14 amazing runners braved the threat of imminent rain during a balmy 5.5k run to help the lovely folk at Chapman's Green

Tonight, the wonderful runners from Haringey GoodGym welcomed their new trainer and, in what seem as the fashion, they were lovely and made him feel right at home. Result!

Big shout out to Mike who visited us for his second run and got stuck right in; to Rob from Barnet GoodGym for stopping by (hand in that transfer request, son - we'd like to see again soon); and to regular runner Latoya who completed a wonderful 10k run at the weekend despite having spent a whole week surviving on rations for charity. Hero!

A North London quick-sand

Tonight we headed towards Chapman's Green, running through a very peaceful Lordship Rec and a not so peaceful Lordship Lane. You win some, you lose some. All in all, it was around 2.8k. We were welcome by task owner Rob from Friends of Chapman Green, who set us to work on sanding the benches on the bowling green in the grounds.

Our keen runners did a fantastic job and managed to leave around half the benches on the green sanded. We can't wait to come back and finish the job if Rob and the Friends of Chapman's Green will have us back.

We then grabbed the mandatory Insta-worthy selfies and set off back for base camp.

By the time we were stretching outside Tottenham Green Pools, we had run a cool 5.5k.

No rest for the GoodGymmers

Next week we'll be visiting the lovely folk at Somerford Grove Community Project, who do a great job, and need some help with some weeding and some wood stacking. Come play with us!!!

E

So much love for GoodGym Haringey!

Tonight I had the privilege of covering in Tottenham while we’re waiting for new trainer Euclides to take the reigns from next week. I just know he’s going to be great and what a wonderful bunch of people he gets to run with every week! We had an amazing 15 of us out despite the ominous looking weather, these guys are hardened GoodGymers!

Tonight’s run was in partnership with The Great Get Together as are all of this week's GoodGym sessions across the country. It is an initiative founded by the family and friends of Jo Cox who was killed on 16 June 2016 and was created to reject divisive politics and bring our communities together and celebrate all that unites us.

We used our run to celebrate kindness, respect and all we have in common! #moreincommon

We kicked things off with some warm up drills while going round the group and sharing one good thing that’s happened to us in the past week. Lovely to spread some positivity and kindness on what could otherwise be a dreary Wednesday evening!

After that we were set to go! With the rain just about holding off at that point, Dave kindly led the way for us as we meandered our way to help the lovely Layla at Cafe Connect. And boy did she have a job for us!

7 huge bags of green waste needed to be split into smaller more manageable bags to be taken away, in their current state the removal company wanted £600 to cover the cost but it would be free if we could split it up. GoodGym to the rescue!

Bagging a good deed!

The whole group worked tirelessly for over half an hour shovelling, scooping and scrapping all the waste into bite sized portioned sacks ready to be collected later this week. Not even the biblical downpour could deter us and we fought to the bitter end to get as much cleared as possible ahead of this weekends event which is why we were needed so urgently this evening.

A Tottenham Celebration of Windrush Heritage is a community festival of fun, friendship and family happening this weekend and Layla was so grateful to have our last minute help to enable them to have the outdoor space ready in time.

The aforementioned heavy rain put paid to the fitness session in the park we had planned so instead we settled for an indoor chair squats blast and were also treated to some amazingly delicious home grown tomatoes, freshly cut oranges and tasty pistachios. I can tell you now, I’m definitely coming back to Haringey!

With the rain clearing we took off our soggy coats and headed back to the start for a quick stretch and high fives all round!

Haringey, it’s been a pleasure!

I don’t know if the group was either happy or sad that the primary task cancelled. I am sure they would have been happy to do the task but mixed feelings after doing a 8km round trip. Our task today west next door to the meeting spot. So to make sure every had a good stretch of the legs, we did a 1 km loop to get our hearts pumping a bit faster. When we reached the green we was welcomed by Laura with a mixture of Jobs for us to do. Rebecca and Madeleine went to go pick up some Dandelions. Rebecca’s army background showed in her dedication to always get to the route of a problem. Julie and Catherine was grouped up to clear out some pretty plants which seems to be over grown. The rest of the group was doing a wonderful job clearing the rest of the Park. The difference was seen by the end of the task. We finished with a easy fitness session and headed back before the clouds fully opened up on us. I will like to say a big welcome to Madeleine and hope you had a good first run after a 9 year hiatus.

Sentence of the day goes to Rebecca when she said "Was that really 1k?"

Dont forget to signup to the Goodgym Olympics here. Sign up to Rough Runner here. Check out Race the Neighbours here.

12 fantastic runners joined me in Haringey to run over 5km to help out Lorenco House with some serious garden work

I would like to say that I welcomed everyone, ran through the wonderful ways that you can do with GG, talked about the task and went through the health and safety run down and even covered the news…however, with a huge 10 minutes spent at traffic lights on the cycle up to Haringey I arrived at a bout 18:59. Huge thanks to Nurjehan who signed everyone in and did all of the above for me. TaskForce to the rescue! Incidentally, big big GG welcome to Kemmi and Mike who were here for the first time! Hurrah!

Stationery time

Once I did finally arrive we got everyone moving, did a quick intro and Sarah took the party pace group off! The rave pace group (we might need to work on these names) did a few more warm-up exercises and then I let Dave lead the way – how nice I am!

Rave pace arrived just a minute or so before the party pace team and we were all welcomed by Gerald at Lorenco house. He explained that this was an assisted living residence for older people with learning difficulties. After a quick tour (hello £10,000 fish tank!) we were shown the task at hand! We had a massive planter to line and fill with soil, as well as some planting and solar lamp placement.

Blooming L

We split into three teams – the Lining team, the Lifting team and the Lights team! Everyone took to their jobs with aplomb and before we knew it we showed Gerald and his team what GG are all about. Kemmi, it turns out, was an expert leader and carefully guided, Mike, Ella, Nurjehan to a superb job lining the planter. Dave, Latoya, Veronika and Alex wasted no time shifting 50 heavy bags of soil with great speed – impressive! Rhiannon, Sarah, Julie and Freya expertly placed out the lights whilst working with the resident cat and showed some impressive agility jumping a not so small fence!

With five minutes to go and the final tacks in place to line the planter we told Gerald we were going to go all hands on deck to fill the planter full with soil. He had his doubts but GG Haringey are not ones to mess about and with incredulous speed and co-ordinated teamwork the planter was full to the brim! Wonderful work everyone!

Super Haringey

With a group photo done we split into our respective groups, waved our goodbyes and promised to come back for more jobs and before we knew it we were back at the pool, doing our stretched and going home tired but satisfied at another smashing session!

Pennie is back next week – get signed up for her penultimate session as GG Haringey leader!

Thanks as ever for having me and hope to see you all soon!

Cheers
Pritesh

This week 14 epic GoodGym-ers ran 5km to help Westbury Banks Nature Reserve hang their new sign

We were joined by FOUR NEWBIES, making last night's run the biggest so far this year (think). Go give Veronika, Freya, Alex and Ella a cheer!

We started off with warm up drills to gey the legs ready for the running, followed by the Burpee Name Game, to get everybody's brains and hearts working.

We then headed off towards Westbury Banks Nature Reserve. Julie was our trusty back-marker, while i lead the way with Rhiannon and Nurjehan.

We had a wall sit on the corner to give the back marker a chance to catch the front, much to the amusement of the local residents. One boy even joined us for a wall sit, but drew the line at running with us (by running away from us).

We took the scenic route last night through the park, detouring through some trees and steps to add a nice little change from the road side.

A quick run back to keep the group together and we were off again through the next park and down the hill.

When we got to Westbury, Luke and the gang were waiting with all the letters.

The first part of our task was a novel one: take photos holding each letter so Luke could create a gif.

Part two was to hang the letters up.

We had 30 minutes to take all the photos and hang all the letters. Ro said it took them 4 hours to hang the letters last time - definitely didn't take that long with 14 people!

The team split in half, with someone inside the fence and someone outside the fence, working as a team to hold and hang the letters.

We then took many photos, said our goodbyes and ran to Lordship Rec for some sprint work and Burpees.

We then ran home, including a sprint back up the hill, and another detour through the park. Dave was our trusty back marker on the way home.

Back at base, we stretched, we breathed, we high fived.

Really awesome task last night. Thanks so much guys.