Good Gym: running with a mission

Soaked from head to toe, and with paint specks on my hands and shoes: this isn’t how I usually end up after a run. But then again I have spent the evening with a far-from-ordinary running group.

I have run from King’s Cross to Swiss Cottage, via Primrose Hill, and back again, and in between I have been up a ladder with a paint-roller giving a room in a community centre a new lick of paint. On my journey back, the heavens opened leaving me looking like the proverbial drowned rat.

This is my first experience of Good Gym, a not-for-profit organisation founded in 2009 that encourages people to combine exercise with doing something good for the community. Based in Liverpool and Bristol as well as the London boroughs of Camden, Hackney, Tower Hamlets and now Lambeth, Good Gym supports local projects, and you can choose from three different programmes.

There are group runs, which give you the opportunity to work with others on doing something good for your area – clearing a community space or distributing flyers. Or, If you’d prefer to volunteer alone, then you can opt for a “mission”, where members are sent on one-off jobs, such as picking something up for an older person. You can also be paired with an isolated older person who becomes your “running coach” and whom you visit regularly. Working with the NHS and local community centres, Good Gym encourages runners to take a newspaper or a modest gift to their coach, who in return offers motivational advice.

Each group run has a leader, but it’s not at all elitist – there is always someone at the back and front of each run to make sure that no one is left behind. For the more independent runner, this might seem a bit restrictive, but the whole point of Good Gym is to talk to your fellow volunteers. I’ll happily admit I’m not usually a fan of running and talking at the same time, but in a small group and on a gentle jog, it becomes part of the pleasure. Of course, those who want to can run ahead.

So en route I find out a lot about the other runners and we discuss everything from house prices to sexism in science. The painting work at The Winch, a community centre in Swiss Cottage where local children and young people can come to feel safe and make new friends, takes us around 40 minutes. We only have time to make a start, but the idea is that other running groups will come to finish where we have left off.

The run takes around an hour and a half in total; it’s 8km there and back although runs vary and you can chose shorter or longer routes. The Camden group will be running a 10km in February and I am keen to go again.

Good Gym is an innovative concept, and one that has inspired me in my running. When you think about it, running just to keep fit is wasting an opportunity. If you take yourself to a different part of the city, doesn’t it make sense to do something with all that energy? Good Gym also combines two of the typical vows for self-improvement taken on New Year’s Eve – to stay in shape and help others.

The organisation’s founder, Ivo Gormley, explains: “Good Gym makes people feel good about who they are, it makes it easy to do good, and helps older people who wouldn’t otherwise see anyone.” He has also discovered that the charitable element of this provides excellent motivation for struggling runners. He came up with the concept after running to visit a family friend who was stuck at home. It’s surprising how much impetus comes from knowing that your run has a purpose, and that if you don’t do it you are letting down not just yourself but others too.

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