On a chilly October evening in Hackney 21 lively GoodGymers ran 6k to start a massive project with Core CIC buy starting to clear the building out in record time.

We started the evening by welcoming our GoodGym first times and high fiving our returning runners from their little breaks! 👏🏻👏🏽👋👋🏾

After a few big ups to the GoodGym Cross Country Team for a great first races of the season we got underway lead excellently by Hackney Task Force's Clare who guided us through the bright lights of Hackney expertly. We arrived at the brand new Core CIC building to meet Danny one of the Co directors of the project who walked and talked us through the amazing vision he has for the building and providing a location to help treat muscular skeletal disorders at reduced or no cost for the people of Hackney. If you want to find out more about the project check out the website and video here.

After the tour we got down to business removing all the ceiling tiles we could reach on the first floor at an impressive rate! Ripping up flooring, taking up carpets, dismantling shelving, taking apart kitchens. You name it we ripped it apart!

As the time ticked on we cleared up the space and took all the unwanted stuff out to be dumped in a skip, where we made a brilliant discovery Vintage clothing, there was a mad scramble and many outfits were tried on all beautifully modelled by Amy, Clare, Becky, Eva and Kate.

With a big thank you from Danny, we headed off into the night with a job well done on the 3k run back to base, a few stretches and very quite round of applause we finished the run but not the evening.

19 of the crew headed around the corner to TAD Turkish restaurant to get our eat on and had a great time doing so.

Brilliant to see so many of you come along to the monthly social and really hope you all can come along again on the next one which will be on the 22nd of November (put it in your diaries). A big thank you to Cecilia for choosing and organising the restaurant really appreciated, thank you!!

Next week we are off to Mabley Green to put some trees to bed for the winter! Be great to have you along for some more fun on the run! There will be a few running drills and skills thrown in for good measure to! If you have one bring a head torch or anything that lights up. Sign up here I also see that Hackney GoodGym Great Kev is making special visit from his new home in Bristol.

The Regents Park 10k race is coming on fast on Sunday the 6th of November and be great if we had a Hackney crew go down and dominate a top 10k race! All the information is here. Any questions about it give me a shout.

Pritesh of GoodGym social fame is wanting to do an East London GoodGym Monthly social! If you have any ideas of top drinking establishments for the GoodGym family to come visit either drop Pritesh a line on Twitter or tell me and I will pass it on.

Soft and smooth steps

Joel

A whopping 45 Goodgymers gathered in Islington this Monday

A mass of goodgymers flocked to Highbury Pool this Monday, ready to get involved. We welcomed several first timers to GoodGym, why not go and give them a cheer and say welcome to Imogen, Caroline, Sarah, Laura, Susann, Wendy, Claire, another Imogen, Alice, Victoria and Emma.

Congratulations were in order for Patrick on his Berlin Marathon time as well as everyone who went to Cardiff Half Marathon on Sunday. Well done to everyone!

Farming fun at Freightliners

This week's task was with the wonderful people at Freightliners Farm. No one loves a visit to the farm more than GoodGym, even if it does mean shovelling some manure. As it is a short run plenty of people took on the challenge of a longer run with Graham leading the way with some laps of Highbury Fields. The rest of us were too eager to see the animals and headed straight for the farm.

Graham describes the longer run:

A group of hardy GoodGymers set off to up the pace and distance with a few extra laps of Highbury Fields before starting.

Following a few warm up drills (featuring high knees, tail flicks, walking lunges, and sprints, and my best attempt at something resembling an army drill), we headed off to get the extra distance in.

Brilliantly, everyone did at least an extra two laps and upped their workout with an extra 2k - nice! Given the number of people who did extra laps in total, I reckon we did at least 50 laps of Highbury Fields collectively. That's about 10 parkruns, and longer than marathon distance - excellent job team!

With the extra laps under our belts, we ran over to the farm where remarkably we didn't get lost. Well except for that one-bit-where-we-ran-5m-past-a-turn-but-that-totally-doesn't-count. Which as any Islington regulars will tell you - a pretty big success given my navigation skills! A pre-task running session success.

We may have had a big group, but there was no shortage of work to be done and by golly did we tackle it. With wellies and gloves at the ready the first group got stuck in shovelling a mountain of manure into sacks. Working in pairs they tackled the task with gusto. Great job! By the time everyone from the longer run joined there was plenty more work to be done. There were groups:

• Shovelling manure

• Shovelling compost

• Transporting 60 bags of manure (and then taking another 20 bags)

• Sanding a table

• Sweeping the courtyard

• Cleaning the paths

• Weeding the paths

• breathe

Phew, amazing work! And of course a special shout out to the Torchbearers, which has become a bit of a regular task now that Winter is coming, without them we can't see a thing!

It wouldn't be a trip to the farm without meeting the animals so before leaving there was plenty of time to say hello. Once we were all cleaned up we set off back in three groups for a quick run back.

Only in Islington...

Going with the farm theme, the debate this week was "What is the best farm animal?" Going for a very democratic voting system of shouting your answer goat was definitely heard the loudest.

Keeping the farm theme alive, biscuits of the week were a childhood favourite Animals and a random find of Zoo biscuits. Both going down very well post run.

What next?

• This month's drinks are on Thursday 6th at the Islington Townhouse in Angel. Local to us so come along! More info here.

• If you're too committed to the running to be drinking then why not try a Fitness 4 All training session in Camden, also on Thursday. More info here.

• If I haven't tempted you by either of these then we will see you next week!

Awesome effort everyone!

Aidan

After welcoming Hannah, Craig, Dom and Meena for their very first GG runs and lots of cheers for loads of great racing over the weekend (running AND swimming). 35 GoodGymmers ran a total of 7k to help clear paths of weeds, ivy, nettles and general debris at Sunnyside Community Garden.

With headtorches and mobiles lighting the way we snipped, spaded, shovelled, raked, yanked, swept and bagged like crazy for 20 minutes with amazing results.

Then a blast home and back at base Caroline led a stretch we munched on Custard Creams and discussed our favourite running tips. Lovely.

Aidan's leading proceedings next week. At Freightliner's Farm! Have fun,
Simon