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.