Fit for purpose and looking good

GoodGym runner Aimee found the image above waiting at home for her when she arrived back from one of last night's two missions:  One to a new community garden on the banks of the canal and one to St Mark Church and community centre.Here's the gist of what happen. Rebecca Harris writes:A beautiful summer’s evening saw nineteen runners descend on the Arch gallery in Bethnal Green ready to do good and get fit. Divided into two groups, they left with two very different missions to hand. The first – to run a 10km round-trip to a church in Stoke Newington for a bit of light gardening and general tidying up. The second ­– to do a 4km round-trip and play Brick Bingo.The first group enjoyed a steady run north, followed by a solid half-hour of weeding, pruning and beautifying the church’s front yard, which was suffering from Overgrown Weed Syndrome following the last few weeks’ heavy rainfall.Time was too limited to tackle the grass in the patio, but the yard looked infinitely healthier than before.Taking a slightly different route back, the group paused in Hackney Downs for some intensive Fartlek and resistance training led by push-up and wide-squat enthusiast Paul, before snaking through London Fields and back to the Arch gallery. Mark writes about the Growing Concerns run:The other group set off east along Old Ford Road and took a left onto Approach Road to get into Victoria Park.  We followed the edge of the park south and then east, completing 2.6k before arriving at St Mark's Gate and the entrance to our destination - a Growing Concerns garden run by a man called Paul. Paul greeted us enthusiastically and led us through the garden at quite a pace, explaining the various jobs and how they led on from one another and fitted together.Spreading throughout the garden, the runners grabbed tools and got started straight away. Across the site people were shifting wormeries, shovelling compost, digging a hole, refilling the hole, search out useable pieces of brick, building a brick cobbled floor and sifting soil.We worked for exactly 40 mins and got an amazing amount done - Paul was particularly impressed that 21 WHOLE bricks had been uncovered.We took a proud photo, washed our hands under the hose and set off again into Victoria Park to run another 2.6k back to the Arch gallery.More photos are on the GoodGym facebook page.