25 Hackneyites ran 5km and helped St Luke's Church with some gardening

With Joel recovering with his new knee it was my pleasure to cover for him. Welcome along to Valentina, Carolina, Claire, Aimee and Brenna - lovely to have you along!

In the news this week:

1. This month's long run is on Sunday 24th June with either 11km or 16km options - all details here
2. Danny is organising volunteering for the British 10km, with a GG team taking over an aid/water station - in return you'll get a free entry for a Virgin Event. See full details here

After a quick dynamic warm up we headed 2km to St Luke's Church, this is a regular task for GoodGym, the team making a big impact over the years.

Upon arrival we split into two teams tackling weeds, leaves and overgrowth. A team of 3 delicately picked weeds from a beautiful flower bed while the rest of the team cleared as much as possible from the churchyard gardens.

24 GGers + 30 minutes = 12 hours of work!

Over 30 minutes we made a huge impact, filling 12 bags of rubbish and weeds - nice! After a group picture we headed to the local park for a fitness session - getting into pairs one person sprinted while the other did a conditioning exercise - including press ups, squats, balancing, plank & squat jumps!

Sign up for next week here when Joel is back and you are off to help the Hackney Wick Community Garden Team!

PB out.

31 Buoyant GoodGymers feed of the Hackney Half Energy to dominate 90 minutes of GoodGym excellence!

Flying high after our 21.1km of Running fun on Sunday we had a bumper group this evening!! Great to have Goodgym first timers along for their maiden voyage as well as everyone else who came out for a top session!!

After a bit of a longer chat than normal we headed off negotiating the Hackney backstreets to take us to Clapton Square to meet Hackney Park Ranger Bruce who had the tools ready for us us to dive straight in!

Dividing up into two groups we gloved up grabbed a hoe and got weeding! Making great progress in the almost Jungle on the Southside of the park we have the flower beds a though weeding with expert hoeing, take out every weed in side before bagging the weeds into 1 of the 20 crammed oversized bin bags we filled.

With 40 minutes of solid weeding literally in the bag we had a treat as Chima had scouted out 2 Strava segments for us to hunt the records for! As a warm up for our bursts of speed Chima hit us to the core and got us fully engaged in some tough core exercises with 3 back to back moves in 3 toning minutes!

We then zoomed back to base registering very well on the Strava Leaderboards with turn of Foot!

Next week is a very special celebration as Eva hits her 100th GoodDeed and Clair her 50th needless to say we will head out after the Group Run!! A triumphant return to Spoons on Mare Street awaits which will double up as a craft workshop to make the Hackney Team flag for the GoodGym Olympics!!

Struggling with GG website at moment so might take a day or so to get Group Run up but as always it will be going ahead so see you there!!

Smooth Running

Joel