21 GoodGymers ran 4K, took in some of the Hackney Half route and tackled a green fingered new task!

Great weather and great company for our run last night!! Thanks for everyone who came along and worked so hard!

Welcome to our GoodGym first timers, hope you enjoyed joining the Hackney GoodGym Train, hope to see you again next week!!

Sorry about the high pressured name and number start but I blame Renegade Ros!!

With heightened anticipation in the air with the upcoming 21.1km’s of fun on Sunday we put final touches on our Half marathon prep by scouting out a few k’s of the race route on our run to our new task at the Welshpool Estate Community Garden.

With a range of tools and some band new gloves on especially for us we got stuck into a wide range of jobs! Lots of liberal weeding, soil turning, edging, litter picking, trench digging, shrub removal and even a little wooden boarder laying gave us plenty to do in 45 strong minutes of community gardening action.

With the almost toy wheelbarrow working overtime to keep up with the huge volume of weeding and some cheeky Pickaxe action coupled with expert root removal we pushed our time to the limit.

With the circuits avoidance moves played well cleverly to keep legs fresh for a speedy Sunday Race performance! We nipped the short distance back to base where we stretched out and upped our Celebrity Instagram knowledge!!

Thanks for a fun evening!! Hope to see you all at some point on Sunday!! Pre in the Race Village, on route, or post run on the grass outside Here East. We will be flag making and GG Olympic torch constructing to!

Rest Up, Carb up, Run hard and Enjoy!!

Smooth Running

Joel

27 sunshine filled Hackney GoodGymers ran 6k to Abney Park Cemetery to shift a tonne of mulch to an enchanted secret path.

Welcoming a bumper summer turnout of energetic GoodGymers we had big celebrations this week!! With Anna reaching a perfectly paced Century of GoodDeeds! A massive congratulations to Anna for all her hard work, positively, and consistency!! A huge thank you to Clair for her expert and very tasty special Edition celebratory Cake.

On we went to Abney Park and a speedy pace this week to spread out the tribe on our way to Stokey to avoid too many bottle necks along the way. Meeting Tom we armed ourselves with tools a-plenty and delved into the overgrowth of Abney Park!

We a team of strong Shovellers and our endurance bunny team on the wheelbarrows we got into a nice rhythm filling and running the 400 metre loop to tip out the mulch.

Our team of precision rakers had the mulch under control to sculpt it into a perfect springy path way in the depths of the park!

With an seemingly ever growing mulch pile we had to really pick up the pace to complete the path in 40 Energised minutes of GG action!

With time tight we swept up the last of the mulch to leave it tidy for a film crew on Thursday and even a little chat with a UK Jazz legend before we dropped the running hammer dashing back to back in record time!!

Stenches out, 11 of the crew headed out to Tad Turkish restaurant to enjoy a celebration meal with Queen Anna!

See you next week

Smooth Running

Joel

p.s pretty please sign up for the session even if it is 1 minute before you arrive, makes my life much easier! but if you forget please still cone along!

16 Hackney GoodGymer ran 6k to Abney Park Cemetery to clear 160 ivy covered grave stones so that that a comprehensive grave database can be mapped.

Great to have a strong crew along for the run, lovely to welcome our GoodGym first timers along for their maiden outing to.

Zipping away lead by the energetic Katie along our well trodden 3k path to Abney Park to meet Park Ranger Tom. With a choice of tasks for the evening we decided to explore into the far reaches of the park as for the first time since September we had a light fuelled task in Abney.

With Tom’s words of precision clipping and watching out for the highly unlikely birds nest in the Ivy. We set off to explore a new wild and overgrown area of the park!

Splitting up and heading deep under ivy cover we got clipping! Taking off just enough vegetation so the grave stones can be read and even slipping off some ivy that hadn’t grown on tight. Making great progress as we went, getting to fell a few trees that were starting to grow in the wrong place before Eva made the ** Bird Call!!** a nest had been discovered!! With Eva’s amazing eye of detail on full show she had found a Black Birds nest nestled between the Ivy and Grave stone. As we had found out from Tom it was a Criminal Offence to knowingly remove a birds nest, punishable by prison time Eva made sure not to trouble the eggs (after a picture or two obviously).

Picking up the pace as we used every second of time this evening we cleared over 160 grave stones ready for mapping!

Only left us with the prize giving for Oldest grave stone won by Gulê and best name won by Katie who received the much coveted Abney Park eraser.

Ros led the way back to base at a strong pace to complete a top Hackney session!!

Next week GoodGym Camden/Islington Trainer Paul will be Running the show on your trip to Mabley Green. I will be back on the 24th for Group Run and Monthly Social. Catch you in a couple!

Smooth Running

Joel

P.S Thanks to Ros and Eva for nest pictures.

As we bring the Easter bank holiday to a close it seemed fitting to do some good work in a churchyard and tonight eighteen intrepid runners did just that as we headed out to the striking St. Luke's Church off Morning Lane in Hackney to clear a congregation of leaves from their yard.

The session began with warm-up in London Fields and the action then took us towards Hackney Town Hall for some drills in the shape of sprints and grapevining. There was some pretty nifty footwork on show from our runners and by now everyone was well limbered up for the next section of the 2.5 km run that took us to St Luke's.

We welcomed three new members to our group tonight, it was great to meet Robyn, Stephanie and Nowrin.

With no time to waste the group went hammer and tongs at the task of clearing a huge quantity of leaves from the churchyard. Two score and ten bin bags were stuffed to bursting completely clearing the churchyard and revealing a tranquil space that could almost have had Thomas Gray reaching for his quill and parchment.

With the sun beginning to set and the task done there was no let up for our band of sisters and brothers as we downed tools and hit the road over to Well Street Common picking up the pace before rounding the final bend along Well Street and back to our Bakehouse base. With 5 km, an interval session and a ton of cleared leaves under our belts it was a job well done.

Despite the great work, I have to end our report on a sad note and console with two of our group who became the victims of crime with a bike and a bike wheel being stolen from outside London Fields station. We all feel your pain guys, absolutely gutted for you, sadly there are some bad people out there and we all need to take every precaution against thievery.