Tonight's task was to clear an allotment for an elderly lady who was finding it hard to cope with the workload. Unfortunately after the days heavy downpours the allotment was flooded so no work could be carried out. Luckily we had some flyers left over from last weeks task advertising The Clandon Park Charity Run, so we headed up to Woking park to distribute them. After 20 mins we had finished so headed into the Park for a fitness session. This consisted of an accumulator of 10 press ups, 1 x 400m run. Then 10 press ups, 12 squats, 400m run. We added an extra set of exercises after each 400m lap until we had completed 5x 400m laps. Once this was completed, we walked over to the other side of the Park which gave us time to recover and have a quick catch up on everyone's week! There was some good news in that Mark had secured a new job after a couple of months of waiting!!! Once at the other side of the Park it was time for some intervals and fartlek training. Everyone put in 100% and its great to see such improvements in everyone's fitness. Once finished we took an easy 1km recovery jog back. Well done everyone, and remember to spread the word and bring a friend or anyone you know who wants to get fit and help out the local community at the same time!

Tonight's task was to distribute flyers for Kelly's Clandon Park Run. This is a charity run that is raisingfunds for George Abbot School in Guildford. There is a choice of 10km or 4km distances, so it would be great if we could get a load of Goodgym runners to attend this fantastic race! After a quick warm up we headed into Horsell and split into two teams, each taking one side each - if only the Royal Mail were so efficient! Again tonight the main topic of conversation was the Various races everyone was signing up to - Anne has her first 10km in two weeks! Thirty mins of delivering leaflets and we were done, which gave us plenty of time for a quick leg session which consisted of hills, lunges and squats! We headed back, using the 2km to stretch our legs!

15 awesome runners ran 4km to help out at the Royal Hill Community Garden!

It was a freakishly warm evening last night, it had rained on and off for most of the day and it looked like it was going to rain some more.. but it didn't stop 15 of you lovely lot from coming out to run and get a good deed done!

We were joined by 4 new runners last night! AMAZING!! Isabella brought along her friend Balazs, I managed to rope in my friend Sally from the gym I work at, and we were also joined by two more lovely ladies Aimee and Lexy! Welcome to the family everyone! Make sure you join our FB group to keep updated with races and other wonderful things that this awesome group gets up to!

We dropped off our stuff and headed over for a quick warm up and then set off through Greenwich town centre and up to Royal Hill! We were greeted by two lovely gentlemen, Patrick and Jonathan who explained the tasks that needed doing.

Ground force!

There was a flower bed at the front which needed some holes to be dug to make room for some plants so a few people got stuck in with that. Vickie took a small group to the dark outback to rake up some leaves and put them in the compost. And the final group were tasked with a little landscape design project of making a heather bed which involved building a DIY dry stone wall out of bricks and other rubble they could find... Apparently according to Emma, well, Emma's granny, dry stone walling is an actual hobby and you can enroll yourself in a course to learn how to build one as it is quite an art form! But these guys did not need a course in dry stone walling... oh no! They just cracked on and it looked BEAUTIFUL. Alan Titchmarsh better watch his back!

15 minutes later and the group at the front had successfully planted the plants! WOOHOO! Next job was some bulbs to be planted in and around them. Patrick showed them the first one and then left the rest to them!

Everyone was doing a killer job! The leaves had all been swept away. The bulbs had been planted and finally the heather bed was looking absolutely stunning! So it was time to say our goodbyes, have a group photo and head back for some more RUNNING! Yay!

We had a little jog back to the uni and had loads of time to spare! And since the run to the garden wasn't very far, there was more running on the agenda! But that's what you're here for right :)

Laps, laps and more laps!

As I always say, speed work is SO important. I don't do it enough myself. And chances are you probably don't either! If you run 3 times a week, you should try and aim for one of those runs to involve some kind of interval training where your heart rate goes up and comes down multiple times! It gets you faster over time and really pushes your lactate threshold so you can run faster for longer! Which is ultimately what everyone wants, right? So.......

On the cards was 4x 2 laps fast 2 laps slow. 1 lap is approx 300m so to run round it 16 times would be about 4.8km which is a long way! But instead of making everyone do this, we did it for as long as it took the fastest person to complete it. The key to this one is running the fast laps at a pace where you can maybe say about 2 or 3 words at a time so a nice controlled effort and then running the slow ones REAAALLLYY slow as an active recovery.

Long story short... everyone did AMAZING. It was great to see you all really push yourselves and put in so much effort! And of course so great to hear the cheers for our super speedy Amy so everyone could stop! Ha! That was a tough session, probably one of the hardest we've done so newbies please don't be scared off!!!!

We had a nice little stretch and called it a night :)

Thanks so much everyone! You got so much done at the garden and the task owners were SO pleased at what you all achieved so well done! Also great job with those intervals, I know it was hard but you absolutely smashed it!!!! See you next time!