Wow, what a great first session launching GoodGym Edinburgh with a bang!

Big shout out to all the runners and walkers who turned up for the debut Tuesday Group Run. We were joined by GoodGym CEO Hannah Crane who made the trip up from London to celebrate Scotland's first GoodGym community getting started.

We set off from Edinburgh Street Food with our running and walking groups and made good time down to Leith Community Croft where the incredible Ali from Earth In Common was on hand to share out tools, tell us about the work they do and talk us through what needed done.

I was blown away by how much weeding, wheelbarrowing, clearing and tidying up we were able to get through in a short space of time. The raised beds were looking in good shape once we were done, we had managed to clear a good chunk of material off site into a skip and made a good start on the market garden (potential for a follow up task here I think).

Finishing off with a 'Bring Sally Up' squat challenge before tucking into some discounted grub and drinks at Edinburgh Street Food was a real highlight for me. Looking forward to seeing what other kinds of short workouts we can squeeze into future runs!

A huge thank you to Places for People for their support in helping bring GoodGym Edinburgh to life. Their partnership has been key to getting this new community off the ground.

For the next sessions I'll be looking for helpers in run leading and photography. There are also opportunities to get involved in setting up tasks as a member of Taskforce. if you'd like to help out with GoodGym Edinburgh just drop me an email.

big love,

Dave

13 people ran 6k to help feed the homeless and organise clothing

Tonight we welcomed Nick and Dan to GoodGym Brum for the first time, please give them a cheer.

On a lovely night for running, sunny and slightly cooler than recent days, we headed for the mission. Taking advantage of the light evenings we made our way via the canal once again. On arriving at the Mission the group were split in three. One group helped in the kitchen, another did the serving and the third group helped sort out some clothes and rather a lot of socks (hence the pun!) upstairs. I haven’t seen as many socks as that since Christmas!

Everyone ‘loves’ hills!

Once done the group gingerly headed to our fitness session destination, just around the corner for the dreaded hills! The task was eight minutes of the them! That was run up as hard as you can, then jog back down to recover, before turning for another oxygen depriving sprint! Dave led the way, showing fantastic form. Aaron, Rob, Dan and Richard were pushing him all the way. Nick was fantastic on his first session, showing great promise. Lee and Simon dug in towards the end on tiring legs, showing great determination. Karin put in a great effort, driving up each hill. Maria, Laura and Fiona, pulled each other a long, Fiona’s form getting better and better as the session went. After eight minutes, everyone was glad when I called ‘time’. Again it was a fantastic group session, everyone working hard and supporting each other. Top work!

Once done the group had a couple of minutes sat on the wall to get their collective breaths back, so it was time for a quick picture before heading back to 1000 Trades.

Ever present Aaron will be missing the next few weeks, as he’s on his holidays before going under the surgeon’s knife for a minor op, but he has promised he will come along to the World Cup social on the first Tuesday in July. Incidentally we have now got the upstairs room in 1000 Trades booked from 7pm onwards with a screen, so hopefully see as many of you there as possible :-)

Next week we will be out doing good again, it would be great if you could join us sign up here.

6 runners ran 5km to help the Canal and River Trust. Tonight saw a rather wet start to 2018 for Birmingham GoodGym, we had though a marvellous group of 6 runners who braved the elements and post-Christmas food and drink excess!
They were up for the challenge presented this evening of a litter pick along the canal two days post New Year! The regular litter picks we do are part of a link up GoodGym Birmingham has developed with the Canal and River Trust to help keep the lovely canals of Birmingham a clean place for everyone to enjoy. A little-known fact is that Birmingham has more canals than Venice, we also are meant to have more trees than Paris but I’m not as sure how they know for that one! Anyway enough with all that, onto to the task, being a smaller group tonight we decided to stick together and head to a well-known litter hot spot identified by David. On reaching the location we could certainly see that a very jolly New Year had been enjoyed by the locals! The team set to work quick and with help from headtorches were soon finding lots of rubbish hidden and scattered around our designated area. The group all got stuck in and worked really hard for 20 minutes at the location and by the end we had 5 bags brimming with rubbish, a bag per person when excluding the run leader!

5 Bags Full!

Then it was off to the drop off location at Aston locks which being a good few minutes further down the canal provided an extra bit of strengthening work with carrying those bags! Once our obligatory selfie was taken, with the team giving me some help on lighting and angle for it (still didn’t get the flash working but one step at a time right?!) we headed back along canal for our fitness session. Tonight this took place under the Snow Hill tunnel providing some slight protection from the rain which had begun again. First up was a series of strength and HITT exercises such as press ups, tricep dips, tuck jumps and finally in honour of our Trainer Jonny the wall sit! The team showed great effort and energy and when each set of the exercise was done it was a sprint to the stairs….not to escape though just as the rest point before the group re-grouped and took the recovery run back to the locks for the next exercise. Great work shown by both David’s powering through those press ups and hitting the sprints!

Leg workout!

However that was not the end…..we moved up next to the stairs for our next set of conditioning exercises focused on those all important legs! We did a minute of work on calf raises, ski squats, scissor lunges, leg swings with knee lift and squats into calf raises! Top work from George on the calf raises, great technique from Karin on the squats and Morwenna put in some great work on those lunges! Again really fantastic work rate by everyone, consider the mince pies and turkey well and truly worked off! From there we had a run back to base where we completed our cool down stretches. Many thanks for everyone who came along tonight! Jonny will be back with us next week with I’m sure news on his Australia adventure and a great task at Suited for Success, certainly one not to miss! A reminder on items which can be brought for donation include: Mens suits, women's suits, skirts, dresses, trousers, blouses, shirts, jackets, coats, smart shoes, jewellery, scarfs, belts, handbags, women's tights, new and packaged underwear. Please ask friends, family and work colleagues so that we can support this fantastic charity who help get disadvantaged people into work. Next week we will be out doing good again, it would be great if you could join us sign up here