This week, GG Southwark had a change of scene, a long run to bike heaven and a paper chase around the borough.

On this very cold mid January eve, GG southwark were tasked with running the 1.7mile route to Peckham BMX club, to help with some much needed promotion and leaflet dropping.

After a change up of scene, our base for welcomes was instead at the gorgeous little restaurant TUPI on Peckham Rye road. However, we soon outgrew our quaint little abode as who knew peckham goodgym would be such a success on such a cold night with 21 runners in toe!!!

After housekeeping we donned our winter warmers and set to foot on the first leg. With Ed and his pigeon back from honeymoon, it was of course a very fast pack pace at the front. But leading from the back I had just as fierce of a team and managed to get everyones best efforts all the way to task.

Meeting us at the track was CK our host, who wasted no time handing over the stacks and stacks of glossy papers promoting this excellent community club.

With a plan to achieve maximum distributions on route back, the groups ran hard and fast, posting all the way. Thankfully the park is surrounded by a ton of awesome block estates. Therefore we carried out some excellent tempo sprint/jog efforts, all the way round the hood.

As the cold drew in, we switched up directions and spent the next 35mins pavement pounding, heading for home & of course hitting up letter boxes wherever we could.

It was certainly a night to get pulses racing as well as legs. With distances dashed, in a flash, we were done. The end of another goodgym in glorious Peckham.

OMG could it be ? A bumper batch of 23 ? Running miles, all with smiles, to Camberwell from Peckham for baby bank heaven.

It was a wondrous sight indeed what befell my eyes this eve, as one by one the bright and beaming faces of the southwark GG crew rocked in through the doors of Old Spike.

Joining the ranks of rad regulars were a totally fantastic, completely boombastic double digits gang of newbies galore!!!! Hurrahhhhh

So after warm welcomes to old and new and a Goodgym share and spiel for good measure, we had a quick 5mins for announcements at base with Beth; Who kindly reminding the troops to track their runs on strava so we meet our January targets for the big GG Drive. Yes!!! Come on team get logging!!

After all housekeeping was done, we head out into the chill to tackle the 1.7mile route towards our hosts for the eve - The Salvation Army Camberwell and their bank of baby clothes for sorting.

Leading out the ranks I cruised with my crew the first mile with ease, but we knew what was lurking round the corner...... The infamous Grove Park hill!! But do you know what, we hit that first hill hard and with my fave power couple Rob and Sarah up front, there was no stopping the pace or sense of determination as the whole squad dashed off the first leg in no time at all!!! YAY

Arriving at our destination in well under 30mins, we were greeted by our ever so grateful and smiling hosts who were so very happy for our help!! The jobs at hand, our lovely task leader explained, were sorting and clearing the donations of children's clothing, moving the large objects up to the loft and labeling the canned food goods before stacking away.

Much to do and not a whole lot a nothing, in fact, there was a whole lotta something for everyone to get stuck into, so stick and stack we did and the task was underway.

Splitting the crew (as I said - there was in fact much to do), we ploughed through the mountains of baby grows and knitted cardies galore, not to mention all the peculiar slogan tees; Our favs being ‘Chick magnet’ and ‘lock away your daughters’ looks like the new batch of Youngers growing up in Southwark will be a big old bunch of Romeos!!!

So back to the tasks at hand and we were well and truly in the mix, sorting, folding and rolling to make room in the boxes that filled up fast!! Over on the other side (and dangerously close to the big box of leftover Xmas choccys I might add) Beth and Hanna led the second group troops in the labeling and shelf stacking of canned and boxed goods alike.

With all the action 35mins seemed to fly by, like a stalk on delivery day and BOOM before I knew it, the countdown was upon me!!! 3,2,1 and we're done!! Having made a huge impact on the big piles and completely finished the canned element of the task as well!! Amazing!!!

So with tasks well and truly wrapped and the countdown timer chiming its last chime, we bid our fond farewells and.......ok one last chocolate for the road before we were turning on our heels and off once more.

Route home was swift, even though there was yet again.... Another hill to tackle!!! Yes, She is a tough one, but the encouragement and smiles all the way, made us mad for the madam and the goodgym cheer flowed happily all the way home!!!

Stretches finished the eve and after those hills we were pleased, but sad to say goodbye, until next week.

A Fabulous evening filled with big love, big efforts and big vibes - Its GG Southwark of course, I expect nothing less!!!!

See you next time x x x x

DO GOOD. FEEL GOOD. INSPIRE

12 GoodGym-ers ran 5k to help C4WS Camden make beds for the homeless or 16 ran 10k to help in the Abbey Community Centre garden!

With regular trainer Paul still in Kenya getting even faster at running, it was Frances’ turn to take the helm at GoodGym Camden this week. We had 28 runners, including Enrica, Heather and Amy who all came along for the first time!

Frances led a group to the American Church in London, helping with our regular task of making the beds for the homeless shelter they provide. We got it done in record time – less than 10 minutes! As it would take around an hour for the staff to do it themselves, they really appreciated the help as always.

Record times!

With the task done, we headed to Granary Square for a fitness session. This week we split into two halves for a group fartlek session, each heading around the square in a different direction. Fartlek is Swedish for speed play, and basically means playing around with different paces – like an interval session but more fun. The twist was that each person in the group got a chance to pick the pace and how long the group did that pace for. Would you give your fellow runners a sprint, or a nice relaxing recovery pace? Both groups did a great job, covering three laps of Granary Square and mixing up the speeds nicely.

Then we headed back to base for a nice stretch and awaited Pritesh’s group, who had been on a 10k run to Abbey Community Centre for some gardening.

Abbey Community Centre

Pritesh and his merry band of 15 GoodGymers went 'long' this week and headed over to Abbey Community Centre in the heart of Kilburn. It was a lovely night for a run and despite the hard slog the view that greeted the runners at the top of Primrose Hill was certainly worth it. The challenge with the trip to Abbey is maximising time, the time it takes to run meant only twenty minutes were available to do the task. Laura from the community centre explained to everyone what Abbey does and then showed us the work that needed to be done in the garden. We split in to two groups, one group taking on the pesky weeds between the paving stones and the other turning over a flower bed so that the community centre members could get some planting done in the next week. Everyone worked super hard and Laura was extremely grateful and impressed with how much we got done. With that we said our goodbyes and then headed back to base before a good stretch after that long run. Great running and tasking everyone and thank you to Rosie who led the run back!

Lovely to see you all, hope to see you back again soon, you can sign up for next week here, Pritesh will be leading in the last week before PB is back!

Don’t forget the next time trial in Regent’s Park on 26th March – in a bit of a twist, it’ll be a handicap race this time!

A massive 41 GoodGymers filled planters, wheelbarrowed, hoe'd and cleared twigs for three Camden charities

Corrr blimey what a lovely night, it was wet, it was windy and definitely not Spring BUT we had a massive fourty-one people down at GG Camden, the most this year so far! Thanks for coming!

Welcome to the newbies – Katherine, David, Claire, Emma, Kimberley, Tom P, Ellie, Alex, Susana,Rosa and Tom - great to have you along.

In the news this week:

1. Steve Lee hit 50 Good Deeds last night, earning himself a black t-shirt – wahey! Give him a cheer!
2. Lina did her first 5km time trial at the weekend with GG Race Team, sign up to the next one here.
3. Well done to the Brighton Half Marathoners at the weekend, Jacob got another PB and Damian got a post-shoulder surgery PB – nice one guys!
4. Its GoodGym monthly drinks tonight down in Lewisham, Pritesh will be there with a wonderful speech and a smiling facing. Go on down – sign up here.
5. Lastly I am going to Kenya for the next three weeks so me and my beard won’t be around. The wonderful Polly, Frances and Pritesh will be covering for me while I am gone. Don’t miss me toooo much.

After all that news, a headcount involving three Steve’s and two Chris’ we got warmed up. After raising our heart rate nicely we split into three groups, we were helping the following organisations:

1. St Luke’s Community Centre – this is a fantastic centre that runs lots of projects and programmes for the community, including having an amazing green space!
2. Alara – this is a wholefoods provider that also runs various green projects, including Kings Cross Orchard Project.
3. Castlehaven Community Centre – nestled in the heart of Camden Town this centre runs projects for both young and older persons, plus they maintain two parks.

St Luke’s Report:

Frances led 15 runners for our second trip to St Luke’s Community Centre, to help our friends at GoodGym Islington finish off their mammoth task of filling the planters with soil.

10 people got straight to the task, shovelling, wheelbarrowing and turning the soil until the job was pretty much done. Another five strong-armed people helped move bags of compost out of the shed – with a human chain formed, they got the job done quickly so they could help everyone else finish the planters.

Shed photo!

After a quick shed photo, we hit the roads back to base, missing most (but not all) of the heavy rain showers.

Alara Report:

Polly led a group of 12 runners to go and help Alara, with this being just a 1km a way they had a nice warm up before tackling the task.

Splitting into groups the team wheelbarrowed compost from THE HUGE PILE into the Permaculture Garden and did some hoeing around the space to make sure it’s spread evenly.

Cookie Fuelled

Fuelled by Alara cookies the group smashed through the task and then headed to Granary Square for a loop and some conditioning exercises.

Castlehaven Report:

PB led a group of 10 runners North along Royal College Street, past Camden Overground station and to Castlehaven which is just behind Camden Lock!

Once equipped with gloves and bin bags from the Des Res we split into two groups, with Meredith’s team heading to the north park and Jess’ heading to the south park. The aim for the night was to bag up any and all twigs, branches and wood that was left over from Storm Doris last Thursday.

Upon first impressions there didn’t seem many twigs about, but after 30 seconds we realised we had our hands full. Over the course of 20 minutes we filled eight bags of debris and there was still plenty more to do – we’ll be back!

Canal Vote

After a quick vote we decided to head west along the canal and not the road, it's a bit of an experience in the dark but sticking together it’s quite the adventure. We ran a mile along the canal and met Polly’s Alara crew before heading back for a group stretch.

Once again thanks for coming along, sign up here for next week, the wonderful Polly is leading!.

PB out.