19 awesome runners ran 4km to shovel sand and soil at Christchurch School!

It was a lovely autumnal evening down in Greenwich last night! The evenings are getting shorter each week but it's not stopping 19 of you guys from running and doing good! Let's see if we can keep it up when it gets REALLY cold!

We welcomed new runner Robert to the gang and congratulated our 3 amazing Ealing racers from last weekend. 3 incredible PBs from Amy, Ben and Laura showing that when it comes to running there are no shortcuts and you absolutely get out what you put in! Super proud!!!

We spent a few moments getting nostalgic and talking about everyone's fave film growing up then headed off for a warm up and gave the carioca drill a go. This is how you do it in case you wanted to practice! It's a good one for coordination and agility. Granted most running is done in straight line but it's important to train the body to move in different directions and work on fast agile feet in case you're out there and quickly need to dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge out of the way of things!

After a quick pic we set off along The Thames with our beautiful city glistening and gleaming in the background. 10 minutes or so later we arrived at the school and were greeted by the always lovely and super friendly Fiona and Patrick. They had two main jobs for us, one was emptying a big bag of sand into an area which will eventually become the greenhouse. And also there was a mountain of soil that needed moving to give them a bit more space to work in the garden.

Everyone grabbed a shovel and got stuck in straight away, filling wheelbarrows with sand and dumping it in the pit where it would be raked and levelled off ready for some slabs to go on top. While half of the group was taking care of the sand, the others tackled the huge soil mound at the back of the garden. It wasn't being moved very far but it was taking up a lot of room where it was and just needed to be shifted a few meters back to underneath a little shelter.

After 30 mins, the sand had all been emptied and it was time to tamp it down and level it as best as we could. Over on the other side, the soil had been cleared and the two huge bags of bark/soil and been moved as well... amazing! All the flower beds had been watered and it was time to go! But not before feasting our eyes on the huge Cinderella pumpkin! It's going for a weighing at the weekend and then instead of being turned into a carriage, will be made into soup, and pie and all other pumpkin related things!

Whatever floats your boat

We ran back to the uni and did a little bit more running, this time some intervals but with some float recoveries (as well as some jog recoveries). The idea being to train the body to run at a high velocity without straining, so you run the hard part of the interval as normal and then instead of coming back down to a slow jog or complete rest, you keep your momentum and a high speed but with less of the effort. A fast yet relaxed kind of pace. Running intervals like this alternating between fast and float pushes your lactate threshold and is a great simulator for race day but the workouts are tough! We did 4 minutes adding in some jog recoveries as well just to get the breath back and then headed up for a stretch!

Great work at the task last night gang! You got so much done and Fiona & Patrick were so pleased! Amazing running as always! See you next week!

27 awesome runners ran 4km to clean up in Greenwich!

It was a doubly whammy last night, National Volunteers Week and Global Running Day and what better way to celebrate than a GoodGym group run!!

We had a whopping 8 new runners join us last night, so big welcome to James, Daniel, Natalie, Matthew, Judith, Robert, Anna & Dave!

Sadly our task was cancelled yesterday but it didn't stop us from doing a whole lotta good! Armed with bin bags and gloves, we split off into 3 groups to hit has many parts of Greenwich as possible! Vickie's group headed east, Ben's group went up the hill and south, and my lovely lot got a little tour of western Greenwich!

Even though the streets of Greenwich are litter picked on a daily basis, it still astounds me the amount that is on the streets. Who are these litter droppers anyway?!?!! That's what I wanna know. There are SO many bins around Greenwich, there is no excuse!

So many butts!

And no I don't mean booties, I mean cigarette butts! Loads of them just lining the curbside, it was quite gross. And you see people dropping them all the time, like it doesn't count as littering or something!

Another thing that was apparent was the amount of single-use plastic, which has been in the news a lot recently since that Planet Earth episode. So many coffee cup lids, plastic bottles, straws, plastic bags, the list goes on! But hopefully last night has inspired you to bring your own coffee cup to get your coffee today, or take your own bag to the supermarket or say no to that straw in your drink... it's the little things that make a difference!

We spent just over half an hour tidying up and then brought our hoard back to the Cutty Sark to then dispose of it in the correct way! The recycling bags in the big blue bins (hopefully the residents didn't mind!) and the black bags in the regular bins. We must have collected at least 20 bags of stuff?? Some weren't full to the brim (Ben's team I'm looking at you!) but still a decent effort all round!

And then it was finally time to take that lovely sweaty glove off to reveal a nice wrinkly granny hand!

We headed back to the uni for a stretch and called it a night!

Great job everyone! Hopefully you still felt a sense of achievement even though our task was cancelled! It was an amazing effort all round so well done! I'm sure our mayor will be proud when I tweet her! See you next time!

25 runners ran 4km to help out at the Christchurch School garden!

We had our biggest group of the year so far last night! 25 of you wahoooooo!!! We were joined by new runner Nik and GG Southwark runner Emma. Welcome to the gang!

On that note, for those of you who are slightly newer to the group, we have a Facebook group for GoodGym Greenwich so please join and you'll be able to keep updated with any random bits and pieces that are going on!

There was also some good news as Claire arrived without her bike.... YAY! Nice to see you up and running again!

We played a little game, got nice and warmed up and then headed via the river to the school!

10 minutes later we arrived and were greeted by Fiona who had everything organised and laid out ready for us!

There were 2 main tasks. One was digging and leveling off an area for a beehive to eventually sit and the other task involved gathering up woodchip to build a bank on one side. Everyone grabbed a fork and got stuck in!

It was great to see all the changes since last time we came. It was so much greener! And our gravel pit had been finished off for us, but it took 5 guys 4 hours of hard graft to complete it all so I think they must have been pretty thankful of the headstart that we gave them!

After half an hour, most of the woodchip had been cleared and the other bed had all the big bits of rubble removed, the weeds taken out and had been leveled off nicely!

We took a lovely photo and then headed back a slightly different way to arrive back at the uni for a quick little circuit. And it was so nice that it was still light by that point! Hooray!

One fast lap to finish off and we were done! Andy had kindly brought in some biscuits for us all, some lovely buttery French ones which were VERY much appreciated and then we called it a night :)

#finishformatt

As I mentioned yesterday, a few of us will be heading to Tower Bridge on Sunday morning to complete the 3.7 miles for Matt Campbell. We are running there (nice easy pace) so will be meeting at 9am on the main road outside Waitrose in Greenwich or you can meet us there for 10am. Would be great to see you there :)

Great work on the task last night everyone! You got so much done yet again! Keep up the good work and I'll see you next time!

26 awesome runners ran 4km to help St Mark's Church!

It was cause for celebration last night as our very own Steve was achieving his 50th good deed! Amazing!!!

We also had a few GoodGym tourists: Dan from Newham, and Rachel all the way over from GG Cardiff! And last but not least, we had new runner Vicky join us too... welcome to the GGG squad everyone!

National Pet Day ♡

We spent a few mins going round talking about our first pet, lots of fish and rabbits! Marta even wanted us to adopt a GG dog to bring on the group runs.... We actually did have a lady bring her dog to a group run once, but she didn't come back after the first one :(

Anyway off we went for a little warm up, throwing it back to when we were all 10 with a game of stuck in the mud! After a few minutes everyone was suitably warm and ready to run! Ben placed the ceremonial Greenwich cape upon Steve and off we went!

About 10 minutes later, we arrived at St Marks and were greeted by the lovely Tony who told us a bit about the church and the task at hand. There was some Ikea style furniture which needed assembling so Steve C and David headed off to do that. Everyone else grabbed a rake, a broom, a shovel, whatever they could get their hands on and started tearing up the weeds. There were 3 areas that needed attention and within minutes we could start to see a difference.

Lots of people paired up, one held a bag open while the other shoveled in the weeds. Good team work going on! After the weeds had been removed, it was time to hammer in the mini fence! Which actually proved harder than we thought with all the gravel embedded in the soil, but as always these guys got the job done!

Nina the best sweeper

The task was nearly finished, the place just needed one final sweep, and who better than the best sweeper in the world.... Nina.

The clock struck 8 and it was time to head off! We took a nice photo with Steve's cape flapping and ran off into the distance.

Strides!

Hill repeats were on the agenda for the fitness session yesterday but as always I changed my mind last minute and settled for some strides. As I mentioned, these are short sharp sprints of about 100 metres or 20 seconds ish and it's a great thing to add onto the end of your easy runs as they really help improve your running form, I'd recommend about 6-8 of them. Just make sure you bring your heart rate right down after each one, so a slow jog recovery or even a walk.

We only had time for 4 of them as the pub was calling! We headed back to the uni for a little stretch and then off to the Old Brewery for Steve's celebrations and the second edition of "Which twin?"!

Thanks for all your efforts last night! Great work on the task, you got so much done! And awesome running as always! See you next week!