Flower to the People!

What a night in Wandsworth, with some great news and sunny skies for a task planting hundreds of bulbs at a local estate!

There's been some brilliant racing over the past weekend, including some trail running from Helen, Beth, John and Emily, and a half marathon PB from Morag! We also welcomed back our marathon runners - congratulations Lewis, Sam, Nicky and Phil!

We had a wonderful milestone to cheer, as James reached that magic 50 mark! Well done to excellent James for all the good deeds and miles covered - fantastic job!

It was lovely to welcome Henry to his first GoodGym run - give him a big cheer!

This Saturday sees the monthly long run. With a choice of 10k or 19k starting from either Brixton or Crystal Palace respectively, this is a good chance to get out and stretch your legs. No one, as ever, will be left behind. Sign up here for all the details.

Light bulb moments

During our warm up we talked about the best things that have happened to us over the past week. PBs, meeting puppies, good roast dinners, job interviews, successful missions, stag dos, wedding invites, good books and watching Beth roll down a hill - what a week it's been!

We took a quick run down to our task which was only a mile away, and found super organised Kambala Cares chairwoman Donna waiting for us. This non-profit organisation, run solely by volunteers who are committed to supporting the local community,helps with local problem solving, running projects, taking residents on day trips and events and providing the very best help and support for the community. It's a brilliant organisation that is really making a difference to local lives.

We divided up into four teams - three to plant bulbs in the various closes, and one to weed the main raised bed. With so many different bulbs to be planted - gladioli, tulips and many more - the beds are going to look incredible and make the estate even more welcoming when they bloom.

After 40 minutes of hard work, and a lot of 'is this a weed? I don't know!' the bulbs were in, the (hopefully) weeds were up, and our job for the night was done.

We ran the short way to a local green area and kicked off with a quick ball game to get our heart rates back up. The competition was to get each ball and your whole team to the end of the park and back - and in true GG form, it was a dead heat! We then moved on to pyramid sprints, which are a true toughy of speed work, but totally worth the pain for the results you can achieve. High intensity speed sessions increase anaerobic endurance, can help improve the efficiency of your stride, and changing paces helps you think about your running economy. It was great to see everybody pushing themselves - and we even got a sneak preview of the school garden we have been working on in previous GG sessions!

Next week we're back at the community garden we've been busy transforming from an unused and unwelcome space into somewhere the community can be proud of - sign up here. See you then!