13 Braved all that Storm Katie had to throw at us to run 5k to create a Willow tunnel for the H.U.G (Hackney Downs User Group) garden on Hackney Downs and create an impressive turf mound in the process.

On a night not for the faint hearted we huddled together in the Bakehouse before storming down the streets of Hackney not doing a great job of dodging the rain or the puddles! Running the 2.5k to the newly formed HUG garden to get started on a big project. Meeting Myra who had unfortunately just had her gardening tools stollen, we were a little light on spades to turned our efforts to frantically sprinting the expertly cut bits of turf to the ever growing Turf Mound. In 4 small pods we soon got into a solid rytham of cutting, digging and running the turf to the mound to create a snaking Williow tunnel for the under 5's to begin their gardening journey in the HUG garden. As light turned to dark we picked up the pace with the rain easing off to aid our efforts and in 30 solid minutes of graft we had completed the first of many missions with HUG.

We zipped away into the night keeping a strong pace mainly to keep warm back to our semi sheltered warm up area where Patrick had a treat I store for us Cups vs Cones in a battle to the death the best of 3 duel was an epic emotional journey for both teams. Not only battling a solid Effort from team Cones as well as some dubious counting from Patrick, Team Cups won the hearts of the fans and take the emotional victory even if the scoreboard says otherwise!

We returned to base wet, muddy but feeling great after a run evening with a great group of Team Hackney GoodGymers.

Big thank you to Patrick for the games and pictures and Cecilia for a brilliant navigational skills leading us to and from the task.

Next week we are brightening up Daubany fields by giving it a well needed Spring clean, please sign up here for some more fun on the run.

On Jack's request Strava published their blog entry last night, take a look here. Not sure the pictures any any better than my highly skilled efforts to be honest 😉.

Until next week

Smooth Sunshine

Joel

30 Brilliant GoodGymers ran 5k or 8k to begin the decorating project at the Open Barber's in Shorditch.

The vibes at GoodGym Hackney are off the charts!! Not only did we have a bumper attendance of 30 runners, we also got in some serious serious training in! Not to mention the 19 of us that went to the pub after to send Kev on his way to Bristol with a smile and a brand spanking new and well earned 100 GoodDeed T-Shirt. 🏃🏽🏃🏻🏃🏿🏃😀😀💪🏻💪🏽💪🏾🍻🍷🍹🍗🍖🍟.

We joint mobilised ready for running action then were superbly led through the back streets of Hackney by Team Hackney Task force member extraordinaire Cecilia. After a 2.5k run we arrived on time ready for action, to help scrape away the old shop frontage and ceiling of the crowd funded social enterprise Open Barbers, where we met Richard who was a little taken back by the strength in numbers of Team Hackney! We split into 2 teams, first team armed themselves with Heat Guns and Scrapers and got to work removing the old paint. The second group went with PTI Patrick and dominated a series of pick your poison exercises which tested all the runners conditioning to the max 💪🏾💪🏽💪🏻.

After a 15 minute burst of activity the teams changed over and continued the hard graft, some amazing high scrapping and some especially impressive Abdominal planks took Team Hackney to the edge!

After 35 minutes of scraping the shop to within an inch of its life we decided that the Speedy Crew had been coasting for a couple of weeks so wanted to really test them. So the Speedy Crew left early, leaving Task Force member Jack in charge of the clean up and the 2.5k run back to base with the Sexy Crew

The Speedy Crew raced off into the night going through the running gears at will, smashing out some Urban Fartlek reps that Mo Farah would have been proud of. We then found our old racing track in De Beauvoir Square and set about smashing our some monstrous changes of pace on our half and full lap hard reps 🔥🔥🔥⚡️⚡️⚡️. After a short recovery jog we through in a few Kenyan Surges along Middleton Road, as we entered London Fields we laid the hammer down and it was every runner for them selves for an all out effort back to the Bakehouse. To round out a 5.5k run back! 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾 Top effort Speedies The Sexy crew cheered us in as they had just got back from their Tempo effort along Whiston road to round off an impressive running evening for all!

As it was Kev's last run and 100th we headed out to celebrate at a local Pub, thanks to the 19 runners that came along it w great to see the social side of Team Hackney coming through especially to celebrate a true GoodGym Hall of Famer in Kev. Kev you will be missed in these parts and please come and see us when you visit the Big Smoke!!

Next week we start a fabulous serious of tasks with HUG (Hackney Downs User Group) so please please please please please (yes I am begging for you both to come and sign up so I can organise tasks for the right amount of people) Sign up here. Want to make it clear I still really want you to come if you forget to sign up but would love it if you did sign up a little bit more xx

Until next week

Stride Smooth

Joel