OMG, is it true? Your damn right it is..... We hit 22! Not just that.... Now hold onto your hat Four Boys did come for some Goodgym fun!!

On a beautifully sunny Monday, we hosted Brent's largest ever familia affair, with a whopping 22 runners, rolling deep to represent the west wing of Goodgym! YIPPEEE And yes you did read that correctly we had not one, not two, not even three, but FOUR marvellous males, holding down the fort for the Brent Brigade. This is a big dealio y'all, because up until now, we've been a largely female populated crew, so to welcome these guys, filled us with delight!

Also in the mix this eve were four fabulous newbie faces: Dinesh, Zara, Simon and Audrey who to their credit threw themselves straight into the old familia faces of the beloved Brent crew, with all the smiles and enthusiasm under the setting the sun!

So after welcomes and housekeeping, we set to stepping the 2 mile dash down to the task for the eve, a Granville day out gardening jobey for our great friends - The Granville Community Kitchens in south kilburn. As we set off it was clear to see, with such great numbers there would be some diversity. Some were fast, some were slightly slower, but everyone running hard to get to the lawnmower!

With Debs and Joe taking on leader of the fast pack roles, there was no stopping the speedy twosome, as they pushed pace and got the front pack to the task in swift time. I led from the back and enjoyed every last chat with my gang of girlies; Mouse, Amy and the fabulous familia clique the Anandas, who as well, to my delight, had brought mum back!! Hurrah!!! Ready to rock the roads and give back for Goodgym looking fresh to death in her floral enemble. Go on Mum!!!

So with crew 2 arriving with me in 30mins flat, we were delighted to enter into an already busy scene. The weeds were being wacked, the plants watered, the holes for compost being dug and the awesome foursome of guys on deck, putting themselves to good use by shifting some Shhhhhhhhhhhshould we move on..... It definitely needed some expert MANoeuvring that MANure!!

While the gang worked their magic, Leslie our host served up some delicious treats! Fresh watermelon and some lovely cold H20 Water way to be treated hey!!!

With 30minutes of hard graft under our belts, the gang didn't stop there. Next up they got to stepping with some fitness drills to finish off the session. Three rounds of plank holds, with various arrangements: Low holds, high holds, hip dips, high to low changes and press up practice thrown in for good measure! Core blimey they were working hard and putting in the real-deal efforts..... I expect nothing less from this team of legends

Last whistle blow and it was sadly time to go. One last pose, because as we all know, I do love a snap of my Goodgym pack.

Last shutterbug of the night achieved and we were off once more, into the eve which was still gloriously light. The speed demons head off like bullets and leading the back-packers once more, we cruised it home with all the good vibes in the west! Snapping selfie pics with pink elephants all the way home.

Back at base and it was stretch and last banter, with The Ananda's mamma telling us of her secrets to youthful looks..... wait for it...... A full bowl of spicy curry before every run!!! Yikes But you should see this woman, like Benjamin Button, getting younger every step she took!! Think I may try that one out, but perhaps a Korma, no warmer?!?!?

BOY OH BOY, What a night, to welcome our blokes in with the female folks. We focussed our run, towards a wonderful cause in Kilburn. Ran four hefty miles all with big smiles. The weather couldn't have been hotter, but no group could be better, than GG Brent, from Goodgym, heaven sent.

See you next time fitness familia!!!

DO GOOD. FEEL GOOD. INSPIRE

24 Illuminated Hackney GoodGymers ran 6k to Abney Park Cemetery to clear vegetation and fill graves!!

After a successful weekend of racing for Team Hackney with amazing performances from Rich and Ros in the Richmond Runfest Half marathon the group was on great spirts and couldn't wait to meet some GoodGym newbies!

Knowing that the darkness was descending quickly and that we had one of our longer runs we got going sharpish!! Navigating our way through the back streets towards Stoke Newington we even had the pleasure of a ride by from Paul the Camden trainer (if you are still feeling fresh why not try out Camden tonight? Just make sure you come back to Hackney next week!). Keeping the crew together was made easier than normal with the amazing poor run of luck we had with the lights! I would like to think it was the ghosts of Abney Park Cemetery just making it a bit darker to add a little fear for the grave task ahead!

After a strong 3k run we arrived to meet Tom where we grabbed a wheel barrow donned a head touch (if we had one) and got to work! Great to have the unmistakable Hackney Coach Runner Rep Andreana back in the fold and reminded us all why we had missed her much when she abandoned the wheel barrow after 100m as it was going to slow her down and went for the single shovel of earth sprints method (for a little while anyway) in its place.

We created a few great working pods with shovelers making huge digging dents in the huge pile of woodchip loading up the wheel barrows before the pushers doing a running loop tipping the woodchip into the Sunken graves before looping back around and loading up again! We also had a few runners on vegetation clearing, especially excited were Lucy and Annie who got to clear logs from a grave site while searching for frogs!

After 30 minutes of great work helping one of London's Magnificent 7 cemeteries we had done a top job moving a huge 2 tonnes of wood chip and soil, clearing 50 logs from over grown graves and petted a couple of frogs. This helped to keep the levels of the sunken graves up and ensuring the park remains amazing and beautiful.

After a big thank you from Tom, we set off on our way back to base picking up the pace for the 3k run back. Great running performances from everyone, great to see the fitness improving from our consistent regular runners!

A series our static stretches and a silent round of applause finished off a fun evening!

It was a fond farewell to ** Kevin and Kirsty** who have been great Hackney GoodGymers but Kirsty is moving away to take over the world while Kevin is going to using is volunteering time for a new project. Thank you for all your hard work and enthusiasm, you will both me missed!! Hopefully you will come and see us again soon.

Next week we return to Abney Park for some gravel path creation! Wheelbarrows will be in full force again as we build a path using special gravel which stays firm through the winter months. Please sign up here. If you have one or are thinking of buying one a Head torch would be pretty useful thing to bring.

Until next time

Smooth shovelling

Joel

15 warm and sweaty GoodGymers ran 5k to Gascoyne Estate community garden and carried 25 insanely heavy wooden boards, 200 bricks and a tonne of gravel on an epic evening of Fun on the Run.

Meeting in bright hot sunshine was a little unexpected but made for a lovely warm evening and helped keep the effort levels really high throughout the session! We were joined by Ed, Bina and Ollie for their first ever GoodGym run and hope to see you all again next week for some more Team Hackney action!! We celebrated the great Team Hackney turnout at the launch of the GoodGym/Parkrun partnership at Mile End Parkrun, including a new GoodGym course record for our super speedster (and pun master this week) Rich.

Setting off on the 2 and a bit K run to Gascoyne estate we taking in the sites of Victoria Park Village while leg swinging, lunging and skipping elegantly our way to a mobilising dynamic warm up as we travelled down the road. Sticking together as we made our way across Well Street common we entered Gascoyne Estate to meet Cerdic who explained about the epic lifting and carrying task as well as the community garden. The garden set in the heart of the estate is run by a legion of volunteers and grows a multitude of plants, vegetables, fruits and herbs half of which are given away to good causes. We got to work by recceing the route to the skip which we had all missed on the run in, then grabbing the first of many loads of bricks and running them back to the garden. We then set about the big Challenge for the evening, Team carrying rain drenched 25 huge thick wooden boards! It was a real graft as we hauled the boards 200m through the estate to the skip. On the way back from the the board run (drag) we supper setted the workout by carrying bricks from different locations on the estate back to the garden. As the boards disappeared in to the skip we had just enough time for a quick blast in carrying 25kg bags of gravel and sand to the bins in a race against time before the bags disintegrated and exploded! We got our creative and ingenious heads on to workout the be best way to carry these heavy but delicate bags. We employed the metal mesh method, mini wooden board stretched, old fashioned over the shoulder and pray technique and with a supreme effort from Ed some monster Wheel Barrow loads.

Finishing in the nick of time we said goodbye to Cerdic who thanked us for our super hard work and set off on the run back to base! We started off by splitting into 2 groups and working a kilometre worth of Indian File running where the person at the back put in a burst of pace to get to the front and repeated. We gathered for the second Kilometre of running effort on the Fartlek lamppost intervals where we alternated running hard and easy between lamppost all the way up Victoria Park Road. A top effort and some speedy bursts saw us fly back to base in perfect time for a static stretch out and silent round of applause.

Thank you to Peter for some pictures and have a top holiday!

Good luck and enjoy all your racing and training for the rest of the week! Look forward to seeing how you are going on Strava!

Next week we are off to a favourite task of ours, Abney Park Cemetery! We will be clearing a heap of vegetation and then sewing so oh so pretty wild flower seeds! Be amazing to have you along for the session! Please sign up here

We will be off on our monthly social after next weeks run so please come along for a bite to eat and extra special as it is a GoodGym Hackney goodbye to Kirstywho will be leaving us as she moves up to Manchester!

Smooth Flow

Joel