Tower Hamlets celebrated the end of Christmas in charitable style this week. When our planned task was cancelled, Tom discovered that the Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park wanted discarded Christmas trees to make an area for wildlife to enjoy. This request turned into an unconventional but really fun night with fourteen trees in total taken from pavements, front yards and kerbsides. We carried these trees to the Cemetery Park and made our way through the spooky maze of gravestones to drop them off.

Our route home included hill sprints and three different paced groups running back so that there was something for everyone.

I only wish we were going to be there to see the park ranger's face tomorrow morning when they realise they've been visited by the Goodgym post-Christmas angels!

Gabrielle.

Monday evening, Patriot Square. Fresh-faced, firm-bodied individuals assemble in a bedroom at the Town Hall Hotel, and discuss the best way to spend the next 2 hours. We agree unanimously: let's nip over the road to the Hollybush Estate, let's lend a hand in the community centre garden, let's show those leaves who's boss! And then let's go for a run.

At Hollybush we are greeted by Margaret, who equips us with head-torches, gloves, and garden waste bags big enough to hold a small car. The weather is on our side: the rain has stopped and the wind has died down. We start raking and lifting leaves with child-like enthusiasm, and we hadn't even started putting the leaves in the compost bin and jumping up and down on them yet. No hedgehogs were harmed in the having of this fun.

It was all over too soon and we paused to admire the emerald green lawn - once again visible now the leaves were gone - and thank Margaret for having us, before dashing to London Fields.

Tom had been exceptionally motivating all evening and he must have been in a good mood, because he now let us have a lovely 10 minute run. That was it, a heartwarming 10 minute loop of the park, working just hard enough to be able to speak words not sentences. We were only distracted by all the leaves.

What a refreshing evening. And the troops were home in time for 'SAS: who dares wins' on the telly.

Rose

After a misty morning a clement evening brought 20 GoodGymmers together to move compost. A short run to the Orchard School (almost, but not quite, getting lost on the way) we make it to our task, some trepidation in the air as the last task here involved 16 tonnes of compost... This time however we were lucky… only 4 tonnes! After orders to split up into lifters, diggers and spreaders our job was easily under control, and looking like we may finish early, however early-finishing is not a word in Tom Craggs dictionary and so a fourth group of circuits was created. Even with Tom’s extra group we completed the task with enough time to run a few laps of Well Street Common to get our heart rates up and attempt to blow away the smell from the compost, then back to home for stretching. Another great run and excellent task well done to the 20 hard working runners!

Stephen.

It was a big night at the Tower Hamlet GoodGym run this week! Not only did we have FIVE new runners in the group, we also had a visit from Ivo… so the old timers were out to impress.

After a short warm up we headed down to Stepney City Farm, a local haunt for the group. Simon quickly dashed any hopes of hanging out with cute animals though as he lead us to three big mounds of compost that we had to move to the other side of the farm.

The group quickly grabbed some spades and wheelbarrows and got stuck in! After 30 minutes of frantic shoveling and running back and forth we managed to get the bulk of the compost moved.

Once we’d finished up at the farm we headed back to base via Mile End Park to fit in a bit of ‘relaxed’ Fartlek training. I’m not sure anyone would agree it was relaxed but we clocked up a few extra kilometers before some stretching and cheery goodbyes.

Lisa

15 Runners headed out from the Town Hall Hotel (this week using their spa and swimming pool as a base!) for the short jog over to Hollybush Estate. Afer a series of active stretches and warm up drills we met up with Michael and Margaret who led us into the dark of the estate garden where we spent 30 minutes shifting composted, raking leaves and creating a new flower bed under the bright lights of two head torches and one iphone (other brands also have torches).

After the task we headed off on a 1.5km run to London Fields via a short sprint along Broadway Market. When in the park Tom set us off on a series of short 'pyramid intervals' - 2 minutes fast, 1 minute faster, 30 seconds very fast with minimal lung recovery time in between.

After we have hammered around the park several times we headed back to base for a stretch and to retrieve our bags from our luxurious temporary home.