Never an unrewarding session when we volunteer at The Adventure Playground. The air was crisp and sharp, but not a drop of a wind, the sky was exquisitely clear - optimum running conditions for 15 East Londoners. Anna and Ounni joined us, a first GoodGym run and first GoodGym Newham run respectively. We did an especially imperative warm up, to ward off the chill, then cracked straight onto the Random Weekly Question, a slightly hurried thought : "favourite thing about christmas?" From potato sandwiches, fried mash and pickle, multiple mulled wine shout outs, left over sandwiches, cakes, spending time with your nearest and dearest, and going to the pub....I reckon some people just call that a Tuesday.

Once we conquered the small trip to our destination (and stood around with hands over the fire for 5mins)... it was time to graft. Tearing out a telegraph pole, clearing a large amount of miscellaneous debris at the back and digging a 1 foot deep hole for a sea saw. 20mins later it was job done - with the lovely Ange(la) bringing out some warm mince pies as a gesture of thanks. She bloody loves you lot.

We skipped back to the Olympic Park for a little pacing work.6 x 1min runs, speeding up every 10 seconds, going through 6 gears. It was tough, that's a lot of different speeds, but it'll help you think about the subtleties in pace change. We'll come back to it, and you'll nail it a little better. Because that's what we do.

Right, you lot have a quality weekend, enjoy all that christmassy stuff we waxed lyrical about. Get that 'festive run' nailed too, yeah, it's a thing.

See y'all for our final session and 2018 awards(!) next week, sign up here

B