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!

Having looked at the weather forecast in the morning I was slightly trepidacious that the weather would put some runners off, I mean who wants to run in torrential rain and snow?! Turned out I needn't have worried as a massive 27 GoodGym runners in Hammersmith & Fulham were keen to do precisely this in order to run to do good in their community. It was great to see so many new faces, a big welcome to, Alice, Georgina and Claire who all joined us for their first GoodGym run. Hope to see you all again very soon, hopefully the weather will be kinder next time! It was also lovely to have along GoodGym tourists, Mathilde, India, Jen and Africa who joined my wonderful regulars on a very cold winter night with adverse weather conditions! Thank you all for coming along.

Since the rain was coming down with some force we sheltered under the Better Gym car park for the intros and a quick round-up of the week’s news.

The news this week, a run stop shop

1. JANUARY CHALLENGE 2019! - We're into the last few days of the January Challenge. The GoodGym targets of 6,000 good deeds and 80,000 kms run are in touching distance, will we make it?! As a group we hit BOTH our 2019 targets for good deeds and distance run last week and have a trophy for each as a reward. We're also sitting very nicely at the top of Division D. Awesome work H&F team, great team effort! Track the January Challenge progress here.
2. The Vitality Big Half (10th March) - GoodGym has some £10 community entry places for the Big Half. If you're interested, please email bighalf@goodgym.org Deadline for applications is Wednesday 30th January. Names will be drawn at random from those who want a place.
   
3. London-wide GoodGym social - Thursday 7th February at the The Prince Arthur Pub, near Old Street - Celebrate GoodGym, Heroes of the months, January IPOTM (International Pun of the Month), IPOTY (International Pun of the Year) and January Challenge Results! Sign up here.
   

Lots of racing at the weekend too, big well done to Tom and Chris in the very muddy and hilly Maverick Trail Race down in West Sussex and to Johnny and Sarah who ran the Morden Hall Trust10 Trail Run AND ran their 50th different parkrun! Impressive! Well done all, great running.

Following a name and number count we headed out into the heavy rain to get ourselves warmed-up (well sort of!) and headed up on our short 2km run up to St Mungo's Reconnection Post. Stopping briefly for some jumping jacks and squats when waiting to cross the roads we arrived in super quick time at St Mungo's Reconnection Post and were met by one of the Reconnection Workers, Marcia. As Marcia located the keycard for the room that we were going to be working in, I briefly explained to group about the valuable services St Mungo's Reconnection Post provide to vulnerable and homeless adults with complex needs in the community, such as the 'No Second Night Out' service – as well as providing 25 beds, they also work with the residents to get them reconnected in the community or repatriated back to their country.

All-sorts of clothing, snow many clothes!

Tonight's brief sounded simple but in reality was quite a challenge. We had been asked to help organise one of their store rooms which had become filled full to bursting, quite literally, of a fantastic array of donated clothes by the public and previous residents. A few weeks ago we made a start on the room but due to the sheer volume of clothes and bags within the room had only been able to get so far. This week we were back to (hopefully....maybe) finish the job off!

A different kettle of squish

One bonus of tonight's task was that it was inside, however, we were very limited with the space in which to work and with 27 GoodGym bodies we had to be both creative and extra efficient with all our sorting. With the group divided up between two rooms and along the corridoor it was time to sort. Jason provided a brilliant contact point between the two rooms and corridoor, and even participated in the well known challenge, just how many coats can one person carry?! With excellent co-ordination, communication and all round teamwork it wasn't long before the room started to look clearer and the shelves fuller with neatly folded and stacked clothing - plus we could now see the floor! Half an hour flew by as always and the task came to a nice natural end point, for now!

Too clothes for comfort

Since we could now get in the room I decided this was the perfect opportunity for a group photo, despite it being a tight space everyone got up clothes and personal, well neatly packed in and we managed a great team photo in the room we had sorted. Andrew also providing a brilliant photo op - check out the photo of him sat on the throne (chair) admiring the wonderfully sorted and folded clothes now on the shelf and in boxes. In just two half an hour bursts it's amazing what you have all achieved, the room is unrecognisable from our first visit - well done all, great work!

Check out the transformation...

Snow joke, the weather really was that bad!

We said our goodbyes to Marcia and headed back outside into the driving cold rain. With many shivering and with snow just starting to fall we unanimously decided to forgo the fitness session this week and head straight back to base. With base only a short 2km away it wasn't long before we were all back and having a quick stretch off inside the warmth of the Better Gym Leisure Centre. Cold and damp to the core it was time to call it a night and we headed off for our monthly social which comprised of drinks, food, chats and general merriment - a perfect way to end the night.

Thank you all for coming along, hope you had fun and have now all warmed-up and dried off! Have a great week. Sign up for next week's run here.

Thank you to Jason for backmarking and many thanks to Catriona for the extra photos and for organising the social!