On a light bright Spring evening 21 Hackney GoodGymers ran 4K to the Wilton Estate community garden to perform a variety of physical jobs in the wonderful community garden.

We began the evening with an impromptu task at the E5 Bakehouse with the whole crew ripping and shredding the mountain of cardboard at the Bakehouse to help create a compost pile. A strongly therapeutic task that everyone got involved with and a couple bin bags full of ripped cardboard later the Bakehouse staff were really happy with our efforts.

We then welcomed to the Team some happy new runners for their maiden GoodGym Group run, a nicer evening they could not have chosen. A short pulse raiser to the amphitheatre that is the GG Hackney warm-up area where we congratulated Patrick of a year of monumental GoodGyming, a staggering 183 Good Deeds in 366 days!!! a staggering effort 👏🏻👏🏿👏🏼👏🏽👏🏾. With Hackney Half only a few days away there were many slightly nervous runners preparing for there last few runs before the race. So we got their legs turning over with 4 laps of the Wilton Estate priming everyone's legs with changes of pace between Easy, Race Pace (smooth) and Hard Effort. With the Team well worked out it was time to get to so serious gardening business on the every expanding community garden. We split into 5 pods and got to work weeding, pruning, hoeing, slab laying, water butt building and filling.

With DJ Pat on the decks there was a great vibe on the estate and was really nice to see a few of the estate's residents and their children coming out to join us for a hardworking 40 minutes of gardening action!!

With time ticking we picked up the pace and dominated all the jobs, a small issue with wild Poppygate quickly resolved and an epic Water Butt relay fill from Jack and James it was time to pack away the tools and get ready for some epic Cone Game Action!!

Patrick led the cone action splitting the crew into 3 colour-coded teams. The action was intense and the effort levels were high. A huge shift was put in by all and after a very close sprint relay and a dominant performance in Coney McConeFace Team White were victorious!!

A short warm down run back to base and an in-depth chat about the Hackney Half tactics, preparation and execution saw us on our way home with a really great evening's Running Fun in the bag!

Be great to see as many people as possible on Sunday for Hackney Half whether you're out running, volunteering or spectating come and join the whole GoodGym family for a refuel. All the information on what is going on is here.

Go well on Sunday everyone, trust your abilities and your training! Be positive and give the race your all! Really am looking forward to hearing about all your race stories on Sunday and next Tuesday. Tweet @GGHackney to let everyone know how you went and any pictures.

Next Week we are at the HUG garden for some Williow tunnel landscaping action please Sign up here. As is tradition for me we celebrate our races so we will be heading out to grab a bite to eat and a drink or two post run. Please join us for a bit or a lot of it we would love to have you along.

Until Sunday

Smooth Sleeping, Eating and hydrating

Joel

15 hardy Hackney GoodGymers braved the myriad of weather conditions run 6k to cut in, cut out 8 flower beds in The brand new HUG garden on Hackney Downs.

Following a sprinkling of snow in the day and bright sunshine in the afternoon we knew we would be in for a beautiful yet Baltic evening in Hackney. Meeting at the Bakehouse we got to grips with the new DBS checking then got to it getting mobile in the joints and warm in our muscle fibres. Skipping, squatting, lunging and swinging we burst into life before being expertly lead the 2.5k to the HUG garden on Hackney Downs by Cecilia. We were met by Myra the heart and soul of the garden and driving force behind the project to create a great a community garden and many more projects that will have an uplifting impact on the lives of local people.

We split into pairs with the digger cutting in and digging out the turf or as Myra calls in Landscape Art and the runner carrying the turf at great pace to do Landscape design in the under 5's area of the garden to create an amazing environment for the little ones to explore. With Tom cutting in harder and fast than anyone could imagine there were times when we all stopped and watched Tom in full digging flight in utter amazement!! With supper digging sprint finish we managed to create 8 beautifully shaped flower beds and turf adventure landscape in 40 minutes. The beds will form the base of the garden with vegetables growing as well as beautiful plants in the coming weeks.

A quick rewarm of our running muscles saw us ready to return to base, a swift detour to take back the tools before we split into out regular Speedy and Sexy groups for the 3.5k run back to base. Some really strong running from both groups saw us home in perfect time for a static stretch out and a congratulatory round of applause for a top evenings work!!

Great to see a few signs up for the Hackney Half in 12 days time!! Getting excitingly close now! If you have any questions about race day or the lead up to it give me a shout on email or talk to me next week.

Next week we are off to the Open Barbers to get painting!! Please sign up here for some amazing running fun. We will be doing a little sharpening running session in preparation for race day to.

Good luck to those in the last weeks of training, trust it don't chase it!!

Smooth Running

Joel