Take another litter piece off my path now GoodGym

7 Goodgymers helped their local community in King's College London
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King's College London

Tuesday 10th April 2018

Report written by Alyx Murray-Jackman

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Last night 7 fantastic runners were not put off by the rainy forecast, and were determined to use their Tuesday evening run to do some good in the local community. We even had two new faces to welcome to the crew - give Josh and Muhammad a cheer everybody!

Luckily for us the clouds held back long enough for our entire run and we managed 4.6km, a tough outdoor fitness session and a whole lot of litter picking around Waterloo Farm. But before we did any of this, we had some news and introductions. After congratulating Paul on his MMM (Mega Manchester Marathon) we heard about...

  • Westminster Monday lunch run clubs: Each Monday of April at 1pm Joel will be leading a session from Westminster pier, perfect for those wanting a fitness fix on their lunch break. He will go through some drills, conditioning and of course some running. You can sign up for the next one here

  • Volunteering at the Hackney Half, for which you will be rewarded with a shiny free place at future races. You can sign up on the virgin sport volunteer portal here, then let me know (alyx@goodgym.org) so I can add you to the GG water station. You don't need to select a role when signing up.

  • London Marathon GG Cheer Stations - find out more here

  • North London long run happening this Sunday: Sign up here if you fancy doing a 9-10 mile run with some friendly GoodGym faces this weekend. There will be a couple of groups running at different paces, so hopefully something for everyone (so long as you can do the distance!).

After a quick warm up, and finding out that it was Anna's 50th good deed (this shows she's spent a lot of time giving to others in the community and making London a much better place to live for us all, so give her a cheer!) we made our way over to Waterloo Farm, with Paul back-marking. Unfortunately the Farm Manager wasn't able to get into London today, but he did tell us of some areas around the farm that were in deep need of a clean up, that him and his volunteers could not usually get around to doing. So donned with some very fetching "bluple" (blue and/or purple?!) gloves and some bin bags we split into two groups and made our way around the outskirts of the farm, picking up any litter that we came across. We managed to fill 4 bags full, which is 4 bags worth of litter that the community won't need to see when visiting the farm this week - great work team!

Following our task we did a quick Tabata style HIIT workout (thank GG Wandsworth's Ana for the fitness session idea!) which involved 20s of hard work, followed by 10s rest and this was repeated 8 times (4 minutes total). We did this twice, so well done everyone for sticking with it! For the first round we alternated between squats and burpees, and for the second round we did curtsey squats and spidermans - an all-round great workout for the legs and the core, both important muscle groups to work on for posture and power when running.

We ran the final 2km back to base and did some stretches to finish off our evening piece of getting fit and doing good. If you're up for joining us next week, when we will be heading to Brunswick Square, you can sign up here.

We said our farewells, and wished Paul luck for his Brighton Marathon this weekend (yes, he's got 2 weekends of back to back marathons - give this man a cheer!).

All of the pun credit goes to Paul and Anna - fabulous work!


Session Leader
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Oasis Farm Waterloo
urban farm and community resource

Oasis Farm Waterloo is an urban farm and community resource in Waterloo, a hidden gem just moments from the Southbank, and the closest farm to Parliament.

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Attendees
Emma Presley Abbott
Alyx Murray-Jackman
Sarah Zielonka
Josh Ferreira
Muhammad

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