What a better way to start the bank holiday weekend with a planting session at Denmark Hill Community Garden.

After two group run visits to dig out the stony trench, we were in prime position to start planting the hedge saplings that were meant to be planted like a month ago. Yet, the roots were still wet and strong, so Rose and Sam positioned out the hazel, willow and two other types of trees saplings that were kindly donated by Southwark Council.

By the time we laid it all out, we were joined in by two other residents who came to help out put in the soil and add woodchip mulch on top.

All in all, the session took just over an hour! Funding the future.

Waiting outside Old Spike Peckham was Maria and Alex, who had just come back from three weeks out in Australia, Japan and South Korea, so we caught up on his adventures as Lindy, James, Paulin and Josie, who came back for her two GoodGym session since her first back in January as she had other commitments on a Wednesday. However, we welcomed Sarah who came for her first GoodGym session ever! Welcome Sarah!

We knew Emma and Rosalind would meet Paulin and Rose at Denmark Hill Community Gardens and Richard and Jo, who was celebrating her 100th good deed tonight at Thorlands Gardens. However, before all that, Sam had to go through his customary speech and do the full version for newbie, Sarah. Just before leaving for a warm up, everyone introduced themselves and asked the ice breaker snap poll and question for tonight, since its Denim Day as well as Stop Food Waste Day, is it acceptable to wear double denim and what tips would you give for stopping food waste?

It started off mixed for the double denim, but ultimately people would wear double denim. Whether they can rock it is another thing... People gave tips like using scraps for soup, stocks and snacks (batter your vegetable peelings and make it into tempura chips), using Too Good To Go and Olio apps, eating once a day, portioning and freezing food.

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Connected with nature

Since the group had to be split in two for the two tasks we had tonight, Maria and James opted to go with Paulin to Denmark Hill Community Garden whereas the rest went to Thorlands Gardens to meet Simon. Yet, they had to ensure they were nice and warm to avoid injury. With Maria backmarking for Paulin's group and Lindy for Sam's, they went off in different directions.

The Denmark Hill Community Garden group continued with what they started last week by deepening and widening the trench, but they didn't get the chance to plant the hedge saplings. This will be done this weekend.

The Thorlands Garden group arrived to find Simon and Richard in the "Walled" garden getting the tools ready. Jo came shortly afterwards to wear her wings as she hit her 100th good deed tonight! Hooray! We split the team in three: Lindy and Sarah took the wheelbarrows to do the woodchip run as Richard and Josie used the mattock and dutch hoe to turn over the soil and take out the weeds as they pushed to connect the woodchip paths. Finally, Alex, Jo and Sam did some weeding as it had been raining a lot recently. As the wheelbarrows of woodchip came through, these were put on the cardboard that had been laid out after the soil had been turned over and raked to be flat.

We completed the task within the allocated 40 minutes as we were encouraged by the 90s tunes in honour of denim day taking us back through the years. Tune after tune!

After acknowledging our great work with a few group photos and putting the tools away back in the "Walled" garden, off we went back to Old Spike Peckham and made it back for 20:30 to meet the others for a good stretch.

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out last night! Rose and Simon were really pleased with what we got done as per usual. I hope you'd enjoyed your first and second sessions, Sarah and Josie, respectively. Thank you to Maria and Lindy for backmarking their respective runs.

It was great to put up Old Spike Peckham and welcome back Sophie who has been in Australia for the past few months. It was also good to see Lucy who hadn't been around these past few weeks. As Maria, Isaac, Rosalind, Daryl, Paulin came in, they discussed about the precious six inches of top soil that is the life blood of humanity. Some deep stuff and quite fitting as our ice breaker snap poll had to do with Earth Day: if you had to go with one policy: clean the ocean of plastics, stop deforestation or embrace cleaner and sustainable energy, which one would you go for? As it hit 18:45, Sam got on with his usual speech and asked for his ice breaker question, he asked which charity people have run or would run for if they did the London Marathon?

In the snap-poll, most want to embrace cleaner and sustainable energy, a couple said clean the ocean and no one went for deforestation. For the marathon question, we had a variety of charities including GoodGym.

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Bath time

Opting for a warm up in the alleyway due to the route taking us out that way, Sam had to do a quick warm-up as the ice-breaker question took too long. With Maria backmarking, off the group went through the backstreets of Peckham/East Dulwich to arrive at East Dulwich station, through the park and the backroute to get to Sunray Avenue near North Dulwich. They had to push and run up the hill for the final part to make it to Denmark Hill Community Garden. Here they met Rose, her partner, Richard just arrived and shortly afterwards so too did Jo and Phil. After a quick introduction, Rose outlined the two main tasks. Firstly, to move three bathtubs out of the way to make space and room for the second task. The second task was to dig a trench a spade deep and a forearm wide.

We split into teams with the girls diving into moving the bath tubs as a group. Paulin, Sophie, Lucy and Rosalind took on the first bath tub finding it somewhat easier than it looked as these bathtubs were filled with soil. The others soon followed to move tub two and three, but Louise, Maria and Jo picked up the dutch hoe and shovels to make a start on the trench. With limited tools, each person took it in turn to help out dig this trench as we soon realised it would be harder than we thought as we couldn't dig deeper than 20 centimetres before encounting gravel and brick. We realised with 10 minutes left that we could only prepare as much as we could and opted to come back next Wednesday - splitting the group with one half going to Thorlands Gardens in Camberwell and the other coming back here.

All was not lost as we had the first HIIT session with Louise and Jo being the only ones joining in and right at the end, we were treated to fresh mint tea, which was a blessing as the night took a cold turn after such a promising sunny start.

After sipping down a warm cuppa, we ran down the hill down to Old Spike in no time and made it back for 20:30.

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out last night! Rose was really pleased that we made a start and happy that we can come back next Wednesday to finish the job. Thank you to Maria and Paulin for backmarking.

Maria and Sam met up Rose for this last minute setup session at Denmark Hill Community Garden to turn over and put down leaf mulch around the base of a few plants as Rose needed the garden to look pleasing in the video she was going to do on Sunday for a funding proposal. We also helped with litter picking.

Paulin, Maria and Sam met up super early at 08:30 to help Rose tidy up Denmark Hill Community Garden before their community day for local residents.

The main tasks included litter picking and raking leaves to ensure the ground had space for a gazebo, tables and chairs later.

We smashed the task within half the time as we made our way slowly to the next task all together.

We haven't had a proper summer in England and our last Wednesday in July only summed it up - downpours. As Sam waited inside Old Spike, runners like David, Emma, Tim, Isaac, Nelly, Paulin and Claire all came in to take shelter, catch-up and listen in to Sam's speech.

After Sam delivered his intro speech, they made their way to the alleyway (as they were going to head out this way and the Green was wet and slippery) to do their warm-up. Sam prepared them in advance for tonight's ice-breaker question, which was: Two days ago was National Wine and Cheese Day, what would be your pairing and the second question, since we will be doing our first HIIT session of the year, what is your favourite workout exercise?

There were a variety of wines and cheeses that I forget, but the exercises I do remember. We had from wall sits to planks to squats and ab crunches.

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The impossible compostable

Running in the spitting rain, we ran through the backstreets of Peckham and East Dulwich to get to East Dulwich Station before venturing behind Champion Hill towards North Dulwich and finished on Sunray Avenue with a hill climb. We took our time and arrived with a few minutes to spare. Thanks to Paulin for backmarking on the way there and to Emma on the way back.

We met Rose at the top of Sunray Avenue as we arrived at Denmark Hill Community Garden, but unfortunately she had received devastating news about funding for another project. We let her collect her thoughts whilst we litter picked the area of rubbish. At this point, both Clare and Folarin had walked over to the task.

When Rose opened the tool shed, she knew there would be one task we could tackle in a group. There was a compost bin that should have been collecting compostable food waste from the residents and from the garden, but upon tipping the compost out; we realised nothing was usable. Unfortunately, some residents were using this compost bin as a normal bin - plastic bags, dog poo, etc. were in this compost. We took it in turns (in groups) to bag the waste in black bin liners and threw it away in the normal bins. The smell from the compost will stick in our memories.

Whilst one team was dealing with the compost and watering plants that did not receive enough rain water (due to trees shading the beds), the other lot were doing a 5 minute HIIT blast with Sam. The five stations were: push-ups, wall sit, squats, lunges and tricep dips. Every station was a minute long. After one round, the teams were swap jobs.

The rain did increase, so with 10 minutes to spare and having completed the main task, Sam decided to call it there and run back to Old Spike (via the quickest route).

With no motivation to stretch in the rain, we rushed into Old Spike to "get dry". Hoping for drier Wednesday night group runs in August!

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Thank You to all the GG-ers

A personal thanks from me to all those who came out tonight! It was pissing it down with rain from start until the end, so I appreciate that you all are weathered runners and took on the task like champions too! The added HIIT session did burn my triceps for days, so I hope you all got to feel the effects of the workout.

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Thank You to Rose

GoodGym is all about getting fit and doing good! We praise the runners/cyclists/walkers who come to get fit and help out, but we often forget about our task owner. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Rose for coming out in the rain after receiving some devastating news too. We hope we could put a little smile on our face by cleaning and clearing out that compost bin plus doing some litter picking.