What a lovely Bank Holiday Monday at Goodgym Bexley. We done our usual 18.45 / 19.00 sign in and chatted on the warm weather, and weekend we had all enjoyed whilst waiting for everyone to turn up. After our warm up (which didn't take long in the humid heat) we headed out to beautiful Danson park to enjoy our run. On arrival we split up into two teams Eileen taking the stronger runners up front whist Caroline and I looked after the back runners. This is what's so great about our Goodgym runs. No one is ever left behind, and we always improve on our running, running technique and fitness every week. If you have never run around Danson park you have to put it on your local bucket list. It truly is a beautiful place not matter what the weather. You're always guaranteed beautiful views and wonderful wildlife on the lake. Any way, I soon got everyone back to reality by putting in an awesome sprint session. The excuse, it's Bank Holiday Monday Tim didn't wash with me 😂. I had come shuttles on the menu, and it was going to be served 🙌🏻, and served it was. With everyone now sweating a lot 💦 we took the time to have a drink and talk about getting everyone up onto the Team Goodgym Strava and Runnkeeper apps, getting people mission and coach verified and all the Goodgym running events that are going on. With everyone now refreshed it was that time again. We moved off running through the park and back up towards Crooklog sports centre. Arriving with smiles and great sense of running achievement it was time to draw the evening to a close. But before we did, we wanted to congratulate Susan and Sarah for smashing their first 10K race at the London Vitality Run earlier that morning and Eileen for being accepted for becoming a Goodgym Run Leader. You're going to be a real asset. Well done 👊🏻😁 Next week Bexley Goodgym are heading out to help a local Charity sort out donations for their shop. So if you're looking to improve your running, get fit and also do good for your local community, sign up, come along, and join us.

On Saturday 80 people assembled at London Grown and worked for an hour and a half helping to help create London's biggest community growing space.

GoodGym veterans and first timers alike braved the cold on a beautifully clear, crisp Saturday morning to help The London Grown Workers' Co-operative work on 7 acres of derelict land with the hope of transforming the area into London's largest community growing space. Once ready the site will be used to grow organic vegetables and fruit for the local people to buy at affordable prices and to show people how to grow local affordable food - if you're interested, they will be teaching every Monday from March 2017.

A half way fitness session and a delicious refuel from Moju Drinks and we were ready to get back to work to complete the task. We even did a bit of lung capacity training by singing happy birthday to Phil - hope you had a great day Phil.

The London Grown Workers' Co-operative were really pleased with the turnout and work accomplished in the time we were there.

Big thanks to Team London and Haringey Council for supporting GoodGym and making events like these possible.

13 Strong, tackled 4.5miles and dropped a whopping 200 leaflets for mental health charity Mind. That's one successful Monday and one massive sprinkling of Good(Gym) cheer all over our beloved Brent. POW POW!

At yet another awesome session, GG Brent continued to jubilantly jump into Jan with the third one of the year. The task this week was to hit up the Brent base for mental health charity Mind, collect a batch of leaflets and advertise their upcoming community run which takes place on Thursday the 2nd of Feb at 6.30pm. Easy peasey lemon squeezie..... or so they thought.

The warm up run was cruised in style, 1.7miles through the windy streets of Willesden, past Roundwood Park and up to Harlesden, our home for the night. But soon enough it was revealed that the location of Mind wasn't just the point of pick up, oh no, it just happens to be on the corner of the most perfect grid/block system of roads..... This basically meant that what could have been perceived as just a row of ordinary streets, was in fact the absolute perfect arena for Block Sprints & our outdoor track for the night. Where jog/sprint combos could be carried out, every time a corner of a road was encountered. Tempo training with a twist!! Oh yeah

Wth a successful collect and then total completion of ALL Leaflets delivered, the team continued the paper-chase. Bobbing and weaving through the block tempo track with the added challenge of real deal hurdles via the hopping over of cracked curbs and pavements!

Not once but twice the team annihilated the block sprints challenge, with only motivation and good vibes in the air. With the fitness and tasking nailed,it was heads down for the final Push (and one last stop for a photo pose of course) Straight back to it, the cool down run back to base. Chatting and laughter filled the air as the last of our efforts pounded pavements and our tired legs carried us home.

With The Queensbury at last in sight we finished up, stopped, stretched and said our farewells. Hammy only after as I travelled on the tube home did I realise I'd forgotten to carry out the 100 squat challenge I'd so gleefully promised!! Dammmmm!!! and no one reminded me hummmm I wonder why!??

See you next week for sore bums galore!!

DO GOOD. FEEL GOOD. INSPIRE.

Whether it was the fact it was a bank holiday or the fact the weather had dropped to below freezing but only two runners came out to kick of 2017 at GoodGym Redbridge. But this didn’t stop them getting fighting fit sorting out the wintery garden at Wanstead House and running 5km in the process.

With a series of Saturday starter sessions on the horizon in January, this was the first opportunity to do good and get fit in the Wanstead area. In the coming weeks the group will be sorting food for Redbridge Foodbank, mixing paint with the Forest Recycling Project and returning to Wanstead Community Allotments to see what winter has done to the garden. There’s plenty to do and with Saturday morning runs on 7 and 21 January and Monday runs every week, there is no excuse not to kick start 2017 with some good deeds.

You can sign up for the events as follows:

Saturday 7 January

Monday 9 January

Monday 16 January

Saturday 21 January

Don’t procrastinate, sign up for a run now!

On a sunny Saturday morning nine GoodGym Redbridge runners head to Wanstead Community Allotments to prepare it for a Halloween healthy eating event on 26 October.

With a number of new runners in attendance including Deborah, all the way from Bristol, it was down to Trainer James to give some background on GG Redbridge and some of the tasks that had been completed since the area in launch.

Supported by Redbridge regular Peter, the group were soon off up the road in the direction of the allotment to meet with Vision Redbridge Culture & Leisure’s Craigie-Lee and get to work on the morning’s task.

Redbridge Community Allotments have been a regular summer project for GG Redbridge and we have made great inroads in clearing the site over the last three months. The allotment is used by adults with learning difficulties and children and has an important role to play in education and health in the area. With an important event being held in just a few days time, it was down to the team to weed some of the pathways, put down some matting and makes it was safe for the young people visiting.

After 45 minutes of hard effort the work was complete and it was time to head to the streets for a structure fitness session. The ‘Nutter Lane relay’ has become a firm favourite among (some) members of the group and with the sun shining it was time to split into pairs and get fit. With one person of each pair running over the A12 flyover, the other would do a plank, mountain climber or squat. With three passes complete it was time to do a short cool down run back to base and some gentle stretching. 4km run in total.

Another great task and great to see so many new faces. There is so much to do in the area and we always need more runners to get fit and do good. For details of Monday’s ‘Mixing it Up’ task click here.

After welcoming Hannah, Craig, Dom and Meena for their very first GG runs and lots of cheers for loads of great racing over the weekend (running AND swimming). 35 GoodGymmers ran a total of 7k to help clear paths of weeds, ivy, nettles and general debris at Sunnyside Community Garden.

With headtorches and mobiles lighting the way we snipped, spaded, shovelled, raked, yanked, swept and bagged like crazy for 20 minutes with amazing results.

Then a blast home and back at base Caroline led a stretch we munched on Custard Creams and discussed our favourite running tips. Lovely.

Aidan's leading proceedings next week. At Freightliner's Farm! Have fun,
Simon