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.

I go out when I want except on Wednesdays when I go running to pull weeds and plant bulbs (Pondlife)

This week we had 16 GoodGym-ers show up to help on our longest run in AGES! I don't know if that means everybody loves a long run or just that everybody wanted to help make sure we got enough done in our shorter task time.

Either way, you're all wonderful!

We were joined by GG newbiew Dominic, who hadn't run for years but was still super speedy.

Seeing as the run was real long, we split into two teams: the speedy lot and the party pacers, with Julie leading the party group and me leader the others.

Thanks to my medium sense of direction and Niamh helping out with her own medium sense of direction, we did an extra half a kilometer or so (including the biggest hill) and arrived at the same time as the other group anyway. Luckily on the way home Rhiannon directed us a way that didn't mean we had to go back up the massive hill we came down to get to the park entrance!

At the task we were greeted by three volunteers, already hard at work. Our task was to pull out all the weeds and take them to the compost round the side. We only had 15 minutes, but with 16 pairs of hands, we still blitzed it. The Friends of Stationers Park will be planting some new bulbs and bringing the pond back to life.

The volunteers told us it would have taken them a couple of weeks to get as much done on their own.

Everybody did so good!

Next week will be my last ever run, so I hope you can make it!