd timers, and of course my regulars, thank you for all coming along.

Stacks of news

1. GoodGym Monthly Social - In Walthamstow, this Thursday - join Pritesh & other GG'mers for heroes of the month, February's IPOTM (International Pun of the Month) and lots of other fun. Sign up here.
2. GoodGym Shindig 2019 - weekend of 19th July, in Ironbridge. Register your interest by 21st March.
3. Community Missions - Up for a weekend community mission? No DBS check is required for a community mission.

• Sat 9th March from 10.30am - help finish sort clothes donations for St Mungo's Reconnection Post in Hammersmith, sign up here.
• Sat 6th April from 12pm - help sort food donations for City Harvest in Acton, sign up here.

And a big well done to Tom who smashed the Victoria Park Half Marathon on Sunday!

We all flipping love GoodGym on a Tuesday evening

With the name and number count and short pulse raising warm-up completed we headed off on our short 1.5km run to our task tonight at Flora Gardens Primary School. With one quick wall sit completed en route, it wasn't long before we arrived at the school gates and were buzzed inside by the school's Business Manager, Jeanette who was waiting for us inside 'The White House'.....thankfully, not the White House!

In 'The White House', Flora Gardens Primary School run a before- and after-school club where meals and snacks are provided so that no child goes hungry. Unfortunately like most schools, they were facing tough financial pressures so did not have the Monet to pay for full price paint and professional redecoration of their school buildings. Thanks to Community Repaint, a brilliant scheme that redistributes leftover paint into their communities at around a third of the price, Jeanette had managed to source around 60 litres for under £150 and for the second time, the many helping hands of GoodGym runners to help revamp some white rooms. What a steal!

Well colour me surprised, more painting?!

Tonight's task was to apply the second coat of the bright 'Gilbert Green' and 'Heavenly Horizon' colour to the once white and dull walls of the main downstairs room. In 60 minute makeover style, half of the group quickly armed themselves with paint brushes and covered up their valuable GoodGym tees and sportswear with the free oversized L'Oreal t-shirts that had been sent to the school - normally used for when the children do arts and crafts so as to protect their school clothes, genius!

Time to get stacked

While half of the group were painting away the other half made use of the playground area outside for this week's fitness session. Following eight laps of the playground area where the group did some excellent short sprints and indian runs it was time for some 'child's play'. First up was the classic, stuck in the mud, I was just as baffled as last week when many admittedly they had not played this classic game when they were younger - obviously they were brushing up on their painting skills! With the rules explained and the 'tagger' selected everyone sprinted off in different directions, in order to free someone who was stuck five squats were required by both runners. After a couple of rounds everyone had very sweaty foreheads and blushed cheeks, an all-round fun and effective sprint workout!

One final push...don't worry be hoppy!

With the lower body workout complete it was time for an upper body blast. In a take on 'rock, paper, scissors' the group paired up and battled it out in the plank position, some very amusing battles were had, with Tom and Katherine for one seemingly choosing the same each time! Next up was some press-up pyramid work, first up the pyramid, 30 seconds of press-ups and rest, 20 seconds of press-ups and rest and finally 10 seconds of press-ups and rest, and then the small matter of back down the pyramid....tough work but fantastically executed. For some, there was also the bonus exercise of either frog jumps or supermans. Great effort on the fitness work all, pancakes definitely earnt!

We'll get our coats...

With the rotation of the groups seemless, the walls had had their second coat of paint efficiently and skillfully applied and were now looking a lot fresher and brighter than a couple of weeks ago. With the painting completed and nut bars kindly provided by Jeanette either consumed or squirrelled away for later, all that was left to do was to help Jeanette clean-up and capture a brilliant team school-like photo in front of the Flora Gardens School sign outside. We said our goodbyes to Jeanette and headed out of the school. With the rain starting to come down heavily we unaminously decided against the longer run along the towpath and instead headed off, expertly guided by Sapphire, on the shorter and more direct run back to base for our cool down and stretch.

Next week we're heading up to White City Adventure Playground to help them clean up some graffiti, sign up for next week's run here. Hope you enjoyed some pancakes, have a fab week and good luck to all those running the Big Half on Sunday - hopefully see you either during the race or afterwards! And if you see her, Jeanette is marshalling down by Tower Bridge so give her a big cheer or wave! And good luck to Sapphire in the Thames Meander too!

It's a Tuesday night, it's GoodGym H&F night! Definitely my favourite evening of the week! The weather was markedly cooler than it had been in previous weeks and across the pond in LA, and tonight a wonderful 22 GoodGym-ers joined me in H&F to run and do good! A big warm welcome to the 5 fab new runners Amy, Ooonagh, Joyce, Sophie and Ruby on their first GoodGym run, it was lovely to have you all along! Hope to see you all again on another group run soon, hopefully wearing a nice red GoodGym tee! It was great to also see Martynas on his second group run of the week and to have Karen from GG Wandsworth and Mr 'Abs on Tour' Chi from GG Haringey doing some GoodGym tourism!

Before we headed outside, with everyone gathered around we had a brief introduction and round-up of the news from the week…

1. The monthly GoodGym Long Run for August will be led by the ace Dom Tooze, it will be on the 25th August and will be a 21km route from Hampton Court to Battersea Arts Centre – sign up here.
2. Big well done to Catriona who got another parkrun PB, a cracking run in under 23 minutes!
3. If there's any items anyone would like to see in the weekly fitness email, please drop me an email!

Thanks for pudding up with me & my puns!

Following a quick pulse raising warm-up which included a group numbers game and some dynamic stretching, though sadly this week I forgot to 'shoo the chickens' (hopefully H&F isn't overrun in the week by them...) there was a name and number count along with everyone’s favourite desserts –– cheesecake was the run away winner with mentions for ice cream, apple pie, cake and many other sugary delights.

Stravas and RunKeepers set we headed off on the short 1.2km run up to Loris Community Gardens. When we arrived at the gate we noticed there was a lovely welcome message written in chalk on the paved paths in the entrance to the gardens. The chalk had also been left out so I handed this to the 'resident graffiti artist', Catriona for a "GoodGym was 'ere" message. Disclaimer in her own words "I'm not really a graffiti artist, I'm not very good at art!"

Our task brief today was to remove the weeds from the garden path and if the group worked particularly speedy, lay down some sand on the path to fill in the gaps and finish it off. With the padlock combination code correct we accessed all the tools, kneel mats, brooms and gloves that Katie, from Loris Community Gardens had kindly left out for us to use. Everyone quickly gloved up and picked their weapon/tool of choice and evenly spread themselves out as they set about tackling all the weeds growing in the path cracks. The bin bags were MIA so Jason ran off on a short bonus run to acquire these for the group, within minutes he returned triumphant!

A run derfully weedy path

The garden path looked quite the challenge, there were leaves to sweep off the path and a plethora of weeds to uproot. A nice before shot of Jenny pensively posing with the path wonderfully captured just how overrun with weeds the path was. However, as always thr group worked efficiently and like a well-oiled garden machine so it wasn't long before the path had begun to be transformed from a weedy bad state to a much improved de-weeded one! Andrew and Arba stubbornly fought against the weeds and proved victorious in uprooting a large number while Katie brandished the broom and swept the path clear of leaves.

A sucker for GoodGym

Karen was proving a hit with the bloodsucking insects about and gained a good few of these 'friends' on her arms as she weeded. Luke, Catherine and Anna used their trowels to good effect on the side of the garden path while Tom, Johnny, Miteki, Jo and Sarah (who I can vouch definitely doesn't just hold the bin bags!) worked around the pond area. And the GoodGym gardening debutants of Martynas, Joyce, Amy, Oonagh, Ruby and Sophie took to weeding and sweeping like ducks to water!

Weed Up! Sand Up!

An incredibly thorough job was done by the group with some even upturning bricks from the path to get to the weeds roots. Despite the time passing quickly as always, the group worked so efficiently that they did indeed have time to lay some of the sand that had been left out. Many of the group proved a dab hand with the brooms, even though one of the brooms was very much a touch too big for the sand spreading and manoeuvring!

Weeding, check. Sanding, check. Tidying, check. Group photo, check. Group selfie, could be better but check. A clean sweep! Following one final pose around the brilliantly weeded and sanded paths the group headed off on the short 1.5km run to Ravenscourt Park for a quick fitness session.

Absolutely fab!

With Mr 'Abs on Tour' (apparently this nickname has stuck after I jokingly once called Chi this a few months ago...) in attendance the group were treated (though probably best read as, subjected to/punished...) to one of Chi's abs blasting sessions. As most GoodGymers in London now know, planks, supermans, leg raises and holds all form part of the routine and the group put in a great effort which Chi claimed will make you wake up with abs in the morning. Disclaimer (again) sadly one of these abs sessions probably isn't enough, but a sharpie pen or comedy chef's apron may suffice in the interim!

There was now one thing, well two things including the run back to base that stood in the way of the group and the promised cake, a sprint technique based shot game! 4 teams. 28 shot glasses all numbered 1-7 in a pile 20 metres away. Sprint to the pile focusing on your 'pockets to sockets'. The winning team was the one that got all the numbers 1-7 (not 1, 2 and 7!) first from the shot glass pile. And the winners were...Team One! Well done, guys! All that was left to do was run the final short and navigational easy 1.5km back to base.

With the nights slowly drawing in we had a cool-down and stretch in the fading light back at base and discussed the wonderful sweaty summer of running that we'd all had. Cool-down complete, there was only one thing left to do....belatedly celebrate Johnny's 50th good deed by eating star baker, Catriona's divine coffee and walnut cupcakes! Despite the unwillingness to make a fuss about it last week, this week I captured Johnny striking a pose with his much loved cupcake which would be a worthy glossy cover of any food magazine!

Hope you all had a fun night, great work and running tonight, Katie from the Loris Community Gardens will be so chuffed with the amount you all achieved tonight. Thank you very much to Jason for back-marking and for the 'bin bag run', and to our newbies and those doing some tourism for coming along. A pleasure to lead you all as always, have a fantastic week and hopefully see you all next week.

Next week’s task is another gardening one at the Springvale Estate – sign-up here.

What a night to finish on! We had a record breaking 29 runners turn up for the run and a bumper packed night of fun.

It was my last night as trainer of Hammersmith & Fulham Goodgym and our had task cancelled, so I organised a giant fitness session in the from of kids and party games.

Before we left for our session, we congratulated Ellie on reaching 49 Good Deeds. Next week, will be her 50th good deed - bagging her a snazzy black t-shirt. Go Ellie!

After the welcome round up we headed outside for a warm up next to the bike lane, making sure to include shooing the chickens one last time! Then we ran to Ravenscourt Park. This was an easy 1.4km, so we did a lap of the park on arrival. Here we pick up some late arrivals and had a surprise appearance from Pritesh (the Brent trainer).

Let the Games commence

First up on the games night, was my favourite - Stuck in the Mud. All the runners with names beginning with A were ‘it’. Runner could only release other runners from the mud by doing three squat jumps together. Can you see Chi and Jason hiding in the photos?

Foot Loose

Next up, a new version of Musical Statues. The runners had to run on the spot whilst Footloose played. Once the music stopped the runners had to balance on one leg. If you toppled over, your out. Over half the group made it all the way through the song!

Technique Time

Game number three was the technique relay. Each leg of the relay was made up of different running technique drills. See photos for winners picture.

Extreme Duck Duck Goose

Same rules as usual, but the ducks had to do strengthening exercises whilst waiting to be “goose”.

Get good at stealing

Next, a running drill called “raid the goal”. Each team had a nest of Haribo. The aim was to steal Haribo from the opposite teams nest to add to their own.

Abs-olute workout

Our last game was also an ab workout. We played Pass the Parcel whilst doing ab exercises and listening to the Top Gun soundtrack. After everyone had recovered we grabbed a great group shot in the park and headed back to base via the river. Then it was on to Wagamama’s for dinner.

Thanks to all the amazing effort put in last night and for the last year and a bit of my time with H&F.

H&F runners rock and I will miss you all. Keep up the fantastic work.

Happy running xxxx

There was a nervous atmosphere as we assembled for our weekly group run. England’s match had clashed with our group run time slot. To keep the football lovers informed, Tom had the highlights showing on his phone through the see-through window in his arm band and Bex had notifications on her phone.

After that hubbub was calmed, we celebrated the highlights of H&F’s achievements at the Goodgym Olympics. Firstly, H&F came 3rd overall out of 18 in our category (Hunter-Sidhu Shield). Which is an amazing achievement as we only had 7 people entered.

• Catriona came 2nd in the 100m Women's race - 14:09 secs
• Andrew and Alice came 2nd in the three-legged race
• We won the 4x100m relay and Goodgym Relay!

What a result!

The other bit of news was we’re going for dinner at Wagamama after my last run next week. If you fancy joining us for some grub, RSVP here.

So our task for the evening was to put up posters in shops near Hammersmith tube. This was to promote Fulham Good Neighbours’s Parson’s Green Fair on 7th July. We also, used the opportunity to hand out flyers about Acknowledging Youths - a social enterprise recruitment agency for disadvantaged youths and adults.

Tom lead the poster team down Hammersmith high street and managed to have better success that last week. Justine and Catriona each lead a group handing out flyers at Hammersmith shopping centre. I think it was a relief to the flyering teams when 7.35pm came around as they’d found it pretty hard work trying to give away the flyers.

By 7.40pm all the teams gathered at St Peter’s Church to warm up and go for a nice run. From here we came out passed the Apollo and down to Hammersmith Bridge. From the bridge we turned left down the towpath. After 1.5km we stopped for an out and back exercise.

Splitting the group into two, both groups had to run our and back for a set amount of time. The time went down and up. We did this as a pyramid:

• 30 seconds in 3rd gear (brisk jogging out) and then 30 secs in 4th gear (running now, hard to talk) back.
• 20 seconds - out in 4th gear, back in 5th (sprinting)
• 10 seconds - Same
• 20 second - same
• 30 seconds - out in 3rd, back in 4th

Once everyone had got their breath back after this exercise, we stopped a passer by to take a nice group photo by the river. It was from here that the football manic kicked back in as we ran back to base. We could hear the cheers from people in pubs over the river - cue frantically looking at phones. England had scored. Then again on the bridge cheers erupted once again and vans were honking.

After we arrived back at the gym we went through a cool down stretches and then the runners scattered to watch the last of the match. It’s clear from our WhatsApp group we had a lots of our runners watching the match.

Until next week, happy running.