This was a brilliant community mission, delivering food packages to residents around Hackney!

The food is provided by Waterhouse Restaurant and always smells so good.. but we promise it all ended up with the residents and not in us :D

See ya! x

23 GoodGymers ran 6k to Abney Park Cemetery to shovel, barrow and tip mulch to create 80 metres of woodland foot path.

Great to be back in Abney!! And awesome to have so many new runners along for their maiden GoodGym voyage!!

With January Challenge Miles at a premium we set to work on the 3k Run to Stokey. We must have done something bad wrong last week as we had some bad traffic light karma. The Green people were not our friends! But given the amazing work we put in am sure our luck will change next time!

With the run under our belts we met Park Ranger Tom who locked us into the Cemetery, grabbed a barrow each and followed Tom deep into the Cemetery to find the biggest Mulch pile in London no doubt!!

Splitting into Barrowers and Shovellers we set up a slick system to ensure maximum impact! With 6 Shovellers going like the clappers and 20 barrowers zipping deep into the undergrowth to save the path with much mulch reinforcements! The steam was rising from the huge mulch pile and only served to fire up the squad to work even faster!!

Tipping faster and faster I accurately counted 554 barrow journeys completed in 40 minutes of lighting quick action!!

With 80 metres of path locked in we steamed out of the park (after saying goodbye to Tom) and continued our New Years resolution to get a little stronger by crushing 5 minutes of perfectly performed body weight strength exercises!

With body popping we cranked up the pace for the 3k Run back to base!!

All stretched out and smiles at the end after a top GoodGym evening!! Sign up and come along next week for a trip to the award winning Wilton Estate community Garden!

Anyone fancy joining me on Saturday for Hackney Marshes Parkrun? If you have one get your Red T-shift on and I will see you on the start line!

Have a great week

Smooth Running

Joel

BYE BYE, SUMMER

So, summer's over.

But that didn't stop 33 of us, including 5 newcomers who don't mind braving the rain. Welcome to Vicky, Jill, Sarah, Shirin and Katie.

Double Tasking tonight!

Barnsbury

Simon describes the trip to Barnsbury Community Centre:

It was just under a year ago that we first visited Barnsbury Community Centre to start helping with their project to transform the vacant green spaces on the Barnsbury Estate into sustainable, community-friendly gardens.

Over the last year we've paid several visits. We've hammered in stakes, we've dug rings and circles, we've shifted tons of soil, we've filled raised beds, we've hammered in nails, we've painted, we've weeded, we've stapled, we've watered and we've constructed raised beds and a gigantic "S"! The project has really taken shape now and it's so nice to see such a big transformation. It was basically a big patch of grass when we first visited.

We were supposed to be doing a bit of painting and watering of plants tonight, but the rain stole the job of watering and ruined the possibility of painting. Thanks a bunch, rain! However, there was plenty still to do. The recent hot spell meant that weeds have sprung up everywhere, especially around the beautiful S-shaped feature in the garden, so a big group set about weeding and making sure that stays looking lovely. Another group had the task of transporting gigantic sacks of soil from one side of the garden's back gate to the other. Then local resident Elizabeth appeared and asked if she could have the soil transported round to the estate gardens next door. No problem. We were happy to oblige and wheelbarrowed like crazy.

We did get a little soggy, but spirits were not damp as we worked hard for 30 minutes and enjoyed a delicious malted milk biscuit.

On the way back to the pool we split into two groups. Patrick and Steve led an easier-paced group back for circuits/cones and Simon worked a group hard with lunges, high knees running, hops, skips and pogos. We discovered that pogos are even more fun if you add sound effects "boing boing boing".

WPCA

Whittington Park Community Association needed some folk to help keep the ground of their newly-refurbished One O'Clock Club weed free. John led the group up for this one and Aidan describes their evening:

9 Goodgymers took up the challenge of a longer run and with the rain and humidity it was a bit tougher than normal! Arriving at the task we were ready to start weeding, but we had a massive shortage of gloves between us. Luckily Alex had an improvised idea which led to the creation of some waterproof gloves with a sleek design (a ripped up black bag tied at the wrist) but they worked great and we set to work.

The heat and rain had brought the snails out so we had to be careful not to step on them and we did a bit of rehousing, bringing snail families back together. This led on to a question no one could answer, how do snails reproduce? After a quick bit of googling our weeding turned into a biology lesson (FYI they lay eggs, up to 100 a time!). Next we had a few Goodgymers who were keen to do some quick exercises before we headed back. But what to do first, biscuits or exercises? Lucy thought exercises, Frances thought biscuits. Most people agreed biscuits first which Lucy wasn't happy about! (see photo)

A quick round of exercises included some planking, burpies, press ups, high knees and many more with a favourite being John's karate style kicks and punches. With the rain still drizzling we headed back with Frances egging Graham on to a sprint finish up the hill before getting back for Tim Tams at Highbury Pool (Thanks Alex!)

BEING IN LOVE, STRETCHING, TIM TAMS AND IMPERIAL GETTING LEATHERED

Courtesy of Patrick's 3G and famous speaker we had a nice listen to Ivo's interview with Chris Evans (it's at 2 hours 21 minutes) while stretching and enjoying one of Alex's Tim Tams all the way from Australia. Thank you Alex!

The big question for the evening was metric vs. imperial. We had a lot of "it depends" answers, but when we limited the question to distances - actually, just running distances, metric was the clear winner. BY MILES! HAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!11!!!

See you next week, Simon

P.S. Tip o' the GoodGym cap to Patrick for Run Report Title