26 GoodGymers met on a cold day to make beds for the homeless and garden for Cecil Sharp House

Welcome along to our three newbies this week: Zowey, Nafeezah and Rachel. Glad to have you along!

In the news this week:

• GoodGym does lots of races including Riga Running Festival, Bath Two Tunnels and Regents Park 10km. Check them out here.
• Also Tom Benson is organising an amazing day on Saturday where you race to Oxford either by bike (50 miles) or running (6 or 12 mile options). More information here.

This week we had two tasks; one helping C4WS making beds for the homeless and the second a gardening task for Cecil Sharp House.

Cecil Sharp Task by PB:

After an active warm up 14 of us headed North by North-West to go to our monthly task helping Cecil Sharp House - the home of English Folk and Dance. After 1.8km of running we'd arrived at our location and ready to get going! Susannah explained what our tasks were:

1. We had a team of three - Chris, Chris and Louisa - clearing weeds and sweeping up at the front of the building. George helped with the scraping between the pavement too.
2. Nafeezah and Zowey cleared a section of the back entrance of leaves, making sure they didn't step on the Strawberry plants so they can blossom :)
3. The rest of the team spread along the back garden clearing weeds, leaves and between the pavement with our favourite scraping tool!

Just when we were packing up we noticed a HUGE amount of MOSS along the bottom of the fence, all the teams combined and got scraping! In no time it was off and swept up - nice one.

We said out goodbyes to Susannah and headed to Primrose Hill for our fitness session, first we started with some shuttle runs between lampposts and then moved onto hill running technique:

Arms - 90 degrees and driving back

Legs - lifting your legs and knees higher

Posture - keeping your back nice and straight

All of this is essential for running up hill, we practised each technique in turn and then combined them all to power up the hill - lovely stuff.

Polly's homeless shelter report here:

PSB's group went off to C4WS to make beds for the homeless (which we'll now be doing weekly until March). The group stormed through the task and were out and off to Russell Square in 15mins. Johnathon was really thankful for us helping them out.

Skipping High

Once in Russell Square, PSB got the group doing a series of running drills to build-up muscle memory of good technique. Skipping high or bounding, was a definite favourite and grapevine action prompted GoodGym Dance-off rumours.

Move up a gear

After the drills, the group learned the basics about running speeds. Imagining they had 5 gears to work up through, like driving a car - starting relatively slowly, building up to a fast pace, then eventually a sprint. We practised this gear shifting a couple of times over a 100m and then set off on a progression run around the perimeter of the park.

Thanks for coming everyone, we have THREE tasks next week, helping St Mary's Flats, St Luke's Community Centre (NEW TASK) and C4WS. Will need at least 30 PEOPLE PLEASE. Sign up here

PB out.