On a chilly October evening in Hackney 21 lively GoodGymers ran 6k to start a massive project with Core CIC buy starting to clear the building out in record time.

We started the evening by welcoming our GoodGym first times and high fiving our returning runners from their little breaks! 👏🏻👏🏽👋👋🏾

After a few big ups to the GoodGym Cross Country Team for a great first races of the season we got underway lead excellently by Hackney Task Force's Clare who guided us through the bright lights of Hackney expertly. We arrived at the brand new Core CIC building to meet Danny one of the Co directors of the project who walked and talked us through the amazing vision he has for the building and providing a location to help treat muscular skeletal disorders at reduced or no cost for the people of Hackney. If you want to find out more about the project check out the website and video here.

After the tour we got down to business removing all the ceiling tiles we could reach on the first floor at an impressive rate! Ripping up flooring, taking up carpets, dismantling shelving, taking apart kitchens. You name it we ripped it apart!

As the time ticked on we cleared up the space and took all the unwanted stuff out to be dumped in a skip, where we made a brilliant discovery Vintage clothing, there was a mad scramble and many outfits were tried on all beautifully modelled by Amy, Clare, Becky, Eva and Kate.

With a big thank you from Danny, we headed off into the night with a job well done on the 3k run back to base, a few stretches and very quite round of applause we finished the run but not the evening.

19 of the crew headed around the corner to TAD Turkish restaurant to get our eat on and had a great time doing so.

Brilliant to see so many of you come along to the monthly social and really hope you all can come along again on the next one which will be on the 22nd of November (put it in your diaries). A big thank you to Cecilia for choosing and organising the restaurant really appreciated, thank you!!

Next week we are off to Mabley Green to put some trees to bed for the winter! Be great to have you along for some more fun on the run! There will be a few running drills and skills thrown in for good measure to! If you have one bring a head torch or anything that lights up. Sign up here I also see that Hackney GoodGym Great Kev is making special visit from his new home in Bristol.

The Regents Park 10k race is coming on fast on Sunday the 6th of November and be great if we had a Hackney crew go down and dominate a top 10k race! All the information is here. Any questions about it give me a shout.

Pritesh of GoodGym social fame is wanting to do an East London GoodGym Monthly social! If you have any ideas of top drinking establishments for the GoodGym family to come visit either drop Pritesh a line on Twitter or tell me and I will pass it on.

Soft and smooth steps

Joel

20 energised GoodGymers ran 6k to One Housing to start the creation of their WellBeing Garden.

A huge congratulations to Clare, Dan and Mireille for there recent half marathon performances!

With it being Mental Health awareness week we were Running and Talking even more than usual on the 3k back street route past my old primary schools to One Housing. One Housing are an organisation that provides modern and high quality Housing for people with mental illness as well as provide support for the service users to enhance their quality of life.

We arrived and found that maybe let's say the right kinds of tools were not ready for us but we had energy and enthusiasm to hand! So armed with a ** Hammer, Golf club** we set about clearing as much of the over grown vegetation so that we would have space to do all the Landscape Art next week! ** Holly** our ** Head of Artistic Development** took charge of colour design and arrangement and is really looking forward to next week's pattern creation session!

Nine filled bin bags of weeds and out of control Ivey later we had smashed the task! Next week armed with the list I left we will have all the equipment to transform the Wellbeing Garden into a magical space!

On the 3.1k (upon Rich's request) run back to base we took a sneak peak into a building that we will hopefully become very familiar with in the coming months!! It looks like an epic project in size and intrigue! Look forward to getting stuck into that task in a couple of weeks!

A strong run back with a bit of a sprint finish rounded off by a few revitalising stretches saw finished off a top evening!!

We talked about dominating a 10k race in November! Here is the link to the Regents Park 10k for info and how to enter (slightly cheaper to enter on Bookit Zone). I will be running (assuming I have found my legs by then), be great to have a group getting out there and running well!! Will set up a Race on the GoodGym site next week.

Next week we will be back at the Wellbeing Garden and would love to have you along! Please sign up here as an added sweetener we will be going out after the run on mass to a food establishment where we will be able to replenish our fuel store post run! The monthly social is always fun and a great with great chat, would love as many people to come along as possible!!

Have a great active week!

Strong Smooth Tempo

Joel