Last night's GoodGym group run: 28 people ran 4k together & turned 180 sq metres of earth for a local school.

Last night 28 people met at the Arch Gallery on Cambridge Heath road. Our main mission for the evening was to run to Morpeth School where they are turning a patch of land into a growing garden for the kids.

"hide the green waste behind a bush"

We'd also been asked by the guys at the Bethnal Green Memorial if we'd be up for doing some "quick weeding". We hit the memorial 6 mins after setting off from the Arch. With our crew of 28, we were certainly quick, weeding the whole area in just under 2mins, with fastest weeders' silver & gold going to Hermione and Amy. A vote then unanimously decided to hide the green waste behind a bush for now, so that the park rangers can compost it (rather than just throwing it in a litter bin or two).

"spiky plants"

With the weeding warm up complete we spent 7mins running to Morpeth School where Rizwana (the school's RE teacher) pointed us towards an enormous area of compacted earth. They had tools ready for us and we got straight on working up a good sweat digging over the ground. Those who weren't digging, raked up and bagged woodchips or chopped back spiky plants that were invading through the fences. Anna and David put in some great fork work, and Culainn and Laura chopped back (and ate) the blackberry brambles. After 40mins of upper body workout, we stood back (for 1min) and admired the 180 square metres of land we'd raked and turned and readied.

"evade the group behind"

We then ran a route along the canal to get back to the Arch Gallery, but to allow a bit of pace we split into 3 groups, setting off 45 secs apart - you chose your group, then tried to catch the group ahead and evade the group behind.

Reassembling with heavy breath and hearts pumping, we left the canal and did a slow cooldown jog all together back to the Arch. A few cool down stretches, and some chats about the upcoming 5k races from Somerset House and the evening was complete. Huge amount of soil turned, weeds cleared and some quick Ks on the return.

Big thanks to Bryon for making sure we all stayed to together.

Mark Herbert