Like HIIT or Lump HIIT,

it was another High Intensity Interval Training session this week.

12 of us joined the Zoom call and after a brief chat and update from Pritesh we got down to our fitness. Pritesh demonstrated the exercises, starting with the popular inline skating, two exercises focusing on the core and ending with a squat with punches. 45 seconds of exercise followed by 15 seconds of rest per set, repeated three times with a minute to catch our breath.

Our resident DJ pressed play on the tunes as we started. Claire was resting so luckily for us was able to keep time and shout encouraging messages for us all, which helped us all keep going. After being put through our paces we had a couple of minutes to spare to catch our breath, pose for a group photo, and drool over Karen's cookies.

The session was another success, ending with shouts of enCORE for the same again next week, so we look forward to another Brent online session next Monday!

See you then!

The culmination of a wonderful weekend in the Peak District (which saw some of us eat a very large quantity of Bakewell tart) saw GoodGym runners from far and wide descend on Bakewell station to run the Monsal Trial 10K or half marathon.

Although it was a little cold on the start line the weather was perfect and gave all the runners a chance to enjoy the route and scenic views.

There were plenty of PBs and even some trophies gained – congratulations to Lucy J and Lucy Marsh who were first and third lady in the 10K, David Higham who was second in the 10K and Sam Needham who was third in the half marathon.

The moral of the weekend? If you want to PB fuel up on exceedingly good tarts first.

Last night was my last ever run as leader of the mighty GoodGym Lambeth. It was also a very fun evening full of excellent people - much like every other run I have led over the last three years. What a privilege!

It was just lovely to see runners from all over coming along for the ride - we headed off to help the Remakery, a brilliant space that saves unwanted materials from landfill and also trains people in how to remake / upcycle / create new things from them. They needed help moving loads of bits of wood that are unable to be reused to the back so they can get taken away. Then we moved other things from the front making area to the back storage area. It's always a fun space to visit and we look forward to being back soon!

On arrival back at base, it was time for a party and so off we went to a mystery location, which turned out to be the Effra Social. Everyone ordered food but there were so many of us that they closed the kitchen for 20 minutes but we didn't need to fear as David had got his pastry chef to make us the most delicious chocolate brownie that was basically an arm workout just to cut it! It was DELICIOUS!

Thank you pastry chef!

After that, John H and Steve ran a really excellent quiz, which was mainly about me so of course I enjoyed it! There were some excellent facts and even a round about people wearing red wellies. It was also noted that I use a lot of exclamation marks in my weekly emails!!!!!!!!!!!

They'd also put together a film with lots of people saying Goodbye, which was just great and I think you can watch that here. THEN I got some lovely gifts - and they really are great. A red Welly! A card painted by Tim the artist! Some tiny baby grows with GG on them! Some tiny red New Balance trainers! A whole box full of Shit Prize of the Month 'goodies'! Plus the lovely Frances knitted a wee jumper as well, with wings on the back!

It was all amazing!

What lovely things and how lucky I am. Thanks everyone. It was now time to make it through some kind of speech and I did some rambling but I hope it made sense. Here's some things that I hope I said and if I didn't here they are again:

I started running with GoodGym in January 2014 and have been on a run at least once a month since then. That's a long time and probably the most committed I have ever been to anything (Realisation hit at this point that my best friend and husband were both in the room!) Living in London you have lots of things thrown at you all the time and it's such a freeing thing to have something that you commit to. That you can just turn up week in, week out and say no to everything else. That no matter how you're feeling you can just come along, see some good people, get some exercise in and do something that makes a small contribution to the area that you live. That's what GoodGym has been for me and I feel very lucky and grateful to have found it.

I went to the second ever Lambeth run and Alex and James KB were there too. I married one of them in the end and the other is now a great pal! Beth started coming, then John H and Tom B and Nelly. George Bright joined and Steve and Jay and it just kept rolling on. The more people that joined and stuck around, the bigger and more welcoming Lambeth became. Drunkenly at GoodGym's 5th Birthday Party, Alex told us about this race in Wales where you go up against an old steam train. We committed to going the next year - everything is a great idea when you're drunk! But go we did. 40 of us from all over London plus a healthy Bristol contingent took on that steam train in a weekend in August 2015 - and so the first GoodGym away trip was born.

When former trainer and all round excellent lady Rebecca Cox finished in 2016, she said she thought I should take over as trainer. It was the support of this brilliant group of friends, who gave their backing to that idea, that meant I had the courage to do it. I would never have thought this would be something I could do and it's testament to GoodGym that they allow members of the community to develop in this way. Since then, I've led so many runs and had so many adventures. The best is when runners start who have never really put on trainers before and then they dip their toes into races and before you know it, they're signed up to a marathon and running loads. I love that and I love that GoodGym will back you regardless of your time, your background, your situation. It's just running and if you want to give it a go, then we've got you!

I have to extend the most enormous and heartfelt thank yous to everyone who has been a member of my taskforce and all the run leaders who have kept me going and put up with my weekly waffle. Milly, Sarah KB, Steve, John H, Tom H, Alice, Sarah, David, Issy, George C, George B, Nicky, Vix, Jim, Freyja, Lucy, James KB, Tom B, Beth - I hope that's everyone and if not then I mean you too! You all help every week for free, because you're awesome and I appreciate you and think you are great.

And finally to Mark G - who will be a creative and excellent leader and will be just fine because you will all look after him! Good luck and you will have a blast because you are surrounded by excellence all the time!

LAST thanks to all the community groups that we run to every week. Who do fantastic things with such small resources and genuinely make a difference to Lambeth residents all the time. Often in ways we are not aware of or do not understand. What an honour to be able to help you out from time to time with our legs and our arms and our muscles - sometimes even our brains but mainly the other bits.

To Mona - who I ran to for nearly four years and who didn't quite manage to see me run London but who nevertheless helped me get there.

I can't wait to join you all on runs again in a few months when I shall be A CIVILIAN! Keep being brilliant Lambeth. I love you. Katie ***

Our original task of Vauxhall Foodbank had been postponed so Lambeth runners were treated to a trio of lovely tasks. The first group was led by Issy and it was an 8km round trip up to the Portico. There were lots of bits to move around and some containers of water to be emptied out, which are used as weights for the West Norwood Feast gazebos.

The second group went 1km each way to Loughborough Farm. There was a garden shed that needed squeezing past a big digger and taking out of the farm and over the road to a new orchard that is going to be planted there. The team managed it with some finesse.

The third group stayed at our home, Papa's and gave it a right old tidy up. We got rid of broken old toys and did some excellent pruning along the fence. A tree that was sprouting tiny new trees from it's roots got cut right back. Everyone was delighted.

We did some running games and some stretches and that was that.

After weeks and weeks of scorchio last night saw the weather break and a bit of rain happened. This was somewhat ironic as one of our tasks was helping our pals on Clapham Common to water the wildflower meadow that we planted in the spring. After a serious amount of back and forth with watering cans, the heavens opened last night and the lovely pitter patter of refreshing H20 could be heard falling from the sky. OH WELL.

Before all that though, we welcomed back Vicki - HI VICKI - who is visiting from Oz for a bit and it was lovely to have her back. We also celebrated the brilliant Emma and Jim, who earned their 50 and 100 t-shirts respectively. WELL DONE GUYS!

After a quick warm up we split into two groups. Jim and Beth led one group about 1.5km to Larkhall park:

11 of us took a leisurely jog over to Larkhall Park to meet Carl. He had a lot of weeds that needed pulling up and was grateful that we would have them out before the rain came and they would be reinvigorated and take over even more. We split into two groups - Team Weed and Team Thistle. There were noticeably different approaches in the two groups, Team Weed went with a ‘bend at the hip, bums in the air’ vibe while Team Thistle crouched down and really got on the same level as their targets. After half an hour or so the area was looking much better and we set off on an even more leisurely jog back to Papa’s.

The rest of us headed to the aforementioned Clapham Common to do some solid watering. The plants were so dry that we certainly did some good and the rain that came later can only help the lovely plants on their way to perennial glory.

Nice work GoodGym!

16 Hackney GoodGymers ran 5.5k to help Cordwainers Grow resurrect an abandoned community garden.

A glorious summers evening in H- Town brought out a lovely crew of runners eager to jump on the GG treadmill of fitness and volunteering.

Heading out on a relaxed 2k run taking us towards the fringes of Hackney Downs. We met Kate from Cordwainers Grow who have been tasked with rejuvenating the garden since the services were removed from the local authority residential home and the garden became neglected and overrun.

The main jobs we had was to remove all the huge bushes and weeds growing from under the wall along the drive way. As well as litter picking and some soil reassignment.

Just as we were hitting our stride cutting, pulling, digging and sawing the overgrown vegetation out of the walls we suddenly disturbed a Killer mig colony and no one was safe!! We became breakfast, lunch and dinner and were being eaten alive!!

We quickly upped the pace to finish the weed removal and shovel the soil into the raised flower beds while litter picking at light speed!!

As the bites started to come up we dashed off!! Completing a speedy task we will probably all never forget in record time!!

To try and take our minds of the itching we ran over to Hackney Downs and to the ultra famous GG Hackney Anna 1k Time trial where we started fast and got faster!! As we flew around the 1k circuit zipping up the Strava leaderboard!!

With blood pumping and time on our side we headed back to London Fields for some leg conditioning and a team core blast!!

Thanks for coming along!! And sorry about the bites!! Hope yours have gone down quickly and no itching.

Hopefully the the glory of being pretty much or even exactly GoodGyms 100,000th GoodDeed will have made the evening extra special!!

GG Legend Pritesh will be leading the charge to Hollybush next week!! Have a great time and I will see you all on the 14th!

Smooth Running

Joel

WOWEEE! The sun was shining and Lambeth was out in force as 41 excellent people came along to finish three tasks with aplomb.

Team 1 went with Beth to Loughborough Junction A group of 11 of us made the short jog down to the Remakery in Loughborough Junction. Once we’d figured out how to get in (the ‘out the back’ post-it on the door proving more confusing than it should have done) we were welcomed in and told a bit about all the wonderful things that go on there - there’s a co-working, word-working, and upholstery space for members to use and even a collection of bikes to be fixed up. Our task for the evening was to empty a couple of metal cupboards of paint tins, move the cupboards and restock them. The human chain took a while to get going but once it did we were passing paint tins between each other like a bunch of pros. A wicker chair and a few other items were also moved to a garage and with that we had a quick tour and set off back to Papa’s.

Team 2 went with Issy to a doctor's surgery on Clapham High Street We went to help the GP Food Coop, who plant food and flowers in GP surgeries and hospitals across Lambeth. There were three massive planters full of soil, that weren't actually being used. We had to dig all of the soil out and then the planters are going to get moved to a Stockwell surgery, where we will fill them back up again and grow things!

Team 3 went with Katie to Clapham Common We were back at our lovely task of planting wildflowers on the common. This week it was a very relaxed affair, as the main aim was to water all the plants really well and pull out the grassy edges that are threatening to take over the beds again. We managed this just fine and then did some heel raises to strengthen our ankles before heading back to base.

It was our weekly social night, so we headed off to the Duke of Edinburgh for a drink in the big beer garden.

Nice work Lambeth!