25 Hackneyites ran 5km and helped St Luke's Church with some gardening

With Joel recovering with his new knee it was my pleasure to cover for him. Welcome along to Valentina, Carolina, Claire, Aimee and Brenna - lovely to have you along!

In the news this week:

1. This month's long run is on Sunday 24th June with either 11km or 16km options - all details here
2. Danny is organising volunteering for the British 10km, with a GG team taking over an aid/water station - in return you'll get a free entry for a Virgin Event. See full details here

After a quick dynamic warm up we headed 2km to St Luke's Church, this is a regular task for GoodGym, the team making a big impact over the years.

Upon arrival we split into two teams tackling weeds, leaves and overgrowth. A team of 3 delicately picked weeds from a beautiful flower bed while the rest of the team cleared as much as possible from the churchyard gardens.

24 GGers + 30 minutes = 12 hours of work!

Over 30 minutes we made a huge impact, filling 12 bags of rubbish and weeds - nice! After a group picture we headed to the local park for a fitness session - getting into pairs one person sprinted while the other did a conditioning exercise - including press ups, squats, balancing, plank & squat jumps!

Sign up for next week here when Joel is back and you are off to help the Hackney Wick Community Garden Team!

PB out.

18 GoodGymers ran 6km and helped Mabley Green clear up!

Thanks for coming along guys, it appeared like Joel was on a rare holiday but he was actually leading a special GGxLondon Marathon Run. It was lovely to lead you guys, plus run and do good in Hackney!

Welcome along to Justyna, Chris, Karina and Nom whose first time it was last night - lovely to have you along :)

In the news this week:

1. To celebrate GG Hackney's 5th birthday, there'll be social next Tuesday after the group run - come along!
2. This Sunday is the London Marathon and GoodGym has various cheering squads out and about - have a look here. Joel, myself and 20+ of GoodGymers are running - come along and cheer us on

After a quick intro we did some dynamic warm up exercises before heading east to Mabley Green. For those who are doing Hackney Half Marathon in May we covered some of the route you'll be taking, including passing Mabley Greeen itself.

Once we'd ran 2.5km to the task we met Bruce, Hackney Council's Parks Development Officer, at the back end of Mabley Green where there is lots of work to do! The tasks were to continue to remove the grass and soil which is on top of the hard standing area, tackling both sides of the underpass. There was also a bit of litter picking and raking up tons of leaves.

Not every GoodGym run you find a toilet!

Hackney wants to put Mabley Green forward for the Green Flag Award so all the work we can do to help them is massively valuable. We got into teams and over 30 minutes collected up 15 bags of debris and leaves, removed rolls & rolls of grass and bagged up lots of litter.

On the way home we played the meet and retreat game twice - lots of fun sprinting around the football field in the sunset.

Sign up for next week here, you are going back to Mabley Green and Joel is back!

PB out.

16 Hackney GoodGymer ran 6k to Abney Park Cemetery to clear 160 ivy covered grave stones so that that a comprehensive grave database can be mapped.

Great to have a strong crew along for the run, lovely to welcome our GoodGym first timers along for their maiden outing to.

Zipping away lead by the energetic Katie along our well trodden 3k path to Abney Park to meet Park Ranger Tom. With a choice of tasks for the evening we decided to explore into the far reaches of the park as for the first time since September we had a light fuelled task in Abney.

With Tom’s words of precision clipping and watching out for the highly unlikely birds nest in the Ivy. We set off to explore a new wild and overgrown area of the park!

Splitting up and heading deep under ivy cover we got clipping! Taking off just enough vegetation so the grave stones can be read and even slipping off some ivy that hadn’t grown on tight. Making great progress as we went, getting to fell a few trees that were starting to grow in the wrong place before Eva made the ** Bird Call!!** a nest had been discovered!! With Eva’s amazing eye of detail on full show she had found a Black Birds nest nestled between the Ivy and Grave stone. As we had found out from Tom it was a Criminal Offence to knowingly remove a birds nest, punishable by prison time Eva made sure not to trouble the eggs (after a picture or two obviously).

Picking up the pace as we used every second of time this evening we cleared over 160 grave stones ready for mapping!

Only left us with the prize giving for Oldest grave stone won by Gulê and best name won by Katie who received the much coveted Abney Park eraser.

Ros led the way back to base at a strong pace to complete a top Hackney session!!

Next week GoodGym Camden/Islington Trainer Paul will be Running the show on your trip to Mabley Green. I will be back on the 24th for Group Run and Monthly Social. Catch you in a couple!

Smooth Running

Joel

P.S Thanks to Ros and Eva for nest pictures.

As we bring the Easter bank holiday to a close it seemed fitting to do some good work in a churchyard and tonight eighteen intrepid runners did just that as we headed out to the striking St. Luke's Church off Morning Lane in Hackney to clear a congregation of leaves from their yard.

The session began with warm-up in London Fields and the action then took us towards Hackney Town Hall for some drills in the shape of sprints and grapevining. There was some pretty nifty footwork on show from our runners and by now everyone was well limbered up for the next section of the 2.5 km run that took us to St Luke's.

We welcomed three new members to our group tonight, it was great to meet Robyn, Stephanie and Nowrin.

With no time to waste the group went hammer and tongs at the task of clearing a huge quantity of leaves from the churchyard. Two score and ten bin bags were stuffed to bursting completely clearing the churchyard and revealing a tranquil space that could almost have had Thomas Gray reaching for his quill and parchment.

With the sun beginning to set and the task done there was no let up for our band of sisters and brothers as we downed tools and hit the road over to Well Street Common picking up the pace before rounding the final bend along Well Street and back to our Bakehouse base. With 5 km, an interval session and a ton of cleared leaves under our belts it was a job well done.

Despite the great work, I have to end our report on a sad note and console with two of our group who became the victims of crime with a bike and a bike wheel being stolen from outside London Fields station. We all feel your pain guys, absolutely gutted for you, sadly there are some bad people out there and we all need to take every precaution against thievery.