Love your neighbourhood? You bet.

A large group of energetic runners, keen to do their bit for de-littering their borough, made their way to beautiful Victoria Park, to join the Council’s fourth borough-wide Big Clean Up, part of its ‘Love Your Neighbourhood’ campaign.

We were met by Richard, our task owner for the evening, and Mark, from Veolia, who wasted no time in dispatching us to the four most needed corners of the area, after kitting us all out with hi-vis jackets, litter-pickers and gloves, after our extensive health and sfatey briefing.

Festival goodies

As usual the Good Gym-ers covered an extensive area, heading deep into the park only satisfied as their bin liners began to really fill up. Post-festival litter was in abundance: a rather- well-hidden pack of Guinness was found under a bush, along with several strange looking vials and some er… undergarments. Thank goodness for litter pickers. As usual, the runners were loathe to be pulled away from the work: “Come on, come on, you’re late back”, prompted the response, “But there are so many cigarette butts.” This sums up Monday night runs for me.

Masterclass: Catch Becky and Core Lucky Dip

Before we knew it, we were saying farewell to Richard and his team and heading to the wooden canoe, the area that was to be our fitness playground for the next 15 minutes. Tonight we were playing “Chase Becky.” Becky headed out for a lap of the park with a 10-second lead, then Bryon headed up the team to catch her, before everyone raced back to the wooden canoe to play Core Lucky Dip. First and last runners picked a number between 1-7 from a delightful list of exercises.Thanks to Yesh for unknowingly picking the two-toe-touch plank; Sarah for the butterfly crunch and Leanne for the speed-skater-squat-on-steroids. Yesh then headed the chase back out of the park.

…And so to the thankyou’s

What a very busy evening. Thank you’s in abundance tonight! Thank you to Bryon, such a terrific task force member, for leading both the run to the task, the chase for Becky and for behind-the-scenes planning.

Thank you to Becky for being a brilliantly fast and fun real life greyhound hare, and to Yesh for an impromptu last minute sprint.

Thank you to Leanne and Domitille for back-marking, and to Sarah and Leanne, our brilliant task force members, for welcoming our first-time runners, and to Gabrielle for much-needed delegating, and organising the start of the run, following an unanticipated DBS delay.

Welcome to new runners Eszter and Karris - well done on a busy, and big workout, night for your first run. We’d love to see you again soon.

It was a mega-blast tonight! Thank you all so much: for your ideas and input; for being such fun, for being such determined litter-pickers, for working so hard at your fitness…The list is endless, as always. I just can’t WAIT to do it all again next week: sign up for water-carrying at Meath Gardens - AKA The Human Chain Task - here.

*Apologies for the limited photos from tonight’s run – an unprompted, mid-task, IOS update meant we’ve just got before and after pics this week.

What a difference seven days makes, no snow and unfortunately no task!

With a cancellation from Hackney Adventure Playground that I couldn't find cover for it was undoubtedly time for a fitness session. Seventeen fine specimens came together and laid down some hard efforts. Rodrigo making a cameo fresh from Florida , what a treat it was to see the big man don the black t-shirt. Come back dude! Emily and Jo came for their first sessions at GG and GGN respectively, lovely additions to the team , I do hope to see you back on a Wednesday eve.

With kilometre reps to begin with, 2 or 3 depending on how you felt/if you ran The Big Half. Very useful pacing work, with some nailing the increase, some almost doing it....either way it's a superuseful exercise. Prolonged time at faster than 5k pace brings on big physical adaption. I enjoyed the friendly competitive spirit, with the 4min per k group taking chunks out of each other.

Core carving was the next course, a double set to really light up those muscles. With some impressive sounds exiting Graham, I imagine that's what a grieving elk sounds like. The session wasn't just over yet though. Relays to finish the session. Two teams of five went head to head. Practising their sprinting technique and really searching for power on the final straight.

Marvellous night all in all, even managed a pint after. Next week we're at Cody Dock sign up here it will be a gentler session with some volunteering energy in the middle.

See you beauts then!

15 runners ran 5k to clear the basement at Hoxton Hall

15 runners came to blast away their Monday blues by running to do good in Tower Hamlets last night. On this particular cold and wintery night we were headed to a brand new and indoor task (double hooray!).

Hoxton Hall is a community centre and performing arts space that is deeply embedded in local history having been an East End landmark since 1863. We were there to help them prepare their new youth development programme. Working with local young people has been at the core of what Hoxton Hall does for over 150 years - offering unique creative learning and employment opportunities.

We split into three groups - clearing rubbish from the main basement room, sorting old costumes to go to charity and collate paint supplies. Boris and James were delighted with how much we got done in 25 minutes and set three people to work trying to remove a very stubborn fixture from the ceiling. Happily we'll be back at Hoxton Hall next week for stage 2 - putting together ikea bureaus for musical equipment. With some time to spare, Laura didn't waste a minute and introduced the group to some core work that those dealing with the ceiling fixture missed out on - don't worry, she'll get you next time!

A big cheer for Claire who joined us for her first ever group run and especially loud noises for Laura GoodGym Tower Hamlet's new trainer!

An awesome, brand new task success for Tower Hamlets last night. I'm sad to be leaving you but I'm off to be trainer in Southwark on a Wednesday, come by and say hello :)

Keep running happy, Lucy

Last night 21 runners ran 3km to Cranbrook Community Centre to shift dirt, lay compost and clear fallen leaves and rubbish.

A big cheer for our 5 new runners last night - Rosie, Matt, Tim and Beth. We have done exceedingly well in the January challenge, particularly with regard to distance - as of this morning we've run 3591kms - solidly overshooting our target of 3100kms by quite a way. Good deeds wise we completed 142 out of our target 174. Never fear, next year we'll smash it!

After a 1.2km run down we were met by Janet at Cranbrook Community Centre who explained our tasks for the evening. We split into two groups - shifting soil/compost and clearing the garden area. We steamed through the task, filling 5 bags with leaves and dead plants, packing a huge bin with tree cut-backs and spread 1.5 bags of compost. A solid task well done! There's plenty more to get done at the Community Centre and we look forward to coming back in the future. We were particularly intrigued by the wormery in the allotment area. Worms just love kitchen waste. They turn it into beautiful soil - a perfect solution to kitchen waste for those without a garden!

We thanked Janet, took a selfie and headed for an easy lap of the centre, followed by a ‘medium’ lap and finishing with ‘hard’. Continuing to discover our paces and become more confident runners!

At the end of the last lap, a plank off was called for - everyone did a fantastic job ranging from a solid 40 seconds up to a stellar 3 minutes 10 seconds (see photo of our plank-off winners shaking hands). I anticipate some aching cores tomorrow...

We ran back the way home and finished with a good stretch and some deep belly breathing.

A great start to the week team, I look forward to seeing you next week!

Last night 19 GoodGymers ran 1.5k to clear up the garden on the Holly Bush Estate

GoodGym Tower Hamlet's old friends at Holly Bush estate needed help! They're applying to become part of the Royal Horticultural Society and desperately needed a tidy up in order to make the best impression. We met at the Town Hall Hotel as usual (this time in a room that had secret doors...!) at 18.45. After a briefing we celebrated Louise Hartley's 50th good deed.

Tower Hamlets are absolutely killing the distance in the January challenge - we've collectively run 2472 km this month! Our target is 3100... we can do this! On the Good Deed front we are a little behind schedule - 81 out of a target of 174. Personally, I think sharing the goodness 81 times in 23 days is pretty amazing anyhow!

It was fantastic to see some new faces last night - show Izzy, Usaid and Fiona some support!

Sally Squat Challenge

After some breath work we headed outside to warm up with hops, skips and frog jumps. Squats were mentioned during the briefing and a couple of people looked a little nervous... So, you need two things - 'Flower' by Moby and space to squat. The main lyrics are 'bring Sally up' and 'bring Sally down'. Guessed the rules yet? Squat down on 'bring Sally down' and come up on 'bring Sally up'. It's harder than it sounds! Give it a go at home and let me know how it goes.

Margaret at HollyBush was delighted to see us again

On well-warmed muscles we went just round the corner to the Rocky Garden at HollyBush Estate. Margaret was delighted to see us and we spent a good 35 minutes getting to work on the garden. We cleared several beds of weeds for her and did a cracking job of clearing up leaves ready for composting. Great work team!

After thanking Margaret and of course taking an obligatory selfie, Bryon guided us round the corner to a green where we did some speed play work - finding our 'easy', 'medium' and 'hard' pace.

An excellent start to the week Tower Hamlets, I hope to see you at our starter session on Wednesday and of course at the same time on Monday next week!