22 hardcore Hackney GoodGymers braved the threat of rain to run 6k to Hackney Elderly Caribbean Organisation and masterfully finish off a magical painting job with epic roller action.

On a drizzly evening in H-Town the weather fairy proved to be kind and held the rain away for us to get our roll on with some quality painting and mini circuit action. Great to see some super energetic new faces to Hackney GoodGym working hard and being helped along with our experienced core crew! A mini pulse raiser took us to London Fields for our warm up of duck walking and fire avoiding tip toe bouncing. Some skipping and leg swings got us nice and mobilised the action ahead. Setting off at a good lick weaving our way through the back streets of Hackney and out towards Stoke Newington in the close atmosphere we all certainly worked up a serious sweat!! The nearly 3k run zipped by in no time and great to see some big running fitness strides being made by many of the regular runners!! Running efficiency and speed are really improving with your consistent hard work well done!! 👏🏼👏🏻👏🏾👏🏿

With a pretty big group we split into groups to rotate through some physical preparation outside with some body resistance exercises and some super speedy painting. With 5 minutes rotations the pace was kept high both paining, taping up and beautifully executed exercises. We will flew through the task and had the second coat done in no time. To celebrate such a top task performance we finished off with a spectacular Static Squat Off where in a long line held a strong squat position for over 2 minutes!! Great way to Feel the burn!!.

We said our goodbyes and headed off for the race back to base. The Sexy group starting with a 3 minute cushion before being chased down by the Speedy crew great to see some of the Sexy group really pushing on in the last kilometre to really finish off the run strong!

A few static stretches and a mild panic to get back into the Bakehouse saw us end a very successful evening!

Be great to have you along next week as we work our magic at the Rio Olympic festival in Dalston please sign up here.

If you fancy some more running fun join me for a Running Fitness session on Thursday in Islington sign up here

If you are around on Thursday evening and fancy going along to the GoodGym monthly drinks all the info is here.

Big Good Luck shoutout to everyone racing this weekend in the ParkRun tour and in Regents Park 10k!!

Last but not least a huge congratulations to Cecilia on completing her 50th Good Deed!! 🎉🎈🎊🏆🏆🎉

Smooth strength

Joel

18 GoodGymers met on a summer's evening to water plants, dig soil, play a tag drill game and run 4km!

With Joel away in France eating desserts Paul Bown (Camden Trainer) stepped in to cover. There was a lot of good and gyming to do but before that we talked about that the news:

• Welcome along to the newcomers this week - Lorraine, Michele and Marjorie! Lovely to have you join us.
• It's GoodGym Monthly Drinks next Thursday at the Star of the Kings, it would be lovely if you could come along!
• Also why not join us for the Cardiff Half Marathon on 2 October, the last in the Big 6 GoodGym Races this year - it's going to be a good one!

Okay onto to GoodGyming; after an active warm up we headed off to Hackney Downs to help HUG, a new organisation, that is helping to create a community garden space in the area, you can find them on facebook here.

We met the lovely Myra who runs the project and she gave us our tasks for the evening, which were:

• Watering the plants, vegetables and flowers in the surrounding garden with a HOSE pipe. Rich took the lead on water with lots of others helping untangle, carry and pull the hose line. Particular thank you to Cecilia who got her hands wet several times turning the HOSE on and off.
• A second larger group used spades and forks to turn and pile up soil in the garden. This was very physical work because of how dry and dusty the soil was. The area which was beautifully cleared will be used to plant wildflowers, which is great for wildlife!
• The final group helped plant new flowers in the garden space and weed around the existing flowers.

Tasks galore!

All the tasks are incredibly important for the growth and sustainability of the garden project space. Well done everyone! Great work!

After a group picture we said our goodbyes to Myra and headed around the corner to do a tag drill game! It involves an individual demonstrating a drill to the group and then everyone does the exercise during the time the individual is running an out and back. It's harder to write down than explain/demonstrate in person but it worked fantastically; we had squat jumps, pushups, mountain climbers, star jumps and more.

Drills, drills and oh some drills

So we had taken care of the good and the gym so it was time for more GYM! We ran 2.2km back around some back streets and through London Fields, despite living in Hackney for about 8 months I still don't know it well enough - thanks for helping with the directions guys.

Finally we did some stretches, felt good about doing good and said "see you soon!"

Joel's back next week, and you are off to Hackney Elderly Caribbean organisation to help with some painting, sign up here.

PB out.