Tonight was the first GoodGym Run club session. This will be a monthly session involving a structured running session generally involving some form of interval training followed by a litter pick.

Eve and Morwenna did the running session, led by Jonny who was on his bike.

Eve and Morwenna ran down to Millenium Point as a warm up and then it was straight into a fartlek session. This is a swedish term meaning 'to play with speed'. This basically means it's unstructured interval training. The session was 2 x 8 minute fartlek blocks with a 2 minute rest between sets. The efforts ranged from fast 20 second sprints, up to a more sustained 1 minute effort. The efforts were interspersed with 'easy running' recoveries. Both Morwenna and Eve pushed hard and were especially nippy on the 20 second efforts, catching Jonny by surprise at one point as he led the way on his bike.

Once done the 'warm down' was an uphill slog back to 1000 Trades.

Back at base we met Miriam who'd come for the litter pick. We collected our equipment and off we went to do our 'do good' bit. We found a pineapple skin, hence the pun I couldn't think of!

Once done we had a picture before heading back to 1000 Trades, were Morwenna, Eve and Miriam stopped for a drink and Jonny used the last of the light to bike home.

Tonight in the heatwave Jonny and Eve joined Josie to clear more leaves from the Jewellery Quarter Cemetery.

We cleared a load leaves, with our green plastic hands, putting them in big sacks and then putting them into compost.

Jonny cycled to the session and Eve ran there and back from home, running around 5k in total.

Next month we'll be back again for another JQ cemetery task :)

Tonight GG Brum had a lovely warm summers evening for a task in the Jewellery Quarter Cemetery. The task was to carry on from where we left off last time and remove more of the dead leafs from next to the cemetery walls.

We filled plenty of the big white sacks with copious leafs, before taking them over to compost.

Once the task was done, it was time for some hill training (hence the pun!) Well for Morwenna and James anyway. Jonny has a dodgy achilles so he biked to the task. Anyway both ran very well. The session was 10 minutes of Kenyan hills, building some endurance, then after a short rest, it was time for 4 all out hill sprints to builld that speed endurance and a bit of lactic tolerance! A bit of Sports Science mumbo jumbo for you there! Once done we all worked back to 1000 Trades, with Morwenna and James having a well deserved pint.

Tonight we welcomed Raf to GoodGym for the first time.

Raf and Jonny joined Josie for a great task at the JQ cemetery. The task was to use the giant green plastic hands to scoop up a load of leafs, then filling some huge sacks and putting them into compost.

The 3 of us managed to do 3 pillars in the time, as you can see from the before and after pictures. We'll be back next month to finish off :)

We had both runners and walkers at tonight's task with Jonny having ran about 7k from home and Raf getting her walking steps in.

This is a fantastic task, please do come to the next session at the JQ cemetery in a few weeks.

On Tuesday night James and Jonny helped out at Lillian de Lissa Nursery School.

We were joined by task owner Laura who explained the task was to remove months and months of leaves from the paths around the nursery.

We got to work, filling at least 12 wheel barrows full of leaves, emptying each one into the skip.

Laura was so pleased and sent us the before and after pictures, so you can see for yourself what a fantastic job we did :)

Tonight we were down on the canal for a litter pick, so armed with our litter pickers we ran to the canal before filling a bag full of litter. We then had a pleasant walk in what was somewhat mild temperatures compared to last week up to Aston Lock were we dropped off the bags.

After that we headed to Millenium Point to do some intervals. We haven't done these for a long time so it was good to get back to some old GG ways!

The session was 30 secs/45/1min/1min/ 45/ 30 secs, all off 45 secs rest. James and Morwenna certainly blew the 'interval cobwebs' away with the session!

Once done it was a steady run back to 1000 Trades, for a nice 6k in total :)