It all started when buches of runners (33 in total!) starting gathering in the lovely warm courtyard of Daveena's cafe.

We were then joined by some official looking types with a little less lycra from the council including the Council Chairman, David Flagg! One of the councillors Mark Howell was however willing to join us for a run and his first for goodgym along with 22 other first time Goodgym runners! 9 runners who had previously completed a Goodgym task joined us from as far as Bristol and Swanage so showing fantastic committment to Goodgym!

After the pics and speeches, we headed over to the park for a quick warm up where most of us runners demonstrated our lack of balance with the flamingo stand and hopskotch as well as usual warm up drills!

Kirty Weston from Upton parkrun core team led the way through the park and whitecliff to cover 2.1 miles including the gradual incline up Evening Hill. We were met at Lewis-Manning by Sandra and Mark who had even had cold drinks and biscuits ready for us as a welcome treat!

We soon cracked on in 4 groups and everyone was super organised in their groups to get the tasks done. Painting crew included first timers Shelley and Kirsty (whose ankle is fine by the way after a huge branch came at her on the way back!) painted on with Ann, Aaron and Catherine amongst others to complete a rail within 15 minutes! Hedge cutters included Karina, Kristy and Mark who made some clearance for cars to park against the bushes Around the back, the team with a view had rakes and gloves to clear some woodland, leaving James to keep his mileage up by running back and forth with the bin. Gemma, Lisa and Rob amongst others cleared leaves and all sorts! Finally we had a bunch of sweepers who worked to the end getting moss off the car park area.

Amazing what was achieved in 25 mins and we hope to go back for a second coat of paint and a bit more garden clearance.

We took the opportunity to take a photo at the top of Evening Hill, after moving along Oakdale runners who photo bombed!

Finally we ran back down to the park and 3 runners took up the offer to finish up around the park with a short interval circuit as clearly they had not worked hard enough already!

It was hot, sweaty work in the muggy air but the chat was continuous and great to hear the chatter amongst many previous strangers.

We had also been joined by Ed and Nikki from the central Goodgym team who quickly scooted off for their train after, albeit a bit smelly!

Super atmosphere on the runs and all during the task so we can honestly say Goodgym Poole you rocked it tonight!

Next week we are over in Poole park but don't worry - we will still get a good run in before we crack on with the task in hand - It was truly a pleasure to be part of Goodgym Poole launch - I know we are going to be fantastic!

19 Hackney GoodGymers ran 6k to the HUG garden on Hackney downs to perform a watering kiss of life to the garden and plant 100 snow drops as well as create display boards for the Hackney Downs show.

We started the session with the presentation of Antonia's 100 GoodDeed T-Shirt an amazing effort of 2 years of consistent GOOD, brilliant work 👏🏼👏🏻👏🏿👏🏾!!

We welcomed Cat to her first GG session and got going on the very warm 2k run to the HUG garden navigating all the amazing BBQ smells on our way.

Meeting the one and only Myra we split into teams, first crew Megan mending and arranging the trellis stands for the Hackney Downs show on Saturday which shows the plans which the HUG have to transform the unused bowling green into an educational mini nature reserve.

The second team watered and tended to potted plants that are to be sold at the show to begin raising funds to make the transformation happen. While the third team watered the existing flower beds and planted 100 snow drops which should bloom in January. Special mention to Holly for her amazing watering resuscitation efforts in bringing the Hackneysaurs back to life!!

With an outstanding job done by all we had completed the mission! Leaving the HUG garden in top shape for the weekend!

We had time for a longer run this evening and great to so many of the Team in five running form as we dominated 4.3k run back to base where we stretched and gorged on celebratory chocolates from Antonia!!

Next week we are off to the Rhodes Estate food growers group love to have you along please sign up here.

Until next week Enjoy the

Smooth Sunshine

Joel

Twenty fighting fit Hackney GoodGymers ran 5k to the Wilton Estate community garden to remove millions of shrubs, thousands of roots and turn over tonnes of soil.

On a beautiful clear full moon🌝🌝 lite evening we mixed things up a bit at GoodGym Hackney! As for one more week only we had access to the enchanting Disco Lights Running track in Victoria Park. So we were a little naughty and ran away from the task mobilising all the vital body parts on the way with a military style in line warm up. Side skipping, toe touching, walking lunging and even a few football heading ⚽️⚽️ got our bodies primed to throw down some speedily smooth accelerations down under the pulsating neon lights. Alternating power strength moves 💪🏾💪🏽 with balanced and coordinated technique drills our accelerations were silky smooth and Powerfully fast 🏃🏿🏃🏽🏃🏻🏃. 8 bursts of lighting speed⚡️⚡️ followed by a mini lungeathon to build on last weeks strength effort gave us a blood pumping start to the session.

As we were a little late we sent of 9 super speedy shrub excavation ninjas ahead to get started on the task, brilliantly lead by Kev (also Hackney Coach runner rep) the pack laid down a 2k burst at a scorching 7:30 per mile pace!! The sexy group made some strong running progress in pursuit, lots of running improvements shown with talk of wanting to do longer runs in lead up to the fantastic Hackney Half marathon. Special mention to GoodGym Hall of Famer Becky for expertly guiding a few GoodGym newbies on their first run. 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾

The speedy crew got down to business speedily as you would expect, uprooting shrubs, roots and anything else that got in their path to clear a huge flower bed in 20 hectic minutes of action! 🌳🌳 Looking for more work to be done they moved on to forking, shoving, Pickaxeing metre after metre of flower bed to prepar it for some beautiful wild flower planting 🌾🌼🌾. In 10 quick minutes the entire first section had been forked to death and ready to get flowery very soon. The sexy crew were busy getting tangled in ivy, battling roots and ripping out more shrubs to clear a 15 metre stretch of densely vegetated flower bed ready to become a beautiful and maybe tasty raspberry patch 🍓🍓🍓(near enough a raspberry). Becky was very unimpressed by my lack of Joni Mitchell hair knowledge!! So for anyone else who needed a pictorial reminded of how amazing Joni Mitchell's hair is click here Sorry Becky for my ignorance. A few epic root battles were had and after some brilliant team work the dream worked and after 30 minutes of action not a root was left or ivy steam to be found. Brilliant work team 👏🏻👏🏽👏🏾

After a massive thank you for brilliantly patient Debbie and Lisa we headed back the 1k to base basking in our task glory. After a stretch out we congratulated each other on a fun and fitness filled evening which greatly aided the wonderful Wilton Estate community garden.

If any woman would like to join in with a disco light running group this week check out the info here.

Next week we will be back to The Hive for another adventure in the most eclectic building in Hackney! Please sign up here it will be great fun and we will be running a few relays around De Beauvoir square for good measure!

Don't forget we will be going for a bite to eat after next weeks session if you fancy a bit for nutritional reward for your physical endeavours.

Until next week

Smoothly accelerate

Joel

More to follow

Holland Park Estate by Tom

Last night I led a band of Goodgymers down to Holland Park estate to do some gardening. I harnessed my inner elephant and contrary to my own belief didn’t forget the route there and managed to lead the group 1.2 miles to our destination, phew. Once there we met the lovely Ameena who split us into two groups. The first team headed onto the estate to do a plethora of tasks, highlights included clearing fences of over grown plants, cutting back said plants, shaking seeds over the soil to sow them and also doing some weeding whilst avoiding to uproot the established kiwi tree, sounded like Holland Park didn’t know what hit it.

Team two had a more concentrated task of tidying up a resident’s front lawn. Ameena loaded us up with tools and showed us the patch, we basically needed to turn a front lawn that had been overrun by weeds into turned over soil and plant some bulbs ready for the summer. We got down to business and filled around 1 and a half green sacs of weeds and planted some very evenly spread bulbs at the front and sides of the garden. From being a sea of green weeds we transformed it in 40 minutes into a nicely raked-over soil lawn. As we were low on gloves a special mention needs to go to Steve’s impromptu use of his sleeve as a glove, this ensured no weed was left on the patch. Once done we admired our handy work and then headed back to base camp. Another cracking Tuesday night, good work guys.

Portico Gallery by James (in the style of Danny Dyer)

So i erd this goodgym lot, they got their eads screwed on right pwoppa. Down sarf at the portico they was, twice in a fortnight.

Alex and George, they was off like the dogs at the tracks. 1 minute in, they was off, probably chasing rabbits, know what i mean.

But then we all gets there and you see my geezer John right, e's got a lot of metal, dunno where he gets it from but i dont ask and he don't tell know what i mean. He says he needs it shiftin, and us, well were a helpful lot, john does well by us so we do well by im.

We had to be heading off, so off we was back, down the hill to Brixton. If you dont think this goodgym lot is decent then you're a wrong un