🌿Gardening, maintenance and litter picking at The Meadows 🌿

For this week’s group run session we’ll be joining forces with the Friends of Meadows and Bruntsfield Links — a long‑standing community group dedicated to protecting, maintaining, and improving one of Edinburgh’s best‑loved green spaces.

Our meetup point is Edinburgh Street Food, where you’ll have access to a secure bag drop and the familiar 15% discount on food and drink waiting for us when we return.

From there we’ll run together at an inclusive pace towards the Meadows (around 2.5km each way) before getting stuck into a mix of gardening, maintenance, and litter picking. Expect tasks like weeding around paths and benches, clearing small patches of overgrowth, refreshing planted areas, and helping remove litter from busy corners of the park.

The Friends of Meadows and Bruntsfield Links are a brilliant volunteer‑led organisation who work year‑round to keep this historic green space thriving. Their efforts support biodiversity, improve access, preserve heritage features, and ensure the Meadows and Links remain welcoming places for everyone. By lending a hand, we’ll be contributing directly to that ongoing stewardship and learning more about the challenges and opportunities of caring for such a heavily used urban green space.

You can read more about the Friends group on their website: https://www.fombl.org.uk

Need more reasons to get involved in GoodGym Edinburgh?

London School of Economics conducted a study with GoodGym for 2 years to understand the benefits to mental health when combining physical exercise and volunteering. The results were described as “extraordinary” by Dr. Chris Krekel, lead researcher on the project.

Measured in 6 outcomes of mental wellbeing GoodGymers were found to have a positive change across all 6 with the boost in life satisfaction the same as observed in someone who escapes unemployment to 6 months of employment. Specifically, the findings show participation in GoodGym:

Increases life satisfaction by 21% Increases worthwhileness by 17% Decreases mental distress by 21% Decreases loneliness by 12% Increases belonging by 27% Increases connectedness by 16%