33 GGers ran 4-6km, helped Skip Garden & Castlehaven and did a time trial!

Welcome along to Eleonora whose first time it was last night, plus there was the return of lots of January newbies - lovely to have you all along.

In the news this week:

1. Well done to Lucy and George who have hit 50 good deeds in the last week - well done to you both! That's a whole lot of good!
2. Rosie Ashworth (Taskforce Member) made us some awesome brownies and flapjacks for us as she raising money for RISE, a charity which supports victims of domestic violence. If you'd like to donate in aid of brownie eating please go to her JustGiving Page here.
3. Go along to Victoria Park 10km on 25th February - great race to start the year!

Right onto last night, after a quick warm up we split into two groups to help Camden task favourites Castlehaven and Skip Garden.

Frances' Skip Garden Report:

Fifteen of us went to Skip Garden to help them get ready for Lumiere London. They were expecting loads of visitors over the next few nights and needed us to help with moving trip hazards and getting 70 litres of wine in the right place, something which Steve Coman was very keen to help with.

Wine please!

After we'd finished we did a couple of laps of Granary Square and then took turns to assign a variety of core exercises

Castlehaven Report by PB:

After a gentle mile of running we arrived at Castlehaven, an amazing community centre who help both young and old people with their services. They also look after two parks in the area and need help maintaining these - that's where we come in.

Despite it being January there was still some dead and wet leaves left in the gullys along the fences surrounding the park. We got to work armed with tools, bin bags and gloves. After 20 minutes we'd packed up 16 bags of leaves - nice!

Candle in the wind!

On our way to meet the other team we ran along the canal and took in the light festival as we approached Granary Square. Once there, the teams combined, we played the high knees game in the smoke and then lined up for our first time trial of the year! Everyone did amazingly, really pushing the pace! Chris came in first at 2.34, one second outside the course record - pretty good!

Next week we are off to one of our most important and impactful tasks at the American International Church to help make beds for the homeless - sign up here.

PB out.

Last night in Hounslow started with party rings, marshmallow cakes and by welcoming lovely new runners Audrey and Saule to the group. Give them a cheer, Hounslow!

After a run down of the week's news, a reminder that the Christmas party is going to be on the 8th December at the Battersea Arts Centre and a quick talk about the task, we moved outside to brave the cold and do some dynamic warm ups. And also to find out what everybody's favourite crisps are. All the important stuff.

With our heart rates up, and having discovered that we love skips, kettle crisps, vegetable crisps for the health conscious, and tortilla chips, we were ready for the off. Tonight's task was just over 2.5 k away, and we took the outward leg nice and steady, just stopping for a few wall sits and quick jumping jacks.

We made it to Ealing Road Baptist Church, which also acts as a food bank and homeless shelter, in no time at all, and were greeted by one of the men who uses the shelter. With Jeremy and Saule taking on the toughest job in the very dusty cellar, Andy, Natasha, Will and Audrey started on the various tasks in the food bank. Jo (whose high point of the night was discovering a chocolate unicorn - did anyone actually see where that went?), Jennifer, Remy and Alex tackled the cleaning jobs in the kitchen, hall and bathroom. There was also clothes to sort for the community, including a rather nice cape (we think) and lots of other little jobs that the team smashed through super quickly.

Which meant more time for the core blast. Hurrah! We were lucky enough to be able to take advantage of the lovely warm room to do our fitness session tonight, rather than yomping about in the mud outside. So we thought we better make it count. With two sets of five exercises aimed at working our abs - essential for efficient running and helping to prevent injuries - we spent 15 minutes doing planks, crunches, reverse crunches, Russian twists, bicycles and much more. Who is feeling it today?

With another 2.5k run in front of us, we hit the road and used the long straight section to the half way point to do some fartlek. This speed work is tough, but great training. We ran the last section as a team to finish off the night with some stretches and a well-earned pat on the back.

Next week we're tackling some tasks at a charity which supports people with long term mental health issues, Friends of Cathja. Sign up here to lend a hand.

15 awesome runners ran 4km to help out at the Royal Hill Community Garden!

It was a freakishly warm evening last night, it had rained on and off for most of the day and it looked like it was going to rain some more.. but it didn't stop 15 of you lovely lot from coming out to run and get a good deed done!

We were joined by 4 new runners last night! AMAZING!! Isabella brought along her friend Balazs, I managed to rope in my friend Sally from the gym I work at, and we were also joined by two more lovely ladies Aimee and Lexy! Welcome to the family everyone! Make sure you join our FB group to keep updated with races and other wonderful things that this awesome group gets up to!

We dropped off our stuff and headed over for a quick warm up and then set off through Greenwich town centre and up to Royal Hill! We were greeted by two lovely gentlemen, Patrick and Jonathan who explained the tasks that needed doing.

Ground force!

There was a flower bed at the front which needed some holes to be dug to make room for some plants so a few people got stuck in with that. Vickie took a small group to the dark outback to rake up some leaves and put them in the compost. And the final group were tasked with a little landscape design project of making a heather bed which involved building a DIY dry stone wall out of bricks and other rubble they could find... Apparently according to Emma, well, Emma's granny, dry stone walling is an actual hobby and you can enroll yourself in a course to learn how to build one as it is quite an art form! But these guys did not need a course in dry stone walling... oh no! They just cracked on and it looked BEAUTIFUL. Alan Titchmarsh better watch his back!

15 minutes later and the group at the front had successfully planted the plants! WOOHOO! Next job was some bulbs to be planted in and around them. Patrick showed them the first one and then left the rest to them!

Everyone was doing a killer job! The leaves had all been swept away. The bulbs had been planted and finally the heather bed was looking absolutely stunning! So it was time to say our goodbyes, have a group photo and head back for some more RUNNING! Yay!

We had a little jog back to the uni and had loads of time to spare! And since the run to the garden wasn't very far, there was more running on the agenda! But that's what you're here for right :)

Laps, laps and more laps!

As I always say, speed work is SO important. I don't do it enough myself. And chances are you probably don't either! If you run 3 times a week, you should try and aim for one of those runs to involve some kind of interval training where your heart rate goes up and comes down multiple times! It gets you faster over time and really pushes your lactate threshold so you can run faster for longer! Which is ultimately what everyone wants, right? So.......

On the cards was 4x 2 laps fast 2 laps slow. 1 lap is approx 300m so to run round it 16 times would be about 4.8km which is a long way! But instead of making everyone do this, we did it for as long as it took the fastest person to complete it. The key to this one is running the fast laps at a pace where you can maybe say about 2 or 3 words at a time so a nice controlled effort and then running the slow ones REAAALLLYY slow as an active recovery.

Long story short... everyone did AMAZING. It was great to see you all really push yourselves and put in so much effort! And of course so great to hear the cheers for our super speedy Amy so everyone could stop! Ha! That was a tough session, probably one of the hardest we've done so newbies please don't be scared off!!!!

We had a nice little stretch and called it a night :)

Thanks so much everyone! You got so much done at the garden and the task owners were SO pleased at what you all achieved so well done! Also great job with those intervals, I know it was hard but you absolutely smashed it!!!! See you next time!