A large crew headed to this much-loved local arts centre this evening for painting and Pilates.

A cool sized crew

Yes, we were a team of 34 this evening, with a real flurry of new runners, which we were delighted about. Gathering on our hotel steps for our briefing of this evening’s activity, we were in high spirits as, not only were we heading to one of our favourite tasks, the sun was still shining and the skies a beautiful blue. What. A.Treat.

TSB (Taping, Scrubbing and Brushing)

After making our way through some of East London’s busiest streets, we arrived at Oxford House where task owner Sarah was ready and waiting with kit and task perfectly planned and prepped as usual. After the speediest of briefings, three teams were despatched to all floors of the building: two teams were split over two floors to pain large wall spaces in the corridors, while a third team was dispatched to the dance studio corridor to finish the high spec scrubbing runners had started last time we were there.

Runners worked tirelessly at top speed, sealing off woodwork with masking tape before rolling and brushing thoroughly over these large surfaces. It was a speedy effort, working in a tough temperature, in a confined space in all three areas - GoodGymers, you did good.

The work was so efficient, ahead of time runners came forward to volunteer to start the clean-up effort, and so the pace continued as any spillage was dealt with swiftly by enthusiastic sugar soap-ers and mopper-uppers.

Posture, pelvic floor – and a proud trainer

And then it was a little after 8, and we all gathered in the theatre for this evening’s Pilates. I must, at this point, thank Sarah and Oxford House for giving us such generous use of this space every time we visit. It is a real treat to be able to offer our runners an indoor venue for our fitness - we really love it and appreciate it, so thank you.

So back to the fitness session - after a little Pilates theory, we proceeded to practise our abdominal vacuums, posture and pelvic floor basics, and a little stretching.

Runners took the tougher moves such as the time-honoured Double Leg Stretch in their stride and gave it their all, before finishing with some lower back mobility work and that lying pretzel glute stretch.

Job. Done.

And then we cheerfully (and maybe somewhat wearily), made our way out to the front of the building to get our first daylight end-of-task pic in eight months.

Another treat! What an evening!

Monday mentions

A massive GG welcome to our first time runners, Beth, Tom, Lorhaine, Victor, Mate, Anna, Eugenie, Lily and Michael! 8 new runners! Thank you so, so much for your incredible contributions to this evening's run. And I hope you join us again very soon.

A massive thanks to Katherine and Liz for back-marking; Katherine for some great pics, while possibly the biggest thanks of the night goes to Tim and Michael who stayed behind at workout time to clean up the painting equipment, missing our Pilates session. You're heroes. Thank you for going that extra mile.

Okay, well that's nearly it from me this week, other than to highlight what is...

On this week’s running radar…

• The GoodGym London Monthly Long Run is happening this Saturday, 18th May, offering distances of 19K and 10K, with runners running at different paces, and no one ever getting left behind. It’s a picturesque, multi-park route, with a food finale at POP Brixton, so definitely one to check out here.

• …While on Sunday, here in Tower Hamlets we’re manning the bag-drop at the Hackney Half, in exchange for your free placeat either: the Asics London 10K, or the Oxford Half, or next year’s Hackney Half. There’s still time to sign up for this Sunday 19th May - details are here.

Right, that really is it for this week. Have a wonderful week, everyone, and hope to see you really soon.

20 runners gathered outside to warm up for our first daylight Monday run of the year this evening - spirits were high as we ran through a couple of mobility exercises and chatted through tonight’s task.

Parklife

And then we were flying through the streets of Bethnal Green to Victoria Park, beautifully navigated by Tom, Luke and Steve (with the route continually contradicted by me - “Tom, you lead the way. No, not that way. We’ll go this way.” Tower Hamlets GoodGymers’ skill sets include high productivity, resourcefulness, resilience, and, it turns out, vast patience and tolerance).

And so we arrived at the Old English Garden in the centre of the park, to be greeted by Tom, the park’s Head Gardener. As always, Tom had a full quota of kit beautifully prepared, and quickly dispatched the teams to two tasks: litter-picking around the shrubbery, and a large scale weeding operation.

With GG Tom heading up Team Trash, the litter pickers soon blitzed the area and were speedily assigned to their next task: wheeling, shovelling and distributing mulch around the shrubbery.

The time flew and no sooner had we arrived were we downing pitchforks and heading back to the tool shed with the well-used kit.

Still undecided on THE best fitness session for the evening, it was pointed out to me that the tool shed lay next to the running track, so we all whizzed around the newly sanded 400m track before heading back to base.

Quite a lot of running tonight. Well done everyone.

Monday shout-out’s for Team Terrific

A massive congratulations to Martin, who this week reached his 50th good deed. Well done, and it’s brilliant to have you on board our Monday runs so regularly.

Thanks to Liz tonight, for much needed, steady backmarking.

And a big, big GG cheerio to our very own Luke, who this week leaves us to head to Singapore’s shores. Our loss is their gain. Thanks from us all for the huge contribution you’ve made to GoodGym Tower Hamlets, and you will be much missed. Keep in touch!

And the exciting GoodGym week ahead…

Time to balance out the mileage with a Magners, and come on board for a bit of socialising this week:

• On Thursday, it’s the GoodGym Social, in the centre of town, on Tottenham Court Road (and it's Camden’s birthday), so pop in for a cheeky half on your way home.

• …while on Sunday, you’re ALL invited to join GG Tower Hamlets pub quiz team, Let’s Get Quizzical as we ditch tarmac for trivia and head to The Coborn in Bow. (GoodGymers: we need your grey matter. Come and lend a hand, will you).

• And looking to next week, our Monday Group Run sees us heading back to the wonderful Tower Hamlets Cemetary Park to pull-and-prise ivy away from paths and headstones… Say no more.

Until then, have a wicked, wonderful, thoroughly enjoyable week, and see you soon.

Storm Freya no match for sturdy GoodGymers

20 runners braved Storm Freya to head to Victoria Park for a variety of heavy duty gardening tasks...

We gathered in a compact hotel room this evening for tonight's pre-task briefing. Due at glorious Victoria Park at 7.10pm, to meet Tom, our terrific new task owner, we needed a few minutes to run through the details of tonight's range of tasks, before we hit the tarmac.

A full body workout

We arrived promptly at a dark park, to be greeted by Tom, on a bike laden down with gardening kit. We kept up with the bike through an increasingly dark park as we headed up central drive, grateful for those runners who'd headed out with head torches this evening. We finally reached The Old English Garden where three teams worked on: turning a wall of compost in the compost pen; raking an entire bed ready for seeding, and redistributing soil onto shrub beds.

As usual, the runners worked at lightning speed, and it wasn't long before the back-up tasks were completed, as well as the original tasks. It was a windy, cold night but the runners ploughed through mound after mound of leaves and soil. They shovelled, and forked, and raked, and wheeled, so every muscle in the body from core to calves was thoroughly worked. Even the mud-shifting from the rakes was labour intensive this evening.

Fartlek in the freezing wind

And then it was time to head back to the tool shed to replace kit and be briefed on tonight's fitness session: task owner Tom would lead us back out to Crown Gate East, changing pace on his bike, offering the runners an impromptu fartlek session.

GoodGymer Tom then led us through our Victoria Park speed session, a few 20-second bursts of fast running, before we headed back down Old Ford Road for stretching and polishing off our favourite McVities Gold bars.

It was a FULL. ON. evening: the weather was stroppy, the park was dark, the lake was, well, there; the running was fast, and the mud stubborn. But the GoodGymers breezed through, not batting an eyelid, other than to adjust headtorches. As always, you rock.

The first March shout-out's

A big warm welcome to Tom, who joined us tonight for his first run (how are your lats?). Thank you for shifting so many leaves on your first run. And to Simon, by no means new to GG, just to Tower Hamlets, and we hope so much you'll join us again soon.

And thank you, from us all, to: Bryon, for leading the runners back on the fartlek session; to Leanne for perfect, careful backmarking, above and beyond what we expected distance-wise tonight, and to Tom, for powering our runners through that last bit of fitness-boosting.

Now, next Monday...

We're back to Oxford House next week, to enjoy an indoor task where we'll help Sarah and the team continue the big makeover of this beautiful arts centre. Read more and sign up here.

All that leaves me to say is have a wonderful week, and hope to see you very soon.

Editor's Note

After whizzing through this evening's announcements & intro (as much as I ever 'whizz' when it comes to talking), our transition to warm up was briefly interrupted as Bryon stepped forward to present me with a one year anniversary balloon sculpture and a Wonder Woman card on behalf of the group. Blimey. You lot know how to turn a trainer from chatty to teary in seconds. I maintain GoodGym IS YOU. Thank you.