15 runners headed back to Hoxton Hall to continue the work in the basement...

15 runners had both brain and lower body tested when assembling Ikea bureaus for the youth arts programme at Hoxton Hall, combined with a tough tempo race back to base.

Working with local young people has been at the core of what Hoxton Hall does for over 150 years with activities including a wide range of art forms such as music, drama, dance and visual arts. The GoodGym team were on hand for the second week running, this time to assemble Ikea bureaus to be used as work stations.

One team worked solely on assembling the flatpack furniture while a second team lifted large wood surfaces out for recycling - an unexpected bonus for anyone wishing to work their lats on a Monday night in the run up to Spring . The team coped marvellously with devouring manuals at record pace (and were very generous with their time).

Then, as time had got away with us, we headed back to base with a tough tempo run, unusually thankful for the pedestrian crossings giving us time to catch our breath. We finished by grabbing a couple of extra penalty stretching minutes on the hotel steps to keep calves (and lower body in general) happy.

It was my first official night as the new Tower Hamlets trainer and the team were just amazing - thank you to Dave for awesome stats and co-navigation; David for brilliant back-marking, always keeping everyone in sight, and a very big welcome and well done to first-time runners, Louis, Constance and Kate. It was a challenging task as an intro, not to mention a tough run back, so congratulations and hope to see you again soon.

Thank you all for an unforgettable first week, and I can't wait to do it all again next Monday!

20 Runners headed down the Stepney City Farm for the first Tower Hamlets GoodGym run of 2016. It was great to have a mix of experienced and new runners and some old faces (youthful) making their return.

We ran just over 2km down to the farm where Simon set the team going on three different tasks - moving heavy iron garden ornaments, building a rooftop plan bed, and the classic Stepney compost work. Having worked hard for 40 minutes the tam then split into two - half heading off to do hill reps with Axel and Will, the other half heading back for a shorter fartlek run home with Tom.

Cute and Cuddly

Great to see lots of enthusiastic mew-comers to Islington this week. A big welcome to Patrick, Xavier, Kyle and Lynsey who all had really paw-sitive cat-titudes and pounced on the chance to do some good while getting fit.

Furry and Stroky

We started as is often the case with some alien circuits on the fields: squat jumps, lunges, star jumps and burpees were the evening's prescription. Tough stuff, but all performed meow-nificently. That set us up nicely for the uphill 3k trek to our task.

Meiow, meiow, meiow.

Following up on last week's journey to Caxton House we were back there this Monday to do a spot of clearing in the gardens. We split into two teams: one set about pruning overgrowth near the front of the building with long-handled secateurs while the other set about tidying up the paths near the planters that we painted last week (instructions from Sue were simple "there's nothing on the ground that can't be pulled up".)

As usual there was a quick paws for refreshments. This week there were special biscuits all the way from Land's End and Sue had supplied even more biscuits and water.

This box is so cool

We were also kept company by a very friendly kitteh who told us tails of being banished from the community centre thanks to allergies. We all felt very sorry and gave a nice stroke as she rolled around on the floor. She even tried to help with a bit of digging and got in four of the photos. On an unrelated note a poorly-written message was found later on suggesting that we start bringing chicken legs and fish instead of biscuits on future visits =^..^=

Following a tidy up, Sue said "thanks for helping meow-t" and took a group photo or two (with cat included of course).

Other People's Gardens

We were feline good so split into three groups for the journey back with a three-minute gap between each. But faster groups didn't get a mew-ment's rest. To fill the time we got involved with some side-stepping and other drills to keep the heart rates up. Heart rates were also raised by that blasted cat racing across the main road like a maniac then racing back again. Show off.

Sitting just out of reach

We finally finished the evening back at the pool with a stretch at a record-breaking 20.48. Next week's goal is to finish on time. It'll happen. Promise (it's paw-ssible I'm lion)

Oh, it's 3am? I'll just jump on your head

A big thanks to Sarah and Patrick for sticking around helping Simon search for his car key afterwards who are rewarded with free biscuits for life*

You want another hour in bed? I'm just gonna meiow relentlessly even though I'm fully fed

Steve was spied early on in the evening passing some contraband (we assume) Vegemite to Mark. This sparked the big question for the evening: Vegemite vs Marmite. There were a couple of votes for each, and then a couple for "Kiwi Marmite" (paw-lease!), but most people just agreed that they were both disgusting. Yup.

Oh yeah, I left a mutilated bird under your pillow

Con-cat-ulations to everybody on a job well done. I feel so fur-tunate to have led some a claw-some group (I grant that these puns aren't that claw-ver and purr-haps I should stop, but I find them hiss-terical). See you next week when we're going to Barnsbury Community Centre

Si

Run Report brought to you by Claire Thomson AKA Clairey-bell

No need for introductions on this first Brent Monday in July, all six runners were GG regulars, sporting bare legs and summer attire, raring to go.

Once we got caught up about our activities since we last saw each other - which included Glasto, a big family wedding and a stag weekend in Dan´s case, and a Pug Society Convention in Ellie´s case - you can´t say we don´t have varied interests in Brent!!!

Then we were off for this week´s task of sprucing up the surroundings of the Harlesden Methodist Church.

We set off, following our noses - because that usually seems to work! But not this time... Someone had rearranged the streets of Harlesden since our previous visit, no electronic device was up to the task of directing us to where we needed to be so we did some stretches on the pavement whilst we scanned the horizon for clues to tell us where the church might be...

There was nothing else for it, before panic descended, Ellie asked a passer by, who told us that the church was in completely the opposite direction that we had been running!! Whoops - and also on the opposite side of the road to what we expected?!?!? We plan to petition to the council to get them to put Harlesden back to the way it was!! And also - Tip number one - never trust google-maps when your phone gets too hot in the heat!!

Eventually the last leg of the journey was in sight and sighing with relief after successfully locating the church, Marcia greeted us. Unfortunately what we were met with was some bad news............... - There was no thingy to connect the hose to the jet washer, uurgh! No water fights tonight, BOOOOOO.

Undefeated, we set to work cleaning the front of the church with paper towels and soundtrack of Michael Jackson, leaving a community of spiders homeless and ourselves covered in a layer of cobwebs. Coralie and Isabelle bagged an impressive bag and a half of litter with the help of a grabbing stick, and Sadhana got busy sweeping up the paving.

30 minutes shot by, and no sooner had we finished the task than we were feeling the burn in our calves as Ellie taught us how to strengthen them with the help of the steps outside the church. Calf raises to failure were just the ticket, now with legs this sexy looking, they should be il-leg-al

Almost back to base, we stopped to do some quick drills and work on our running technique to slash seconds off our personal bests - great for Catherine and Sadana who are signed up for races in the near future. A quick sprint up the infamous (out of p)Uffington Road giving it 80% and we were back to base and doing some final stretches before heading off home, till next week...

Bw, Claire xxx

This week's task was cancelled at the last minute due to lead worker on the project suffering sun stroke. With no task 17 GoodGym members ran off to Victoria Park to get hot, bothered and fit!

Having tackled the 1 mile run to the outdoor track we did a series of paired relay runs with one partner running one way around the track, to meet their partner heading in the opposite direction. Having clapped hands, bashed chests or otherwise crashed somewhere in the middle we turned and ran back to meet our partner again. Tom asked for an honest 8-9/10 effort and it definitely felt like we put that in under the blazing sun. With the first set complete we did a series of bodyweight exercises including squats, lunges, bear crawls and a wheel barrow race - helping to get to own our partners a little more intimately!

Then it was back tot he track for a repeat of our pair runs before a mini core workout and back to base. Tough work, but good fun!