Nine dynamic GoodGymers ran 3k to help the Hackney Downs HUG garden move 5ish Tonns of soil and wood chip.

To round off an amazing National volunteer week Team Hackney enjoyed a Super Starter session to help the Hackney Downs User Group (HUG) to continue their great work creating educational and fun gardening experiences for the under 5's. Was great to see some brand new faces to a GoodGym session as well as a few ever improving runners not forgetting a couple of hard core GoodGym regulars.

We started the session we a dynamic warm up to activate the key muscles needed for the session as well and mobilising the major joints that help us perform our slick and efficient running actions. From there we ran a kilometre around the park at a nice steady pace including a few times around the mini roundabout and a final pick up and dip after a lap of the grass track saw us warm and ready for action. Splitting into two groups we attacked the two jobs with lots lots of enthusiastic energy. The first group got shovelling 5 (well near enough) Tonnes of soil. Using a slick wheelbarrow to bag technique a solid pace was set and maintained. Trip after trip saw the huge bag of soil gradually empty. Balancing acts to keep the soil upright and lots of stamping to compact the soil down were vital in this mission. A final monumental effort to drag the last 250kg of soil to its new home where it can be used to plant all the wonderful flowers and shrubs in the garden.

The second action unit had their work cut out shovelling wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of wood chip from the pavilion to create a soft bed for the Willow tunnel Team Hackney had dug out in April. Taking the tough wheelbarrow pushing in turns the group make great progress shovelling the woodchip in and out of the wheelbarrow and smoothing it out to create a perfect base for the children to play in on their next visit. With a final push the tunnel was filled and was great to complete two physically challenging and rewarding jobs in 45 minutes of action!

To finish off the session we fed our legs some speed and played a little game of Lampposting. For 2k of running we run alternately hard then easy between the many lampposts of Hackney Downs, even kicking it in to overdrive for a sprint finish!! A series of revitalising static stretches and a elegant ballet spin rounded off a great mornings Fitness Fun. Well done to everyone and really hope to see you all at a Tuesday evening group run soon!!

Our next Hackney Group run is on Tuesday starting at the E5 Bakehouse at 6:45 please sign up here.

Another way of joining in is coming along to the GoodGym London fitness sessions I run on Thursday Evenings in Central London. All the information and sign up is here.

Thanks to Patrick for the Pun!

Smooth summer running

Joel

Twenty fighting fit Hackney GoodGymers ran 5k to the Wilton Estate community garden to remove millions of shrubs, thousands of roots and turn over tonnes of soil.

On a beautiful clear full moon🌝🌝 lite evening we mixed things up a bit at GoodGym Hackney! As for one more week only we had access to the enchanting Disco Lights Running track in Victoria Park. So we were a little naughty and ran away from the task mobilising all the vital body parts on the way with a military style in line warm up. Side skipping, toe touching, walking lunging and even a few football heading ⚽️⚽️ got our bodies primed to throw down some speedily smooth accelerations down under the pulsating neon lights. Alternating power strength moves 💪🏾💪🏽 with balanced and coordinated technique drills our accelerations were silky smooth and Powerfully fast 🏃🏿🏃🏽🏃🏻🏃. 8 bursts of lighting speed⚡️⚡️ followed by a mini lungeathon to build on last weeks strength effort gave us a blood pumping start to the session.

As we were a little late we sent of 9 super speedy shrub excavation ninjas ahead to get started on the task, brilliantly lead by Kev (also Hackney Coach runner rep) the pack laid down a 2k burst at a scorching 7:30 per mile pace!! The sexy group made some strong running progress in pursuit, lots of running improvements shown with talk of wanting to do longer runs in lead up to the fantastic Hackney Half marathon. Special mention to GoodGym Hall of Famer Becky for expertly guiding a few GoodGym newbies on their first run. 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾

The speedy crew got down to business speedily as you would expect, uprooting shrubs, roots and anything else that got in their path to clear a huge flower bed in 20 hectic minutes of action! 🌳🌳 Looking for more work to be done they moved on to forking, shoving, Pickaxeing metre after metre of flower bed to prepar it for some beautiful wild flower planting 🌾🌼🌾. In 10 quick minutes the entire first section had been forked to death and ready to get flowery very soon. The sexy crew were busy getting tangled in ivy, battling roots and ripping out more shrubs to clear a 15 metre stretch of densely vegetated flower bed ready to become a beautiful and maybe tasty raspberry patch 🍓🍓🍓(near enough a raspberry). Becky was very unimpressed by my lack of Joni Mitchell hair knowledge!! So for anyone else who needed a pictorial reminded of how amazing Joni Mitchell's hair is click here Sorry Becky for my ignorance. A few epic root battles were had and after some brilliant team work the dream worked and after 30 minutes of action not a root was left or ivy steam to be found. Brilliant work team 👏🏻👏🏽👏🏾

After a massive thank you for brilliantly patient Debbie and Lisa we headed back the 1k to base basking in our task glory. After a stretch out we congratulated each other on a fun and fitness filled evening which greatly aided the wonderful Wilton Estate community garden.

If any woman would like to join in with a disco light running group this week check out the info here.

Next week we will be back to The Hive for another adventure in the most eclectic building in Hackney! Please sign up here it will be great fun and we will be running a few relays around De Beauvoir square for good measure!

Don't forget we will be going for a bite to eat after next weeks session if you fancy a bit for nutritional reward for your physical endeavours.

Until next week

Smoothly accelerate

Joel

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