A barrel of laughs

On a beautiful clear Hackney evening 26 Hackney GoodGymers ran 5k to the Food Growers Group to help maintain there garden or 3k to St Luke's Church to deliver flyers.

We started an action packed evening with a supersonic start! With all 26 runners getting mobile with a series of mobilising warm up drills, some hopping and skipping got us prepared to walking lunge and side squat into 5 explosive flying 30 meter sprints with active jogging recovery. With the legs turning over an a scorching rate it was time to split into two groups for the evenings tasks. 19 runners being brilliantly lead by The brilliant Hackney Task Force members Cecilia and Jack who guided the squad to Dalston to meet Joy at the Food Growers Group community garden.

Here is Cecilia's report; After a smooth run over to the Dalston Food Growers site in Crosby Walk, we were met by Joy, who had a list of tasks for the GoodGym team. She asked that a couple of GoodGymers shovel compost in to two wheelbarrows and manoeuvre them to the cafe site in Abbot Street, as many times as possible, in order to fill some wooden planters in readiness for new greens. We walked over to the cafe, where four Goodgymers donned protective suits and got to work painting the internal walls, others rolled metal barrels of soil in to the courtyard around the corner and then a large group got to lifting/ shifting heavy grow-bags of soil up to the roof garden of the Print House. This hefty work initially involved wheels - in the form of a trolley - but then required manual loading in to a lift and carrying up a flight of stairs. The lift could only take so much weight before the automated voice announced that it was "out of order" (!) so it took several goes. A fantastic team effort, Joy was really pleased with the amount achieved in such a short space of time. The roof garden bar officially opens on the 1st of May. Joy invited us to attend the opening event on the 29th April, where you will be able to enjoy a drink while admiring your good work

While all the lifting and shifting was going down in Dalston 7 runners ran down to St Luke's Church to meet Keli and deliver leaflets about an upcoming course to the local residents on the estate surrounding the church. With clinical efficacy up and down stairs over 500 leaflets were delivered in 9 tower blocks over 44 floors in 40 minutes of consistant and sustained letter box stuffing action! 🏃🏽🏃🏃🏿🏃🏻 With some of the most stunning views over London in our memories we headed back to base playing a little loop up and back action to add a bit of distance and speed for those that wanted it. With the two groups meeting up for some cool down stretches and a big round of applause for two very well done tasks we headed on our way into the clear and beautiful night.

Next week we are running back to meet Bruce and his Team at Daubany Fields to finish off our clearance of the park getting it ready for the Parks authorities to regenerate the space in the coming weeks. Please help we keep what little hair I have left and sign up here nice and early if you know you are coming along. Next week we will be having our monthly social visit to a local eating and drinking establishment after the group run, so please come along and have a drink, get some food have a chat.

Until next week

Have a smooth sunshine filled time

Joel