Ready to head out

It was a very cheerful group of runners who congregated in a rather hot hotel room this evening to prepare for our two-task night. Everyone was keen to get going to our gardening tasks, which originally involved a lot of digging, but one of our tasks changed at the last minute, due to a waterlogged garden!

Bryon's brilliant gardening team

After a very brief warm-up, Bryon led the Hollybush team to the Commmunity Food Garden over at the Hollybush Estate where Michael and Margaret soon put the runners to work with bundles of weeding and digging. They worked tirelessly squatting, weeding and bagging, and Margaret was just thrilled with what they accomplished, messaging the minute they'd left with proud pics, asking when they could return!

...and chilly digging at Cranbrook

Meanwhile, I led the second team to the Cranbrook Community Food Garden where task owner Janet was keen for the runners to fill in the many holes the foxes had dug, in and around the vegetable beds. Teams were dispatched to the compost heap, to shovel and wheel compost back to the beds where the filling team were on hand to repair the foxes' damage.

As usual, the GoodGymers were ready well ahead of time, and so a new crew was formed outside of the garden collecting the many leaves filling the borders.

...topped off with sprinting at Meath

And so 8pm came and went, and we all met at one of our favourite training places, Meath Gardens (this is not only very pretty, it's also well lit, so useful for winter fitness). Tonight we were running laps, and so Emily and Sarah started us off, being our first 'hares' for the greyhound-and-hare game, a Tower Hamlets favourite. With a very small head start of 30 seconds, they sprinted off, with a speedy team on their tail. Winners Liam and Chi then headed up the next lap, with an even shorter head start of 20 seconds. In between each lap, we worked on a different variation of the lunge, tailored to our running needs (the hopping and kick-butt lunge may have seemed like mean choices in between speed sets, but they're excellent for the bigger running picture, honest).

And the before we knew it, it was nearly 8.30 and we headed back to the hotel, to cheered in by Chi, and stretched courtesy of Christina!

What a night of GoodGym contributions - thank you. Not only did you work so tirelessly for our task owners, your input to our overall session, and your fitness contributions, were incredible.

Let’s hear it for…

...Our new runners. A big GG shout-out goes to our new runners tonight: Damien Steve and Rebecca, whose first time it was with Tower Hamlets. You were all such an asset to our two-task evening: thank you.

Thanks to our brilliant ‘hares’ tonight: our brave runners who rose beautifully to the challenge of setting the pace for a fast and furious speed session: Emily and Sarah; Chi and Liam, and Rebecca and Fiona. What a fabulous start to the week you gave us.

Thank you to Chi, for helping to lead our fitness session and for some great pics, and to Christina, for some wonderful new input to our end-of-session stretches.

…And thanks to Joel, who always comes up with a game-changing pun at the eleventh hour.

And to our brilliant task force. Who are always behind the scenes, planning, leading and helping to build you a brilliant night. Thanks to Bryon for leading our Hollybush team and for fab pics; to Becky for beautiful back-marking and for meeting-and-greeting so well every week.

And so to the week ahead…

Looking ahead to this weekend, Sat 9th Feb, we have not three but FOUR events you can be part of! Becky G is heading up another fabulous Mile End parkrun pacing event - all those details are here, while also this Saturday, the 9th, Bryon will be heading up a picturesque canal run, followed by shrub-planting and a late pub lunch with our lovely task owners! Come and join in for as little or as much of this fun-filled Saturday afternoon as you fancy.

And next Monday, we’re back to Oxford House, just around the corner, for an indoor task helping to get this wonderful arts centre ready for a lick or two of paint, followed by Pilates session with a focus of flexibility - details and sign up are here.

Have a really good week, everyone, hope to see you soon.

30 runners hit the tarmac

A respectable sized team of 30 runners met on our hotel steps to warm up for tonight's 1-mile run down to the Royal London Hospital, for our first visit of the year to join forces with the utterly brilliant Barts Volunteers.

After navigating the endless sets of traffic lights en route to the hospital, we soon arrived in the A&E reception where we were met by task owner Nancy and her wonderful team, Richard and Bernadette.

Tea, coffee, chatter - and litter

With such a big crowd of us, it soon became clear additional tasks were required, so I led a breakaway team out to the pretty little John Harrison Gardens, this huge hospital's only green space, for a wonderfully productive litter-pick with a team of 8.

Meanwhile, three larger teams were dispatched all over the hospital led by Nancy, Bernadette and Richard to: distribute Evening Standards to patients on the wards; chat and read to elderly patients being cared for on specialised wards, and, an exciting new addition to this task: making tea and coffee in the A&E department.

What a wonderful night. By the time runners were congregating back in Reception at 8.10pm, their faces said it all: smiling, full of appreciation, knowing they had also been very much appreciated too.

An impromptu speed session

And so we said our goodbye's and went our separate ways. At which point, we formed two teams to run back to the hotel, playing the Greyhound and Hare Game. I led the hares with a 2.5-minute head start, while this week we were lucky enough to have Katherine leading the greyhounds who managed to catch half the hares, but not task force members Sarah, Becky and Liz, who had somehow managed to end up on the other side of the road, but to their advantage.

What a fun, impromptu speed session - well done everyone for playing along, and rising to the challenge.

Showing some GG love with this week's shout-outs

Welcome to new runners, Gordon, Sarah, Linda, Rachel and Pete, who was visiting from Stockport! Thank you all, for helping to make this a totally brilliant night - and we hope to see you again very soon.

...And thank you to Becky J for back-marking, Katherine for leading a great little speed session, and to Sarah who this evening brought us some exquisite chocolate contributions to the week's snack haul (N.B. team: please don't leave me alone with said snacks after the run next week).

...While next week

...we're back to our favourite adventure playground, to build furniture from reclaimed wood, and decorate the indoor space! And chisel our cores for the weeks of training ahead. Fun, fun, FUN. Sign up here