7 runners ran 5km to spread the GoodGym word in Southwark

Come hell or high water every Wednesday evening runners can be found gathering at Old Spike Roastery to do some running and some good in their local community. Last night was no exception! We spent our Valentines spreading love... (in the form of GoodGym leaflets).

A big welcome and hello to Emily and Erik who joined us for their first GoodGym run

We braved the rain and the wind for a quick warm up on the green before heading off to an undisclosed location which turned out to be... Telegraph Hill. What were we doing there you ask? The clue's in the name! On reaching a vantage point we admired the view for as long as the weather would allow (looking forward to going back in Spring when it's lighter!).

Our task? To deliver GoodGym leaflets to the good people of Telegraph Hill. How did we do it? The runners split into two teams on either side of the road and did a leaflet relay, the front runner posting a leaflet to the house at the top of the hill and coming back to tag in the second runner who posted one at the next house. We focused on two things whilst going up the hill: having our arms at 90 degree angles to our body and swinging them like a pendulum and taking shorter steps than usual. After one leg of the relay each, the two teams finished their respective side of the road together and off we headed home, popping the last few leaflets in letterboxes as we went.

A big cheer for Hanna who did her 47th deed tonight - nearly at the big 5-0 Hanna let's do this!

A great task well done team, I expect the calls to come rolling in anytime now.

See you next week!

It stopped...the rain stopped!

And nine lovely runners believed me and came along for a top night in Southwark.

A big GoodGym welcome to Carole, Jessamy and Becky who joined for the first time.

After a rather long intro speech (sorry!) we got going with Michael kindly backmarking and myself leading the way. We took a slightly longer route to avoid the hordes on Peckham Rye before cutting down the old Surrey Canal and making our way to Burgess Park, the home of the Southwark Tigers junior rugby club. There we were met by Vernon who outlined the tasks at hand.

This week we were building some shelves, landscaping some potholes and moving some equipment between the storage containers. Vernon described the storage containers as the hub of the club as the equipment is so important to what they do. The problem is that with all that equipment going in and out things had got a bit messy - enter GoodGym Southwark.

We split into three teams and under the headlights of the club minibus we got started! We had a good 40 mins of working time and in that time we cleared the area around the containers, moved some rugby equipment, flattened out the potholes and with a big team effort got two sets of shelves built, connected together and moved into the container. We stopped for a group pic (arms please!) and then headed off for a slightly shorter run back to Old Spike (thanks for backmarking Stuart).

Thanks so much for having me everyone and I hope to see you all again soon!

Top work GGS!

Pritesh

This week, GG Southwark had a change of scene, a long run to bike heaven and a paper chase around the borough.

On this very cold mid January eve, GG southwark were tasked with running the 1.7mile route to Peckham BMX club, to help with some much needed promotion and leaflet dropping.

After a change up of scene, our base for welcomes was instead at the gorgeous little restaurant TUPI on Peckham Rye road. However, we soon outgrew our quaint little abode as who knew peckham goodgym would be such a success on such a cold night with 21 runners in toe!!!

After housekeeping we donned our winter warmers and set to foot on the first leg. With Ed and his pigeon back from honeymoon, it was of course a very fast pack pace at the front. But leading from the back I had just as fierce of a team and managed to get everyones best efforts all the way to task.

Meeting us at the track was CK our host, who wasted no time handing over the stacks and stacks of glossy papers promoting this excellent community club.

With a plan to achieve maximum distributions on route back, the groups ran hard and fast, posting all the way. Thankfully the park is surrounded by a ton of awesome block estates. Therefore we carried out some excellent tempo sprint/jog efforts, all the way round the hood.

As the cold drew in, we switched up directions and spent the next 35mins pavement pounding, heading for home & of course hitting up letter boxes wherever we could.

It was certainly a night to get pulses racing as well as legs. With distances dashed, in a flash, we were done. The end of another goodgym in glorious Peckham.