32 people ran 7 km to move planters for the Secret Seed Society at Dalston Roof Top

"20 soil laden planters"

Last night was a mission plus some. We were tasked to move 20 soil laden planters off Dalston Roof Top (to the new garden in the car park below), and we also had to shift compost, using wheelbarrows and our hands, to the local estate 800m away. Oh, and by the way there was a 7 km training run in the mix (3.5km steady run there and 3.5km temp run back).

The great thing about GoodGym is the all the different levels of runners wanting to do good and achieve their own goals. 30 strong last night, and the group naturally divided and people were happy to support each other to run that bit faster and that bit further.

"swarm of runners"

Mentormore Terrace and commuters, coming out of London Fields Station, must be used to Tuesday's regular swarm of runners warming up along the pavement. Fast steps, to side steps to high knees, to bottom kicks to high kicks to star jumps…they've seen it all!

To celebrate the almost spring evening, we went at a steady pace through the lovely London Fields, buzzy Broadway Market and along the classy canal, west. We avoided Kingsland Road and headed north through De Beauvoir to our destination - Dalston Roof Top - off Dalston Lane.

"enthusiastic Amy Cooper"

The wonderfully enthusiastic Amy Cooper (from Secret Seed Society) was there to meet us. Secret Seed Society spreads the fun of growing and cooking your own food with children, and they have gardens in Hackney and work with local estates.

Amy was keen to get into the GoodGym swing of things, and ran us between the 4 sites (rooftop, compost heap, car park garden and the estate compost storage).

We then split into two big groups and paired up. Half worked high on the roof, and the other at ground level.

The roof team had to carefully manoeuvre and carry large planters down two flights of external stairs into the lift to the ground floor. From there, they had to carry the planters 50m to the car park garden.

The ground team had to shovel and use their hands to load wheelbarrows full of compost. Then in pairs, took it in turn to push the week barrow 800 m to the estate's compost storage.

30 minutes later, 20 planters and 10 wheelbarrows of compost had been moved and stored.

"tempo run home"

To get everyone ready for the 3.5 km tempo run home, we re-warmed in the car park garden. With less of an audience, we jumped squatted, lunged and burpeeed to get the muscles warm and ready for action.

3,2,1 and staggered groups started the hard run back to Coffee Is My Cup of Tea. More rooftop action next week folks (we've got another 20 planters and wheel barrows to go), and remember group runs count towards your Run Hackney training programme, so book them in.

See you next week.

Ade Aboaba