We need a GoodGym sign outside Guildhall with an arrow pointing to where we are to welcome all the new runners each week. Tonight, we welcomed Annabel and Kim on their first Kingston run - great to have you in the team.

We also had the pleasure of running to the task with the task owner, so much kudos to Michelle - lovely to see you this evening.

Before we set off there was much talk about missions coming up, some where the dates have changed, also #GGSuperSaturday which is the 21st September and all the potential community missions that we can get involved with. As there were so many, to be on the safe side please check the GoodGym website for up and coming Community Missions.

Part of the safety brief we discussed safe lifting technique, so to be sure we knew what it was it flowed nicely that we could examine it in our warm up and get to the core of the movement at the same time (take a look at the photographic evidence to asses your posture.) All that was left to do was to squeeze our knees, set our Strava’s and get our stride on!

A nice and kneesy warm up! #runninggroup #goodgym #kingston #warmup #volunteering #doinggood #mencap pic.twitter.com/MLDGiikZ4S

— GoodGym Kingston-upon-Thames (@GoodGymKingston) September 3, 2019

The run was a fairly even distance out and back, total just over 5km; which left us plenty of juice in the tank to get stuck into the task at Searchlight Centre. This great community space houses many activities within our Borough and is also a centre used for the great Mencap charity. We have helped out here a few times and on our last visit the old lawn mower died on us, half way through a cut.

An uneven lawn had kept many of us awake for many a night so we were keen to get back to set the record straight , the question was , should we use some of the other grass cutting methods -so just rake it , go at it with shears , tread it down really hard or cut it with chopsticks??

LUCKILY Michelle informed us that they had a new Flymo (now call me easily pleased but that did make my heart sing – Flymo I’m over the moon).

So on a relay system at least three of us used the mower, whilst others litter picked, some did ballerina with the broom and others tackled the nettles and thorns and as the light dimmed the dark side grew stronger and a Star Wars plaster was needed to cover a minor cut. A headtorch was unleashed, first time since winter this year to brighten things up and highlight how much we had done and guide our way to put the tools back in the shed, get the old Flymo to meet the new one and take a well earned lean against the wall before we lunged back into action to make the run home (Guildhall – looking spectacularly red for some reason).

Great to see everyone tonight, welcome again to our two new runners. Good luck to Donna for her half marathon this weekend and don’t forget to sign up all for Fircroft next Tuesday.