A 17-strong crew of Tower Hamlets GoodGymmers, including two very welcome first-timers, had the honour of preparing the Rocky Park in the Hollybush Estate to go down in the horticultural history books... The garden has been nominated for the RHS Britain in Bloom award having already scooped the regional prize!

After a short run to meet the owners Margaret & Michael, our group set about cutting back the hedges, clearing the moss and weeds from around the raised beds and removing the piles of wood and corrugated sheets from what shall henceforth be known as "Spider Corner".

Following the excellent job done by the team, the next stop was Haggerston Park for a series of drills and intervals. Coach Tom took pleasure in making us can-can up and down the public park (with no doubt a few of us secretly enjoying it) but all in the aid of good running form and technique.

Four 1-minute fast-paced runs and some paired shuttle runs around the perimeter of the park finished off the session. Well done to all - an excellent effort and best of luck from all of us to Rocky Park for Thursday's Britain in Bloom judging!

Alexander.

RUN REPORT BY THE ONE AND ONLY LAURA SHARPLES x x x x

Tonight the Brent Goodgymmers were showing that it is indeed 'Girls, Girls' who run the world...! As Ellie, Laura, Claire, Lizzie and Clare were the fab five that made up tonight's Brent Crew.

Tonight was track night! But before we could get down to business, we had work to do and off to St Andrew's Church we went.... Heavens Above! Our task was to clear up all the rubbish from the front of the church ready for the community gardening day on Sunday.

As we rushed at high speed through the busy streets of Willesden we arrived to a photo finish from our good friend Yay-braham!

Gloves on and pickers in the mix, we set to work and powered through the flower beds in 30 minutes. It's safe to say Abraham was in seventh heaven with our pile of bulging bin bags, hallelujah!

With songs of praise ringing in our ears, we tore off in the direction of Willesden sports centre, ready for track.

After a bit of limbering up we were ready for action. Team work was the name of the game tonight and we worked as a well oiled machine to ramp up the pace and run 3 increasingly fast 400 meter laps.

As gravity pulled us back to The Queensberry, it was time for a bit more female bonding and we really showed how nuts we are about goodgym by chomping down on cashews with a side helping of female empowerment.

And with that concluded another great week from the goodgym Brent crew.

Cash-who (cashew- geddit) will join us next week...?

On a clear crisp Islington evening 27 wrapped up GoodGymers ran 6.75k to Claxton House to rip up and breakdown playground flooring, weed flower beds, raise some flower beds with compost and cut back the hedges.

So as normal I was late leaving my house so had to run hard to make my normal train, I got off at Waterloo as normal then things got weird!! Running over Blackfriars Bridge, passing Smithfield market and then Angel where was I going? What day was it?? Had I made a mistake? 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

No No No I hadn't I was on my way to the magnetic GoodGym Islington 😋😋 to help look after the ship along with the every energetic supremely supportive Task Force😎😎 while Simon had a well earned day off.

Great to see such a vibrant and welcoming GoodGym community, GoodGym Vetrans marshalling and encouraging GoodGym newcomers at every turn. And the Newbies getting stuck right into their fitness and doing Good journeys. 👏🏼👏🏾👏🏽

After a much needed warm up to raise our pulses, mobilise our joints and activate those key muscle groups we split into three select units to take to the streets and power our way up the Islington mountain 🏔🏔🏔 for the 3.3k run to Claxton House. 21 short minutes later we had all arrived and we're all gloving up to tackle the tasks ahead. The flower beds were being raised at a fantastic pace in preparation for some Spring planting 🌼🌷🌾🌹. While DJ Pat was pumping out the tunes 🎼🎤🎧📀📀 his glow in the dark decks for the privileged weeding and pruning crew at the front of the building! And the most I quote "Annoyingly Satisfying" task of the evening was under way with the old playground flooring being scratched, cut, jabbed, yanked then finally to much hooping and hollaring ripped up and broken down 💪🏾💪🏻💪🏼.

35 minutes went in a brink of an eye! All the flooring up up and pilled up, the flower beds were prepared for planting, the bushes had been cut back and the weeds had been removed 👏🏾👏🏼👏🏿👏🏻. We said our Goodbyes and split up into our running units for a handicap race back to base with the Philosophical runners leading us off followed by the medium sexy group a couple of minutes later then the speedies soon after them. The final 2 groups had the privilege of running around the greatest football stadium in the world to increase the level of difficulty in te dash to the finish. A super strong 3.3k run back aided with a bit of helpful gravity enabled a blistering sprint finish from the Philosophers to take the 🏁🏁🏁 closely followed by the rest of the team after a scorching lap of the Emirates Stadium.

Some beautifully executed cool down stretches finished off a great evening of fun on a run.

Don't forget to sign up for next weeks task here

Thank you all for looking after me, and hope to see you all at a Hackney GoodGym run on a Tuesday evening very very soon.

Until next time

Smooth Running

Joel