What a great turn out of runners for a Tuesday night in Kingston! With 17 runners warming up outside the Guidhall our run leader for the evening, Samia, had us heel flicking, walking our hands out to a plank, lunging and going through the essential pre-run stretches to prevent injury. Before long we were all warmed-up and ready to do our quick run through the market square and off towards Canbury Gardens and on to our task for the evening!

It was to St Luke’s CE Primary School we ran this evening! With a link made by one of our own Kingston Goodgym runners, we were tasked with some clearing of leaves from the scooter and bike racks as well as the cleaning out of gutters and drains outside the classroom’s conservatories. While it seemed like they were big tasks to take on when we arrived, it didn’t take long before we’d divided to conquer our mission and got into the groove (between each rack over the gutters too). With great speed of scooping and sweeping, it wasn’t long before all gutters were cleared on the Key Stage 2 classroom side of the school and our task leader took us over to the Key Stage One side to continue while there was still time to clear as much as we could.

While the gutters were being cleared by half of the group, we couldn’t be’leaf’ how quickly a few bags were filled with the leaves from around the bike stands by the other half! Many hands made light work as the bags of mud and sludge from gutters got heavier! Once the last sweep left little ‘broom’ for improvement where the scooters stood, it was time to ‘leaf’ the bags by the shed and prepare for our run back.

With a final quick monkeying around on the trim trail of the playground, it was time for a group photo and school was out!

Well done to all on this Kingston group run for your support of a local school that has a big part in our local community. We were lucky to meet some new runners this evenings as well and send a big cheer to Scott and Moemen on their first group run with us and Owen and John returning for their second. Huge congratulations to Claire for her achievement of 50 good deeds and to Rob for 100 good deeds in Kingston! And thanks to Caroline for backmarking and Kate for being a wonderful taskowner and writing the run report! Our community is a better place because of your great contributions!

We’re back to school again next week so sign up to join us on a run and task to support St Paul’s CE Primary School next Tuesday!

It’s beginning to look a lot like... GoodGym!

This week’s run began with a very festive feel as the warm up took place in the heavily decorated Kingston Market Square. The tree was up, lights were twinkling, Christmas music playing and there were lunges and squats aplenty. A couple of the market stall vendors were truly embracing the festive spirit and gave us some very encouraging support along the way.

With the warm up done, 7 GoodGymers took off along the river, heading to another mission at Seeability in Surbiton. After around 3 1/2k, we were met at our destination by Martel and Rob and were presented with our task for the evening – to deck the halls with boughs of holly (or, more to the point, put the Xmas decs up).

We set to it with the lighting of fairy lights in the windows, festive projector shining on the front of the house, lights in the tree and icicle lights hanging from the guttering. The fake snow went up on all of the lower windows and, before you could say Jingle Bells, our time was up. A quick group pic done and we set off back to Kingston, leaving behind us an early GoodGym Christmas present for the lovely residents at Seeability.

It was great to see them tonight and here's hoping our efforts adds to a truly Merry Christmas for them all!

See you all next week and in the meantime best of luck to Claire and Charlotte for the 10km run at the weekend ; - )

Well tonight was all ago with two teams. One had a Red Leader and the other a Yellow Leader in the bid to raise awareness for the Christmas Fair at Elleray Hall on the 30.11.19. But hold on lets us start from the beginning… No not when we thought we were going to church or to the other task but when we met this evening with maps scattered over the desks at Guildhall planning our route and illustrating which roads, we could get to in the time frame ahead of us!! At this point we kicked off our celebration for Kate and her 200 Good Deeds – She rightfully wore the super hero cape as she has been such a blessing in our community doing good deeds in Kingston and beyond, a legend throughout GG with deeds and races in so many areas and a coach too who expressed how much her visits mean at the GG 10 year party.

So, with our resident Superhero all made up and raring to go we welcomed Tom back on his second run and Elinor on her first!! Also, we had a tourist all the way from York! What a night and welcome Nick! A great team all briefed and ready to cross the Kingston borders in the name of doing good to help Elleray promote their fair for all the great work they do in our communities to alleviate loneliness and isolation.

Our warm up left us stuck in the mud but not for long and it sounded like if we followed Kate’s rules, we may have been left in the loo but let’s not go there!!

We were of on the 6km run which found us with some 1200 ish leaflets and now trying to say ‘red leader, yellow leader’ repeatedly as a tongue twister while we hit the streets of Teddington to run and deliver.

Time sure went fast and the run trainer may have stretched the team to the limits, but we smashed through all the streets we could and broke the leaflets down in huge numbers, so hopefully that sees attendance all the greater at the fair.

The run back saw Dave disappear on alternative route but if you blinked you would have missed him heading up Broom road - BROOM and he was definitely GONE!

The rest of the team went along the Kingston road with Kate’s cape flickering in the street light, making it back in good time to Guildhall for a pun swap and stretch and to decide who could make the pub after for a celebration drink!

Great night all and super work all around. What a team … Bet you can’t do the tongue twister now though after that beer eh!!

Looking forward to running with you again next week already ; - )

With Mark taking a well earned break, Samia made a return to cover in his absence. Some mighty boots to fill, even with my giant feet!

First things first, it’s time for some news:

• Well done Kate on your 10th coach visit - give Kate a big cheer!

• Caroline responded to an urgent plea from Parkrun for volunteers, and listed a community mission for THIS SATURDAY - sign up here: https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/make-parkrun-safe-and-fun-in-kingston.

• We welcomed Charlotte and Katie back for their second runs - great to have you along! And we welcomed Tasha at the task who brought her docs along to get checked so she can do missions and coach runs - welcome!

Squat’s the matter?

After a very democratic vote via WhatsApp for the focus of the fitness session, the results were in and there was a tie between glutes and core - so in the name of fairness, both were featured. We recapped why those glutes are so important in running and in injury prevention, and then it was time for... sweets! Yes, sweets! They were imperative in providing an incentive with reaching during some single leg deadlifts and walkouts, and then of course providing some much needed sugar for the run. After some squats, glute bridges, plank pull-throughs (with sweets, of course), and split squats, we were ready to run.

Core, that was a glute warm-up!

With the task so nearby, we went for a run in the opposite direction along the promenade and then back to Canbury Community Garden. According to most of us, it was a 3.7km run out - but Caroline either had major GPS issues or took a sneaky super shortcut, clocking up a giant 0.03km on her run tracker...

Whether 30m or 3700m, we all arrived safely and were greeted by the marvellous Marilyn who gave us a briefing of the task. Oh, and she set her expectations with our pun report!

There were lots of tasks to do, BUTT there was no chickening out.

Jane and Hannah pond-ered about how to transfer the water from those giant butts to the pond. Wat-er solution they came up with, rolling kegs of the good stuff across the garden and having a barrel of laughs along the way.

Caroline borrowed a barrow so that she could provide a constant supply of compost to Dave & Rob to empty into the beds. They got to work as if they were on barrowed time, a brilliant display of teamwork!

There's no tyr-ing us out!

Next to the raised tyre planters, where Charlotte, Claire, Jess, Katie, Kate, Tom ans Tasha formed Team Rake it or Leaf it. The floor became visible again in a matter of minutes, we couldn’t be-leaf how quickly we raked them up, even in the pitch dark! You know what they say, many hands make light work. Such slick work too, the chickens slept right through all the action! And Charlotte has clearly got the knack for GoodGym puns, announcing that she’d “leaf them there” - you know somebody’s a goodgym-er when they talk in puns!

Glute work, team!

We tidied up, took a groupie and bid the chickens farewell. After a run back through Kingston (with customary heading in the wrong direction first, of course), we stretched and mulled over a pun, ate some more sweets and headed off.

Thanks Kate & Jane for backmarking and Jane for leading the walk back, Rob and Jess for your pun wizardry, and Dave for carrying the light to save my shoulders! And thanks to Team Kingston for bearing with me and my intentional-wrong-direction-running and glute sesh!

We'll leaf it to Kate for the final pun:

I'm a be-leaf-er in GluteGym!

Oh, go on then, one final pun for glute measure:

Gluten Abend!