10 awesome runners ran 4km to help clear the garden at the Age UK Yalding Healthy Living Centre!

Another successful run to do good in the bag! A great turnout from the For Goodness Shakes crew once again, especially on such a cold October morning but thankfully the sun was shining and it was PERFECT running weather!

Since it was Halloween, I thought it would be nice to give everyone a fright by chucking in some intervals before we even made it to the task... The decision got mixed reviews but the effort was 110% from everyone! Kind of.

After 3 fast laps of Bermondsey Spa Gardens, we continued our run and arrived at the Yalding Healthy Living Centre shortly after.

We were greeted by the ever so enthusiastic Catrina who explained a few jobs to be done in the garden. Essentially lots of weeding, leaf clearing and general tidying up so that the visitors and members don't trip up on anything and can enjoy the garden a bit more in these autumn months.

Before we knew it, the shed had been stripped of all its contents and everyone got stuck in! There were some questionable initial tekkers for the leaves with a debate of whether they should be raked directly off the tree.... But we thought we'd concentrate on the fallen ones first!

After half an hour most of the leaves were gone and the tidying up job commenced.

There was a huge pile of rubbish/bags of garden waste, which looked like it had all been there for a number of years and just been forgotten about. The next twenty minutes was all about clearing as much of that as possible and simply transferring to the bins. The wheelbarrow came in fairly handy for this, until it got a flat tire! Meanwhile some of the guys were getting rid of more weeds, turning the soil and raking it out.

It was then time to head back to the office. We cleared everything away, put tools back in the shed, took a couple of photos and ran back to HQ. As GoodGym tasks go, that one was quite a workout!

Hope you all had a nice restful weekend after that!

See you next time!!!

11 awesome runners ran 5k and helped out at the Tabard Garden's Community Allotments!

Yesterday was the fourth installment of GoodGym runs! So far we have helped at a charity shop, cleaned up the Thames and packed up Christmas presents for those in need... so many good deeds! This time, we kept it very local, just around the corner in fact, at the Tabard Gardens Community Allotments.

Since it was a stones throw from the office, we ran around the block a bit to add a bit of distance and then shortly arrived at the allotment. We were greeted by Peter who helps with the upkeep of the place. He explained a few things that needed doing, the main one being to dismantle the fruit cage and dig out all the plants.

Everyone made their way over to the cage and started untying the net. Within minutes it had been removed and it was time to start digging everything up! Everyone grabbed a fork or a shovel and got stuck in! After about 15 minutes, all the shrubs had been removed and set aside for safekeeping. They will be replanted elsewhere in a few days time. Then it was all hands on deck weeding, clearing leaves and picking litter.

Amazingly you guys managed to fill 6 of the big brown bags full of weeds and leaves. It would have taken Peter hours to do that himself so really well done.

He was quite a shy guy but later in the day I received a lovely message from him saying how thankful he was for all of your help. It's not often that he gets volunteers down at the allotment so when he does it makes a huge difference. Nice work!

Need for speeeeeed!

After 40 minutes or so it was time to head off. Sadly we said farewell to the cyclists while the rest of us headed to Bermondsey Spa Gardens for a mini interval session. The circle is about 340 meters all the way around and hardly anyone there so perfect for some fast running! We did a little ladder of 1 lap followed by 1 minute rest, 2 laps 2 mins rest and finally 3 laps 3 mins rest with the aim being to try and keep a consistent pace throughout each interval. It was great to see you all push yourselves and open up your stride a bit! Lots of extremely speedy people in the group! After 6 fast laps it was time for a nice easy cool down jog back to the office and a stretch!

Until next time....!

13 awesome runners ran 4km to help clean up on the River Thames!

It was the second installment of the GoodGym & For Goodness Shakes collaborations and this time it was all about clearing up our London river!

It has been in the news so much recently about single use plastic and how so much of it ends up in the oceans harming the wildlife. Since plastic never decomposes, it just gets broken down into gradually smaller and smaller pieces called micro-plastic and sadly that is the kind of stuff that gets eaten by seabirds and marine animals resulting in millions of deaths each year. Apparently there are more pieces of microplastic in our oceans than there are stars in our galaxy.... CRAZY!!!!!!

We met at the office, distributed some gloves, litter pickers and bin bags and then made our way towards Rotherhithe where I knew of some good unlocked entrances down to the Thames shoreline. Before we were even half way there, loads of stuff had already been collected. Plastic bottles, coffee cups, straws, cigarette butts, carrier bags, crisp packets, cans of drink.... the list goes on!

We arrived at the steps to take us down to the river where there is usually a lot of rubbish that gets washed up at low tide. The team headed down, split up and went different directions along the cobbly river bed. After 20 minutes, the tide was starting to come in and it was time to move on. We went to another location a little further down for the last 10 minutes to collect more stuff. By this point, the bin bags were nearly all the way full and getting heavy, especially with the amount of glass there was lying around!

After 30 minutes it was time to head back so we went a slightly different way to the office, to try and maximise our pickings! All the full bin bags were disposed of in nearby bins and the last two fresh ones distributed! It was all hands on deck on the way back trying to fill them with as much stuff as possible! And it didn't even seem like a struggle! There was so much waste hidden in bushes, in the carparks, on the streets next to the curbs.. just loads when you go looking for it!

The last two bags were filled and we called it a day! A nice gentle jog back to the office to finish off the run!

Great work everyone!! You collected so much waste which is amazing! Lots of people were really appreciative of all the work you were doing, especially the residents near the carpark we did at the end so really well done! See you in a few weeks time for the Christmas special!