🌍 LSE Summer School x GoodGym #2

Running has an incredible power to bring people together that transcends borders, backgrounds and experiences - Jack the GoodGym run leader / rookie tour guide with English, Irish and Portuguese heritage, joined Ariola from Albania, Eduarda from Brazil, Herman from Norway and Vincent from Austria - all taking part in LSE's Summer School in London.

This was the 2nd of the LSE Summer School x GoodGym group run series, ongoing until mid August.

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I met this lovely group outside campus by The World Turned Upside Down globe, a 4-meter sculpture by Mark Wallinger. With introductions and a welcome speech done it was time for a quick warm up, and we were off - descending onto an extremely busy Strand. We began slowly but surely weaving our way through the traffic (people, cars, buses, bikes - you name it!).

I learnt that it was Eduarda and Vincent's first time in London (welcome!) and that Ariola had only ever ran a maximum of 30 minutes before. With a planned route of near 7km, my task for the night was to show off our fantastic city (and try to tell some interesting facts along the way), show off some of London's most famous, historical landmarks and together help Ariola run for the longest time/distance ever.

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With it being the UK's third heatwave of the year, our multiple stops to walk on the pavements as well as multiple waits to cross roads, was not too bad in truth. We managed to continue heading west, passing through a bustling Leicester Square & Piccadilly Circus, before finally turning into Green Park on a lovely, wide downhill stretch - a bit quieter and finally some breathing space!

We enjoyed this stretch down Queen's Walk towards our first stop on this running tour of London - Buckingham Palace and The Mall.

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👑 Buckingham Palace & The Mall

Marveling at the size of it, we managed to get right to the front of the gate and take some pictures. We were amazed at the size of the gates and key required to open it. The palace features 775 rooms, including 78 bathrooms, its own post office, a police station, a doctor's surgery, and a private ATM in the basement - perhaps a tad excessive, but still pretty impressive nonetheless.

The palace has been largely unoccupied by the royals since Queen Elizabeth II relocated to Windsor Castle in 2020. Today it functions strictly as a working royal headquarters and a space for official ceremonies. King Charles III and Queen Camilla reportedly prefer to live at nearby Clarence House, just off The Mall.

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🥇 Sub 2 hour marathon world records

From Buckingham Palace I was excited to run down The Mall and show everyone where Kenyan athlete Sabastian Sawe made history by winning the London Marathon 2026 in 1:59:30, alongside Ethiopian debutant Yomif Kejelcha, who finished second in 1:59:41. The first official sub 2 hour finishes - an amazing, groundbreaking moment in the history of sport.

The Mall, positioned directly opposite the Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace, is the final 200 metres of the London Marathon course, which follows a right-hand turn off Birdcage Walk and onto this iconic straightaway.

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It was cool hearing how some of the group had watched it live back home just a few months ago in April - now to be tracing the steps of such incredible athletes was lots of fun.

Interesting fact: The red tarmac on The Mall was deliberately designed to give the visual illusion of a giant red carpet leading up to Buckingham Palace for visiting world leaders and state processions.

We then turned right, off the giant red carpet and into St James's Park, the oldest of London's Royal Parks.

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🌳 St. James's Park & Birdcage walk

We loved the Blue Bridge above St. James's Park Lake - it made for a fantastic view of the London Eye in the distance, so we took the opportunity to take a few more photos here.

A few more interesting facts:

• In the early 1600s, King James I kept exotic animals in the park, including camels, crocodiles, llamas, and even an elephant. Pelicans have also lived in the park for over 350 years.
  
• During World War I, the lake was drained to make room for temporary government offices. It was refilled in 1922.
  
• When the lake was drained for a massive clean-up in 1946, an unexploded World War II bomb was found buried in the mud.

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Onwards from St. James's Park we joined Birdcage Walk. Running along the southern length of St. James’s Park, Birdcage Walk marks the former site of the Royal Aviary, built by James I in the early 17th century to house falcons, hawks, and even exotic animals like camels and elephants.

For 200 years, only members of the royal family and the Hereditary Grand Falconer were allowed to ride alongside the Aviary in carriages. Until 1828, all others had to walk (hence the name).

Interesting fact: At One Birdcage Walk (home to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers), pioneer Frank Whittle presented a groundbreaking paper on the development of the jet engine in 1945.

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🇬🇧 Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, Parliament Square and Westminster Abbey

Birdcage Walk soon turned into Great George Street and Big Ben, towering over everything, beautifully comes into view as we approached Westminster - there were a lot of "wows" at this moment.

This is one of my favourite parts of London and has such magnificent history - from where we were stood we could see Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Parliament Square (and its 12 statues representing world leaders of peace and democracy) as well as Westminster Abbey.

There are 1000s of facts you could tell here, but without the luxury of that much time, we took a few more photos and then headed left up Parliament Street which led to our next stop.

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🚪 10 Downing Street

The thoroughfare from Parliament to Whitehall is home to the Prime Minister's residence at 10 Downing Street, as well as the Ministry of Defence, HM Treasury, and the Cabinet Office. This street is also known for the Cenotaph war memorial.

Downing Street is famously painted black because thick London smog permanently stained the original yellow brick; as a nod to its past, the colour is now intentionally maintained.

😺 Larry the cat

The resident cat of 10 Downing Street is called Larry. Adopted from Battersea Dogs & Cats Home in 2011 to manage a rodent problem, he has since become the longest-serving Downing Street resident, officially outlasting six Prime Ministers.

Sadly, with no Larry in sight (I imagine enjoying a nice air conditioned room), we decided to keep moving and made our way towards Victoria Embankment.

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👀 The London Eye

Along Embankment we took some nice photos of the London Eye and enjoyed the views across the River Thames to Southbank.

Despite initially being designed to be a temporary structure to commemorate the new millennium, the London Eye became an iconic part of London's skyline. Even more interesting facts:

• The pods are numbered 1 through 33. But to avoid superstition, there is no capsule number 13.
  
• On a perfectly clear day, you can see up to 40 kilometers (25 miles) away - far enough to spot Windsor Castle.
• The wheel continuously spins at 26 cm per second, taking about 30 minutes for a complete revolution.
  
• Each of the 32 glass capsules holds up to 25 people and weighs 10 tons about the same weight as 11 London red double-decker buses combined.
  

Ok, on we go!

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🧊 The River Thames

As well as being fun to run alongside, The River Thames (quite usefully) provides two-thirds of London's drinking water. It is one of the most iconic rivers in the world and at 346 km long, it is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the UK.

It also has a very interesting history - I can't help but list a few more facts:

• It used to freeze over: Between the 1600s and early 1800s, the winters were so cold that the river completely froze, leading to "Frost Fairs" where people held markets and skated.
  
• During ‘The Great Frost’ of 1683-84, the river remained frozen for 2 months, and the ice grew to 11 inches thick.
  
• The last ever Frost Fair was held in the winter of 1814, lasting only four days. During this time an elephant was (for some unknown reason) led across the river below Blackfriars Bridge.
  
• The "Great Stink": In the summer of 1858, extreme pollution caused such an awful stench that politicians in the House of Commons had to abandon their sittings, which finally prompted the construction of London's modern sewer system.
  
• Thriving Wildlife: Once declared biologically dead in 1957, the Thames is now considered one of the cleanest rivers in the world that flows through a major city. It is home to roughly 125 fish species, seals, and even seahorses near Greenwich.

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🇪🇬 Cleopatra's Needle

For our final history fix, we passed Cleopatra’s Needle, a 3,500-year-old Egyptian obelisk standing tall above the Thames (one of the oldest monuments in London). It was gifted to the British government in 1819 by the ruler of Egypt, Muhammad Ali to mark military victories against Napoleon.

Transporting this massive stone monument to London was a massive feat. It is 18 metres high and weighs over 180,000kg – about as heavy as a blue whale.

It was towed from Egypt in a custom made iron cylinder, nearly sank in a deadly storm off the French coast, was later recovered and finally erected on the Embankment in 1878. Its twin monument currently sits in Central Park, New York.

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🏃 Running up Arundel Street

Feeling energised from London's evening buzz, we got to Temple station and turned left off Embankment, we climbed the stairs and had to face a final climb in the heat up Arundel Street. Well done everyone, nearly there now.

With the long steep hill out the way we had just a short remaining stretch up Aldwych and Kingsway and we were back to Wallinger's globe.

All that was left to do was a cool down, take a few more photos and celebrate what we'd achieved together - not forgetting to say a big well done to Ariola for running her longest distance and time ever 👏

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🙌 Thank you & good luck! 🇦🇹🇧🇷🇦🇱🇳🇴

It was lovely to run with you Vincent, Eduarda, Ariola and Herman!

I hope you enjoyed the run, getting to know each other and hearing a bit about London's history. It's an amazing city so try to see as much of it as you can. Good luck with the remainder of your summer school and best wishes to you all!

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Want to join a GoodGym session near you? See all upcoming sessions here.

LSE has also carried out a 2 year evaluation on the impact of participating in GoodGym - the result? An "extraordinary" effect on wellbeing. Read more details here.

A special run, this one - a magical mystery tour of the locations that made up the first ever group run and the first ever coach run - from over 16 years ago (💾 📼 📟)!

Why? Well, to bid farewell to a special guy. He's tall, he's pale, he's handsome, he has an OBE. It's goodgym's founder Ivo Gormley. Many words were said about this man at the leaving party after the run, at the beautiful Calthorpe Community Garden, so we are not going to attempt to do him justice here. But the fact that a group of otherwise strangers, all wearing their red and black uniforms with pride, were gathered on the steps of York Hall (can you use their toilet? NO) a full sixteen years after the first group of otherwise strangers gathered on the steps of York Hall, to run around and help some people, has to mean something about how powerful and enduring Ivo's idea has been.

Warm up? LEG SWINGS UP THE WAZOO 🦵🏿💨 💨💨 - led masterfully and mindfully by Ade - along with some other limbs and muscles essential for running.

Bags loaded up in the Mechanical Cycling Machine™️ (it's Fast Boi Shaun Dixon on a cargo bike 🚚), we are led off by Euclides Montes who, by his own admission, doesn't actually know the area at all. But who cares?! It's the running that counts! More being lost equals more running! For the relatively small Venn diagram of people who were both a) on a goodgym run and b) knowledgeable about football, Darren performed the role of Roving Reporter (bluetooth speaker) with the GOALS! GOALS! GOALS! from England's match against DR Congo. There were indeed three goals but it wasn't a pretty picture for the 68 minutes between goal 1 and goal 2. We ran past some awfully concerned looking pub goers! But it had a happy ending WAHEEEYYYYY ⚽️.

First stop (probably, can't remember the order because the goals were so compelling) was St Hilda's East Community Centre - the site of the VERY FIRST GOODGYM GROUP TASK. In 2009, Ivo and 13 others emptied a cupboard. And how! St Hilda's is awesome - long-term friend of gg Tower Hamlets, the Centre (led by Lucy) provides bilingual advisory services around employment 🧑🏾‍⚖️, offers activity clubs to combat loneliness 🎯, exercise classes for the elderly 🪑 - it's the kind of place that communities across the country utterly depend upon.

Question, is it possible to belong to goodgym for 12 years and still not know the name of common little yellow flowers 🌼 that come in pots? Answer: Yes! But we planted them on the roof. Those who were particularly confident at differentiating between plants (alive) and plants (dead) also performed a valuable weeding service (let's hear it for weeds 🌱!), leaving things very spruce and cheery up on the terrace for users of the Centre to enjoy.

Next stop, just round the corner off Arnold Circus, where one Ian Drysdale (runs a long way, never looks sad 👨🏻‍🦱) gave us the next bit of the history tour. DID YOU KNOW that Ivo and Ian worked together in a social-enterprise-cum-think-tank in Shoreditch, before goodgym even existed? If you didn't, you could guess. Ian showed us the EXACT SPOT where Ivo first turned to him and said, "Ian I have an idea about a club where people run around and do helpful things instead of just be in the gym" and Ian was like, "WHAT? No Way!" and Ivo was like, "Yes absolutely WAY and I'm doing it, and you're DOING IT WITH ME because you know about computers 🤓 and I only know about films and being kindly." I am fairly confident this is what was said. And so goodgym became a thing with a name and a team.

One! More! Stop! It was only TERRY'S HOUSE wasn't it! "Who's Terry?" - have you been living under a rock? Terry was the clay-pipe-collecting (no, still no idea), amateur-boxing, newspaper-reading, Ivo-appreciating elderly man who became the defacto first-ever goodgym coach. Ivo used to run to his house and there they did have a chat, and that really was it and that was kind of the point. Another goodgym man John Hunter (👋🏻) has also been a long-time coach visit-doer and so said some words about this. Those words were like: "Having been running to my coach Florence 👵🏿 for 6 years, and then Richard 👴🏻 for nearly 2 years now, I have learned a couple of things about what it means to make these visits. It is a friendship, not a service, and it has the potential to be profound for both of you." They were very serious words and I'm not crying, you're crying.

With that, the history had been retold, and it was time to jog on 🏃🏻‍♂️🏃🏻‍♂️- to Calthorpe, and a garden full of over..ooh, a hundred? people with love and admiration in their hearts for the phenomenon that is goodgym. Ivo is a very humble man, but let's be honest, it wouldn't exist without him, would it?