Third Times a Charm

Meanwhile in deep deep deep East London we were joined by Citi bank volunteers, regulars and lots of newbies in a bid finish move a giant pile of compost for The Dalston Curve Garden.

Third time is the charm (we hoped) as Good Gym Hackney dutifully returned to tackle the enormous compost pile obstructing the back entrance to Dalston’s Eastern Curve Garden. Our host welcomed us gladly and, for the benefit of our new runners this week talked us through a brief introduction to how the community garden is run and some of the good that it aims to do for the local community and particularly the schools.

Thanks to a rather healthy turn out of 20 eager do-gooders this week we split into two teams as the space at the back there is only big enough for a handful of diggers without them chuckling the compost all over each other. A-team cracked on the shovelling and barrowing while B-team reluctantly gathered in the clearing at the back of the garden for ‘beasting’. 8 minutes of 'leg blaster’ (three rounds of squats, lunges, jump-squats, jump-lunges) rotating back onto digging and returning later for some core work (three rounds of burpees, knee charges and press ups).

Our host served up some well needed refreshments before we split once again into two groups with one group taking a slightly longer scenic route back along the canal. The short route team certainly didn’t get off lightly however, getting stuck into two rounds of plank relay around the half-km cricket pitch circumference.

Yogic stretches and sighs of relief brought the session to a close. Thanks to all the newbies for coming along this week, we’ll look forward to seeing you again soon.