14 people ran 5k to do a litter pick on our adopted part of the canal

On a bright and for a nice change a rain free evening we tonight welcomed Fiaz along for his first Goodgym run, give him a cheers fellow Goodgymer’s! The reigns were handed over to myself for this group run while our main trainer Jonny is away enjoying the sun. I worked out this was the 34th Good Gym Birmingham run since starting out in January, impressive and many more to come I’m sure. With the briefing done we headed off to the canal for this week’s task armed with litter picks, bag hoops, bin bags and those all-important gloves. Like a flash mob of red off to do good! After getting to the start of our adopted section on the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal we split up into 3 groups each taking a smaller area to work on. We did 15 minutes work to clear as much rubbish as possible and met everyone back at Aston locks to drop of the bags ready from collection by our friends at the Canal and River Trust. We finished with 6 bags full of rubbish so a great effort from all. We could all really notice the difference though of Goodgym’s regular work litter picking as there was far less than we have found previously tonight, signs of our success in making this part of canal a cleaner place for everyone to enjoy! With our selfie king Chan present we of course got in a few snaps by our GoodGym sign showing we have adopted this area of canal, great to see they all remain in place after putting them up a few months back now!

Say quack?!

As all this was going on some of the group had found a baby duck or to be more precise a Coot that had become trapped in one of the locks. So, it was Goodgymer’s to the rescue, after a few ideas of how to help from the dangerous and certainly not risk assessed jumping in to the more traditional - get a big stick! We in the end decided on a simple opening of a lock was enough to free our feathered friend. RSPCA eat your heart out! With our litter pick and animal welfare tasks complete it was back to running heading along the canal towards the city centre.

Lung bursting sprints

On finding a nice flat and straight section of canal I set up an interval ‘sprint’ session. Focusing on keeping the posture stable starting with the head, powering through with the arms and trying to push up onto those toes. The group did 5 sprints between myself at one point and a handy bench which stored all our equipment, each with a recovery in between and an extra recovery jog to finish back to the bench after I realised we needed to return with the tools! Fantastic effort and energy all round by the group, Aaron and Simon leading it through strong with Dionne and Maria showing great consistency! The group then ran back to 1000 trades rounding off with those injury preventing stretches! Next week it’s back to normal with Jonny returning with I’m sure stories of sun and beer to make sure us jealous with! We will be returning next week to SIFA Fireside to help them out with all manners of cleaning jobs, be great to see you there please sign up here