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!

Wednesday are pretty good. You've got half way through the week and the weekend is just about in sight. What could make it better? A run. What about a run with a group of mates? And throw in a community task that makes you feel good about yourself. A fitness session? Go on then! Lovely stuff.

Firstly, a huge well done to Remy and to Will who both smashed the Royal Parks Half on Sunday. If you've got the need for speed, don't forget that GoodGym are organising a trip to the Bucharest Festival of Running next May - sign up for details. It promises to be a fun weekend of running, eating and exploring and everybody is welcome!

Tonight we were heading back to a local school - Strand on the Green - to help out with a list of jobs that needed doing. But first - the warm up and the weekly Hounslow headscratcher. If you were invisible, where would be the first place you'd go? The Whitehouse, the Pentagon, North Korea, Downing street - looks like we've all got a bit of the secret agent in us.

Sand-on-the-Green

It was only a short run to the school, so we set off, licketysplit , at a nice fast pace. One mile later we were there, finding Claire the caretaker waiting for us with a trailer of tools. Michelle got the work sweeping the bike shed and paths, Claudia took the scooter park, Remy, Will and Andy tackled the fenced play area while Ross, Adam and Jo dived into the huge pile of blocks that needed sanding.

Half an hour of elbow grease later, the jobs were done and dusted and we kicked off with our fitness session. It was a bit of a bumpy start with the flip a coin game, but eventually we got there, splitting into two groups with each side doing an exercise depending on the result of the flip. Next up was a timed obstacle course, which wasn't exactly plain sailing either and was eventually called off thanks to an apocalyptic shower of rain that came out of nowhere. Like a bunch of naughty school children we sheltered in the bike sheds under it had passed. Next week normal service will be resumed, promise!

We were just about to hit the road when disaster struck. It really wasn't our night. The code to the electric gates had mysteriously stopped working, and after several attempts at opening it from the outside and scaling the fence, it was hero Andy with super long legs who managed to hop the gate and release us. Well done Andy!

All that was left was a speedy run back to base, a few stretches and a bit of thawing out. Don't forget, Team Hounslow, that whatever the world throws at us, we all sand together.

Next week, we're back to school - a different one this time, for a spot of painting.