Martin Rogers

This week we visited a new task in the middle of our 8km run. Suitably for Halloween, we found ourselves digging in the dark with a view of the graveyard and accompanied by loads of large spiders! 🕷️

The garden area of the Trinity Community Centre had been neglected for several years but the current occupants, Training 4 U Services, are putting it back into use as a vegetable garden.

Martin, Jenny and Sam got started digging and found absolutely no soil in the first area, just chalk, so we relocated and tried again and found mostly sand, but turned it over to clear the grass and weeds.

The area was also littered with piles of fencing and heavy paving slabs so we cleared them up to make space for the garden works.

In the end we had created a bare patch that is a perfect blank canvas to build a veg patch on. Theres plenty more to do here so I'm sure we'll be back to help the continued development.

A few shiny new GoodGym shirts got their first splashes of white paint tonight, the mark of a true GoodGym runner!

We ran the long slog up the hill to Stopsley where the Baptist Church's greenhouse building is being renovated. We cleaned up and got a first coat of paint on the upstairs office area. We'll be back in a couple of weeks to continue this task and help the GreenHouse get ready for a fresh start in the new year!

We headed back to meet Peter from Penrose Roots at the Roots to Recovery garden, where a plot of flowers had reached the end of its season and needed clearing for the winter.

Racing against the forecast rain which was rapidly moving in, we got to work with our shears and cropped the plot down, then got on with raking up all the bits.

A quick blast back into town, we managed to do our cool-down and head off home before the heavens opened on us!

Joining the Friends of Leagrave Park and some local residents we set to work cutting back the overgrown brambles that loomed over the entrance to this heritage site.

Loppers and rakes were the tools for the task as we beat back the bramble bush to reveal the long lost concrete plinth and sign denoting the start of the Lea Valley Walk.

A last minute replacement for our planned riverside task, we were tasked with helping Love Luton distribute road closure notices to a bunch of streets that will be affected by the upcoming half marathon.

We had a quick warm up and then started posting letters to all the businesses and residences around the town centre, jogging leapfrog style all the way up Park Street and back again all the way to St Georges Square.

A few hundred letters posted in under an hour, with a team effort, a bit of jogging and a few staircases, it's actually good fun and a welcome break from last weeks long distance run!

Everyone loves a Parkrun, but who really warms up properly? GoodGymmers do!

We'll meet up at the boathouse by the lake before the race and shake off the sleep and wake up our muscles ready to take on the Parkrun in peak performance.

If you've never been to a parkrun before you'll need to register on the parkrun website and get your barcode, bring it to the run otherwise your time won't be recorded!