22 awesome runners ran 3km to plant bulbs and help out at Royal Hill Community Garden!

Well that was a THRILLER of an evening eh guys and ghouls? We were creeping it real last night for our Halloween Special... our first ever GoodGym Greenwitch themed run! The first of many I think!

We had 1 new runner to Greenwich last night, the lovely Michaela who has jumped straight into GoodGym with 2 good deeds in one week! Awesome work!

The run began as it always does with a little warm up on the grass. The T-Rex aka Alex was feeling a bit deflated but soon perked up again after a little jog! We played a little game which Pulin aptly named the Human Centipede... I haven't seen the film but I don't think they run around connected via their hands anyway....!!!

We set off towards the garden terrifying everyone and everything in our path. We arrived and were greeted by the lovely Tony who, as always, was super organised with lights, tools, the lot. Half the group were to be planting bulbs, the other half clearing leaves. There was also the task of removing some little trees from the bed that the olive tree was in, to give it a bit more space. And finally a big hole was to be dug out for a new tree to be planted so Chan and Lee got straight onto that!

Our very own flower bed :)

Last week we dug out a new bed at the front of the garden, made a trench and put in a mini brick fence to surround the 3 Queen's trees which were donated to the garden. And this was where we were to plant all the bulbs too! So this is very much a GoodGym bed, taking centre stage! Our little baby. Unlike Pulin's balloon baby.

Whilst we were sweeping and digging... the garden had a few scary visitors including Matt's mini me... a little Mario! I think they were intrigued by the pick axe to see if we were digging up any graves.

After just 20 minutes, 99% of the leaves had been swept up and put on the compost, all the bulbs had been planted, the trees had been re-potted and the hole was sufficiently deep! It was time to head back for some more Halloween fun!!

Yummy mummies

The first game was more of a teambuilding/communication/trust exercise...! Pairing up, wrapping one person's face in mummy linen and then guiding them using only words to negotiate a series of obstacles! The ground was slippery, there were steps, there were blind folds... What could go wrong? If anyone was going to die though last night was the one night in the year that it would be acceptable!

It was a shaky start but everyone soon found their feet and learned to trust their partners! I couldn't see what was happening the other side of the boat but you all came around the other side very quickly! It was actually quite hilarious to watch. Pieter and Jonny came gliding into first place and everyone else not far behind... great job!!!

Riddle relay!

Part two was a little team relay. We split up, Ben was the question master of one team, myself with the other. Each team would have a riddle, once it was guessed correctly, a nominated team member would do a lap of the 250m quad before the next riddle was to be read. It was amazingly pretty much neck and neck with perhaps my team taking the edge slightly but injured Ben took one for his team and ran the last lap with Christian hot on his heels!!! In the end, in true GoodGym spirit, of course it was a TIE!!! Everyone is a winner :)

After all that excitement, it was time to stuff our faces with copious amounts of sugar and head to the pub for a spooky social!!!!

A few links I mentioned yesterday....

Facebook group - join to keep up to date with what people are up to in the group.

Christmas dinner event - let us know if you can make it by signing up here!

Strength and conditioning accountability buddy system - here is the link to Ben's spreadsheet which he mentioned yesterday. We can ALL benefit from doing more strength work alongside our running so get involved!

Community mission - we need more people for this community mission in a few weeks time, no need to be DBS checked for community missions!

Taskforce training - if you want to get more involved with GoodGym, I'd love you to be a part of the Greenwich task force. The training takes less than 30 minutes and you just need to have done 10 good deeds!

And that is all :)

Thanks so much for making such a blinding effort yesterday! Loved your outfits and your enthusiasm!! Hope you had a good evening... see you next week!

21 awesome runners ran 5km to clean up on the streets of Greenwich and surrounding boroughs!

We had three new runners with us last night! The lovely Caireen from GG Lewisham who missed her group run on Monday so was making up for it last night! Alex brought his pal Ed all the way down from Newcastle! And it was also Jonathan's first ever GoodGym run! Welcome all!

Sadly our friends at St Lukes school had to cancel at the last minute due to their soil delivery not arriving (we were meant to be shifting said soil you see!) and when a task gets cancelled there is really only one thing for it... And that's PLOGGING!

It's been in the news so much recently about plastic waste and how it's killing the planet and while we didn't recycle any of the stuff we collected yesterday, it was still amazing to get it all off the streets and stop it from blowing into the waterways and harming animals.. And of course it makes it a lovelier place to live when it's super clean and tidy so win win!

We split off into three groups taking on 3 different boroughs. Ben C took a group north of the river into the realms of Tower Hamlets, Vickie was back with us (yay!) after a long break and took a group up to Lewisham around her neck of the woods while my crew stayed in Greenwich.

I know I can't speak for the other groups but we got LOADS of stuff! It was a bit gross as everything was so soggy (which also meant it weighed more!) but after just half an hour we had collected quite the haul!

We met back at the Cutty Sark to compare, and most importantly take those minging sweaty gloves off! Ahhh that felt good!

So turns out Tower Hamlets might be the cleanest borough.. Either that or that group was just the laziest! :P

We sneakily dumped the rubbish in the Nandos bin and jogged back to the uni for a little leg finisher! 4 minutes of squat jumps and lunges to get the pins nice and strong and we called it a night!

Just a reminder, here are all the details of the things I mentioned at the beginning of the run:

Facebook group Halloween special group run Christmas party doodle poll Sunday long run

Great work last night everyone! Thanks for getting so stuck in despite the cancelled task, you guys are awesome! See you next week!