37 people ran 5 km to help bring people together.

When I said blaze of runners through London Fields, the GoodGym Hackney crew meant it!

36 clambered into Coffee Is My Cup of Tea for a fun, fast and furious session with Streetbank.

Streetbank is a simple, friendly website that helps you share things with your neighbours.   

Using your postcode, you can see everyone within a mile of where you live and all that they’re happy to lend you, the things they’re giving away and the skills that they’re willing to share. That could be anything from books and DVDs, to ladders, power tools, guitar and French lessons.    It’s the biggest neighbourhood sharing website in the UK, and last night we went the extra mile to spread the Streetbank word to the people of Hackney.    The big task was to pack and deliver 500 invites to streets with existing bank members. We split into 3 big teams and, with tunes on, set about writing and packing personal invitations to join Streetbank. Kate and Sam set the scene, and then we cracked on.

So to the fast bit. Following a collective 1.5 mile warm up, we set about stepping up a couple of gears to run another 1 mile as fast as we could around the track in the park - 4 laps.

The idea was to get a feel for tempo pace, and for people to choose how many laps they could complete at this pace. A tempo (or threshold) run should feel 'comfortably HARD'. It should last between 20 and 40 minutes, and it's a good way of increasing your lactate threshold.

A couple of people had been to the GoodGym Starter Session (1km total run and fitness testing) the day before so took 1km to 3km. Some took the opportunity to tackle all 4 laps, trying to beat their PBs set at track night or a group run time trial last year. Everyone had their own level to meet and beat, and well done to Lorna for her first run.

It was great! As people crossed the line, they set about cheering their team mates through it. Once each team finished, the mission was to deliver all the flyers as fast as possible before sprinting back to Coffee Is My Cup of Tea.

Albion, Navarion the Shrubland shot back in - with smiles and a lot of heavy breathing. Michael even managed to come back with a pot of biryani from a very sweet resident happy to get their invite.

We gathered in, chatting and stretching before heading home. Great people, great vibe, excellent run, and hopefully more people will be willing to share more.

Ade Aboaba GoodGym Hackney Coordinator