A dozen of us saw off our last session in February last night, clock change is springing up on us (I only pun by mistake) and that's something to perk up for, not long now folks, hang tough. Soon we'll be doing tasks under superb twilight skies, with a warm radiant tanned glow, glistening modestly in the sweat of good deeds, eating pizzas fired up alfresco, clinking drinks on the deck of a boat. Let's play the long game.

Alex's firsts session and Richard's second, a decent medium length run to get your teeth into, there's much more variety coming your way, hope to see you both next week for more. Our Random Weekly Question was "You're an all powerful autocratic dictator for the day, what one thing do you?" Humorous to earnest answers flowed, in that order, I want to live under this benevolent collective dictatorship. Creating the world's largest cookie, doubling train carriage lengths, giving free lunches to everyone, offer affordable housing, get rid of all politicians, ban e-scooters, make all flying environmentally friendly(!), banning all cars and this week's winner: moving away from a linear economy to a circular one. Yup - that was Hilary, though feel free to claim it.

3.2k later and I was faffing around with a padlock in Clapton, eventually cracking the code like somes sort of litter picking magician. We were in, equipment was dished out, only the three bags used this time after feedback from January. Two teams assembled, one headed into the urban north the other into the desolate south, with an objective to collect as much crap as possible. Think we did pretty well, considering it's unbelievably clean, it's actually more of an eye-training exercise than anything, honing night-vision for the apocalypse, perhaps. Note to self, must buy more tinned food. Anyway, we came back to the start point and compared bag weight though an unbiased independent referee, there was a barely a few grams in it and impossible to judge with current weighing technology...it was a draw.

We had a jaunt back and wrapped up with some stretching, a few of us ventured to the pub for our end of month social. Pretty good midweek by my estimations, cheers for the efforts guys. Good luck to all our guys on Sunday at the Big Half, make us proud.

Till next week, where we're helping out a local school, sign up here

Have a good one,

B

Kicking off 2020 twenty two strong. Pleasure to be back gliding down the canals and taking a little bit of individual come social action with you superb human beings.

Lots of returning personalities came back to enliven and enrich our collective. Chris back from hols, Muyiwa returning for an aerobic top up, Misbah defeating a dodgy ankle, Andy making it count, Melanie back where she belongs and the lesser spotted Tori. Not only does this mean we get more done, but we get it done with you lovely peeps.

As my mum used to say "New Year, old warm up", so we whipped through our tried and tested dynamic moves (mum never said that). We discussed the January Challenge, currently 10th in the Silver League, let's start hauling some ass and climbing it guys! If you ain't signed up to Strava then get on it and log some runs for us! It can be motivating seeing what others do plus useful for exploring running routes and different ways to train - sign up. We also need to keep our group participation high and get as many good deeds as we can. May I remind you we are the moral winners of GG Olympics 2019 (officially 2nd place - that's what the haters would say). Anyway, let's have a pop at this and as a by-product boot of January in style. Come on GGN!

There were plenty of impressive runs over the break, stand out is Helen's PB, I believe on xmas day, that's the only present you need, am I right? A few other double Parkruns on NY day. I saw a returning to her best, Victoria, graceful gait apparent at Highbury Fields Parkrun. I was lumbering along trying to catch a young prodigy, not to be.

RWQ, "Highlight or lowlight of your festive period?" Some warming answers we had - spending time with the family, seeing new babies, seeing the new twin babies! We also had the foodies - enjoying the cakes, the xmas dinners. The al fresco go-getters enjoying their walks and runs. Plus the naked uncles aimlessly wandering through the house.

It was a bit longer than 'normal' this week, 2.2 miles to our task. Litter picking our adopted section of canal in Clapton. Think it went pretty well, whilst it was relatively clean, we still reeled in a fair bit of crap. I saw Corey essentially fishing, with remarkable success I might add. A true outdoors man, reckon he can catch a hammer head shark with that mechanical hand. He did get a helmet, and some other disgusting plastic stuff out the canal. So we finished up with a cleaner stretch, and that's a good thing. Mel brought it to my attention that we should use less bags as we don't fill them, good point, let's please remember to do this next time.

When we got back Paul had stealthily brought out a selection of doughnuts and other confectionaries to share. He not only arrives under the cover of the night, but he clandestinely reached 50 good deeds too. Paul was there on GGN's first ever session, 7 + years ago. That's an exceptional bit of loyalty and longevity, getting back into a regular routine now. An awesome team player and never afraid to take the run out hard. Hat's off for your milestone mate.

I'm going to set up a Parkrun and starter session on the 25th of Jan. Keep your calendars open, this is to bring in new members to the club, so the more of you guys the better.

Next week we are at Manorfield Primary School to receive a deliver of tables, sign up here as we need a big team for this.

See you beauts next week

B

Off the back of an incredible week for GoodGym Newham, with a near record turnout last week and a sublime display from our comparatively small outfit at the GG Olympics, yesterday was another lovely run and task with a quality crew.

We had first timer Rory, a fresh dose of run + volunteer fusion for him. On the other end of the spectrum we had James popping out for his hundredth run. Beautiful stuff. Our Random Weekly Question this week "what's your favourite sporting performance?" Greg Rutherford's leaping, Torville and Dean's skating, England's Cricket World Cup, Froome on Giro d'italia, GB Gold at 4 x 400m 1991 World Champs, Jonathan Edwards doing his silver fox thang, Liverpool's outrageous Champions League comeback, Usain Bolt's magic fast twitch moves, everything at London 2012 Olympics, Jasmine Paris beating the women and the men at The Spine Race, Wilko's nerves of steel at the Rugby World Cup and Graham's egg & spoon effort on Saturday.

We wandered down to our adopted canal section over the Marshes, potentially a fraction further some say, an argument that only an exhumed Pythagoras himself could resolve. Two teams went their separate ways and came back with a surprisingly large amount of rubbish. Especially the group that went north, must be a bit grubbier that way, great work guys. This is a great back up task to have in the locker, we had a late cancellation this week, but having this to fall back on saves you guys from a fitness session! We pegged it back on different routes and at different speeds, but all with one thing in mind - cake.

James marked his 100 deeds with a delicious lemon drizzle cake, it later would transpire that Mel did the baking science. We missed you Mel! Whoever made it it was sweet, with a soft sumptuous tang and fantastic structural integrity too. James has been incredibly consistent at GoodGym over the past few years, his relaxed and jovial demeanour an asset to our collective. With a recent 16.01 5k clocking on Monday, he's managed to chop off 2mins off his 5k since the year began, a testament to regular training and a firm resolve. Pick his brain about his progress and training next week. It could be you slicing minutes off your parkrun...

Right, i'm off for some breakfast, 4 crumpets with some spicy humous as you asked. Yes Graham, blended chickpeas pre-noon, livin' lyfe on da edge innit.

Sign up to next week's awesome Cody task here and remember the week after it's pizza and refreshments post Adventure Playground.

Make those weekend's count people

B

Another eerily warm Feb day, personally I battled the contradiction of thinking "this ain't good", but eagerly getting out on my bike to milk the rays. Still balmy and warm for our evening trot down the canal. Rosie returned after giving life and we now hope to see you regularly once more - you're halfway to 50! Giacomo came back for his third session, solo, nice work mate.

It was an intimate affair for our litter pick, 13 of us answered "what's your claim to fame" It quickly became apparent we'd done this question before! But some corking answers - going on big breakfast, appearing on an italian ice cream ad, Brian May touching your Banjo, camping next to Prince Harry and getting called out for snoring, appearing on Paddington Bear credits, going on Blue Peter and getting in William and Kate's bed.

A very chilled task, nice to get a relaxed one in before our upcoming effort at the school. We collected a load of cigarette buds and other miscellaneous bits of plastic, probably saving a few sparrows and robins from choking. Yeah lifesavers, you lot. We all had a little chin wag as we scouted for litter, and left just past 8pm to make it back for our social. Me and Hilary discussed declining drinking habits of the youth and shared ownership of a pub before all settling down for some Japanese grub.

Have a great weekend one and all, Big Half runners - enjoy your final training weekend, consider some shorter lighter runs next week to keep the legs moving.

Sign up here for next week's session. Last time we severely under manned, this is always a 20 + task - get involved!

Till then

B

Siobhan joined Kevin and I as we heard up the River Lee to meet Ross and the volunteers from Canal and River Trust

The task for today was to clean as much pennywort from the river as possible. With us joining the volunteers from the Canal and River Trust we knew we could complete the task. The pennywort is invasive and reduces the oxygen content of the water so kills fish and invertebrates and can get wrapped around the gear of boats on the river so is important it is removed.

After a brief demo of how to cast the hook to drag the pennywort to the bank we set off to the section Ross wanted us to clear,even had a couple of swans come and check that we were doing it properly and as we know many hands make light work and in less than 2 hours we had cleared the area and even managed to catch a microwave!

Quick tea break and off we went on a litter picking and branch trimming exercise to improve the towpath heading back towards QEOP As the sun was shining the towpath was busy so lots of appreciation for the work we were doing.

A satisfying task which gave us a full body work out while helping improve the environment.

6 runners joined volunteers from Canal and River Trust today to help clean West India Dock Impounding Station.

Liz joined us following completing a mission in Lewisham. Jade and Hilary completed Victoria Dock parkrun . Hilary was also double missioning today with a trip to Bow.Bryon also joined the team. Kevin and I decided to run via the River Lea to get to the Impounding station.

After a brief history of the building from Ross of the Canal and River Trust he went on to explained what the task was for the day. The building is annualy opened to the public and they wanted to give it a clean and paint ready for the next open day. The painted floor needed a scrub to remove the old loose paint, as is GG tradition we set about the task in double quick time, after a short lunch break it was time to give the floor and good mop before we started painting round the edges.

Was brilliant to join another group of volunteers with a passion for helping out the community,they wanted to know what Goodgym was and what we did,I had the pleasure of letting them know.