14 epic individuals last night came together to run six kilometres and help out with some well received housekeeping at St Luke’s Church in Hackney.

Our journey started once again on London Fields with a quick and fierce leg blasting warm up of squats and lunges to an orchestra of groans as winter running gear was gradually shed - indicating that the warm-up was working!

Our host Keli, standing in for Betsy who is sadly couldn’t join us (get well soon Betsy), divided the group into two: one half tackling some outdoor work while the rest concentrated their efforts on moving furniture, hanging some lights and generally preparing the inside of the church for the forthcoming Light Party. 30 minutes of lifting, carrying, sticking and digging later, the tasks were all squared away and off we went for a three mile run south to the corner of Victoria Park and back up along Broadway Market to base.

That would have taken her hours all on her own!

We love to see new faces in Hackney and this week was no exception with no less than five new-comers - mostly brought along by friends (or family). Way to spread the word team! I think our recruits were impressed by what 15 individuals in their PE kit can achieve in a small amount of time, work which would have taken Keil hours on her own.

I’m really pleased also to see several of our new recruits interested in getting DBS checked so that they can go on missions to help out elderly or isolated people in their homes, and perhaps even visiting a Good Gym coach regularly. As the cold weather and long nights draw in for winter a visit from a smiling Good Gymer will make all the more difference to our lovely coaches.

I’ll look forward to seeing you all next week and don’t forget your head torches. x

Last night around 40 goodgymers said “no deal” to the cold and dark conditions and made their way to Papa’s park for another Goodgym Lambeth session. The elements didn’t put folks off as we had loads of new faces all wanting to get involved, cracking stuff. Before we set off we gave James a big round of applause for completing over 100 good deeds, James is one of the original members of GoodGym Lambeth and is an all-round top guy and between visiting his Coach Keith and pounding the streets of Lambeth he has amassed many a mile and more importantly contributed loads to local projects and tasks have we done in Lambeth, well played sir, well played.

After the introductions we all ran around 2 km to Myatts field to meet Guy from Streetscape. Streetscape is a great local project that gets young people into employment through learning horticulture skills, as they are busy learning new skills their yard often gets cluttered with bits of woods from jobs they have done and that is where we came in tonight.

As some of us arrived slightly early we did a lap of the park only to be welcomed by the rest of the group forming a human tunnel to welcome us in (I bloody loved that by the way!!). Then split into two groups one with Rebecca and one on the task. The task was simply to get all the off cuts of wood in the yard and load it into the truck. Now a big shout out goes to John Hunter who did his best impression of a lamppost by shining a light on us throughout the task and was vital so we could see what we were picking up and helped loading it in the van. At first the pile of wood looks pretty daunting however in true goodgym style we packed it to the rafters and managed to get it all in there. We even had some time spare to load some bits of fence and even a bench, which was expertly shoved in by Guy at the end.

Half way through the groups swapped and the non-task group were faced with Rebecca’s circuits. Now I don’t know about you but my legs have certainly been feeling it today. This was because we were put through our paces by doing 25 squats and burpees followed by 20 lunges on each side, we did three sets of these reducing each by 5 each time and at the end to mix it up we did another lap of the park. In a word ouch (but a good ouch none the less.

Safe to say by the time we made it back I was spent however Sarah’s homemade millionaire shortbread that welcomed us back was a definite great way to end another cracking Tuesday night.

Tom

My take on last night is a bit sketchy... except for one key moment. The moment I stuffed a piece of Jay's cake in my mouth.

First, let's cover off the events before then;

We met. We made sure we didn't defecate in Papa's. We welcomed the lovely new people. We congratulated Beth on her drinking marathon. We congratulated ourselves on GoodGym's speed volunteering award from Boris. We split into two groups. Group one ran to Palace Road Nature Gardens. They did some gardening. They ran back. They ran a good 6-7km. Group two ran to Brockwell park Greenhouses. They shoveled manure and cleaned out the pond. They got free veggies to take home. They ran about 5km. Everyone met back at Papa's.

AND THEN JAY ARRIVED.

With Jay, came the most wonderous of cakes. A flourless chocolate cake, laced with orange and rum, covered in fresh cream, blackberries and raspberries. It was possibly the best thing I have put in my mouth. EVER. And I have put some magnificent things in my mouth in my 34 years. I have never heard so many "OH MY GOD"s and "WOW"... it really was that good.

I feel sad for all those who didn't get to taste it. Perhaps a lessen will be learned though. YOU SHOULD ALWAYS COME TO GOODGYM!!.

Last night had more going on then an episode of Eastenders… we had 34 runners, three tasks, one mile time trials, killer circuits, cake, a black t-shirt for50 good deeds, a marriage proposal and even two old school friends reunited by pure coincidence at GoodGym Lambeth….

Whilst 16 runners stayed at Papa’s to help paint the fence of our wonderful meeting point they were not let off lightly with the running… each were sent out to run a mile (well just over) as fast as they could… a great effort was put in… there’s nothing I like more than seeing people come back looking absolutely spent.. and some very speedy times too. They were then rewarded for their hard work of painting and running with 10 minutes of brutal circuits afterwards… I just keep giving.

Here’s what went on at the other two tasks;

Brixton Youth Centre - Beth

We had two tasks to do at Brixton Youth Centre this week - one was the usual, brush and bag up the leaves to make the place look a bit more tidy and the other was to move all the stuff out of a garage, give it a sweep and put it all back a bit more neatly. It turned out this was the perfect task for new runner Kevin who’d actually bothered to read the bit on the website where it says you might want to bring a head torch. You’d be forgiven for thinking there might not be much need for it in June, but when Sarah shouted from inside the garage 'is there a light in here we can use?' Kevin became the hero with the flick of a head torch switch! With tasks completed we set off back to Papa's for circuits, painting and cake. Congratulations on reaching 50 Benson!

Holland Park Estate – Emma

A small group of us ran a little further down the road from Brixton Youth Centre to help Ameena with the Holland Park Estate gardens. After admiring the meadow that is now where we dug up all those weeds a few months ago, we were split into groups do some small weeding tasks (damn you, bindweed, we knock you back and you spring right back up again!). Once the bindweed had taken a good beating we moved onto some new tasks, weeding and digging areas on the edge of the main estate, near the road. Soil was turned, weeds were weeded, loads of really tall rapeseed was pulled up and some of us even managed to fit in planting new plants! Satisfied that we had done some good, we ran back in time for a spot of painting and cake made by Beth and Sarah. Delicious!