18 runners ran 3.5k to help out at St Lukes Primary School!

Firstly I would just like to say credit to Minh for the fabulous pun that I stole from his Strava. Keep 'em coming everyone! I usually sit here for hours on a Thursday morning trying to think of one so saves me a job! And yes it is a GoodGym requirement, run reports MUST have pun titles, NO EXCEPTIONS EVER :)

It was nice to have lots of new runners with us last night! We welcomed Rima and Navin on their first ever GoodGym run, and we had a few tourists over from various other areas, Anna, Nicola and Maria... WELCOME ONE AND ALL!!! Oh and how could I forget, we were also joined by the loveliest canine companion, Athena <3. Woof woofie woof woof.. that means "nice to have you run with us, Athena".

It was International Day of Happiness yesterday but perhaps even more importantly it was Ravioli Day so we got ourselves nice and hungry before we began by going round announcing our favourite pasta shapes and then it was time for a warm up!

A few little drills to get the body mobilised and the blood flowing, then we were good to go. Under the foot tunnel we went, into the realm of Tower Hamlets. Once we reached the other side, it was just a short run from there and we arrived!

We were greeted by the lovely Myra who showed us the garden and it looked SO GOOD! For those of you who are fairly new to the group, we came here on numerous visits in the summer last year and basically built the garden from scratch, laying down sand and soil and filling plant bags for grass and plants to grow on, so it has been a labour of love and it's always great to see the progress!

This time, we were to transform a different area. Our job was to hack away and loosen all the soil, remove any big bits of grass and then lay down some new wildflower turf.

Raking it in

Everyone reached for a shovel or a fork and began stabbing into the ground. Meanwhile, those who didn't mind getting their hands a bit dirty starting bringing round the squares of turf. Once a section had been roughed up a bit and nicely raked by expert raker Chloe, then a section of turf could be laid. This process was repeated until all the turf was gone! At the end there was just a sliver of dirt that remained so turf squares were torn into two to fill the gaps. Frustratingly, we were short by just ONE square which understandably brought out a bit of OCD in some of us.

Unlucky for some

Everyone went in to wash their hands and then it was time for our main task of the day, our area photo! So as I mentioned, GoodGym is about to launch area number 50 and to celebrate, all areas have been tasked with taking a photo which includes the number in which that area was launched and Greenwich was the 13th area. Since a high proportion of our tasks involve gardening and tools, we artistically laid out the forks and spades in the number 13 shape... well actually it was 1E to start off with and we agreed something didn't look quite right but couldn't work out what. Isn't it good that we can be in our 20's and 30's and not tell our numbers and letters apart eh! Keeps us young at least.

We gathered around, took the photo after a few attempts and said our goodbyes!

Striding it out

Since we were just a stones throw away from my favourite interval spot, Millwall Park, we stopped off and had time for a few strides. These are 20 second efforts or 100-120 metres of super fast running, 95% effort. They are great as they help build good running form and don't stress out the body as much as a full interval session so great to add onto the end of your easy runs. We did 3 along the back straight of the park and it was great to see so much SPEED!!! Well done!

A nice light jog back to the uni and we called it a night!!

Parkrun of the month

Just quickly, if you would like to join us on our monthly Parkrun trip, our next one will be on 30th March. Please vote in the poll which one you want to go to here and we'll go to the one which has the most votes. Would be great to have you there!

Great job last night everyone! You got so much done in such a short amount of time, it would have taken Myra hours and hours to do that all herself! Enjoy the rest of your week and see you next time at Charlton House!!