On a light bright Spring evening 21 Hackney GoodGymers ran 4K to the Wilton Estate community garden to perform a variety of physical jobs in the wonderful community garden.

We began the evening with an impromptu task at the E5 Bakehouse with the whole crew ripping and shredding the mountain of cardboard at the Bakehouse to help create a compost pile. A strongly therapeutic task that everyone got involved with and a couple bin bags full of ripped cardboard later the Bakehouse staff were really happy with our efforts.

We then welcomed to the Team some happy new runners for their maiden GoodGym Group run, a nicer evening they could not have chosen. A short pulse raiser to the amphitheatre that is the GG Hackney warm-up area where we congratulated Patrick of a year of monumental GoodGyming, a staggering 183 Good Deeds in 366 days!!! a staggering effort 👏🏻👏🏿👏🏼👏🏽👏🏾. With Hackney Half only a few days away there were many slightly nervous runners preparing for there last few runs before the race. So we got their legs turning over with 4 laps of the Wilton Estate priming everyone's legs with changes of pace between Easy, Race Pace (smooth) and Hard Effort. With the Team well worked out it was time to get to so serious gardening business on the every expanding community garden. We split into 5 pods and got to work weeding, pruning, hoeing, slab laying, water butt building and filling.

With DJ Pat on the decks there was a great vibe on the estate and was really nice to see a few of the estate's residents and their children coming out to join us for a hardworking 40 minutes of gardening action!!

With time ticking we picked up the pace and dominated all the jobs, a small issue with wild Poppygate quickly resolved and an epic Water Butt relay fill from Jack and James it was time to pack away the tools and get ready for some epic Cone Game Action!!

Patrick led the cone action splitting the crew into 3 colour-coded teams. The action was intense and the effort levels were high. A huge shift was put in by all and after a very close sprint relay and a dominant performance in Coney McConeFace Team White were victorious!!

A short warm down run back to base and an in-depth chat about the Hackney Half tactics, preparation and execution saw us on our way home with a really great evening's Running Fun in the bag!

Be great to see as many people as possible on Sunday for Hackney Half whether you're out running, volunteering or spectating come and join the whole GoodGym family for a refuel. All the information on what is going on is here.

Go well on Sunday everyone, trust your abilities and your training! Be positive and give the race your all! Really am looking forward to hearing about all your race stories on Sunday and next Tuesday. Tweet @GGHackney to let everyone know how you went and any pictures.

Next Week we are at the HUG garden for some Williow tunnel landscaping action please Sign up here. As is tradition for me we celebrate our races so we will be heading out to grab a bite to eat and a drink or two post run. Please join us for a bit or a lot of it we would love to have you along.

Until Sunday

Smooth Sleeping, Eating and hydrating

Joel

15 hardy Hackney GoodGymers braved the myriad of weather conditions run 6k to cut in, cut out 8 flower beds in The brand new HUG garden on Hackney Downs.

Following a sprinkling of snow in the day and bright sunshine in the afternoon we knew we would be in for a beautiful yet Baltic evening in Hackney. Meeting at the Bakehouse we got to grips with the new DBS checking then got to it getting mobile in the joints and warm in our muscle fibres. Skipping, squatting, lunging and swinging we burst into life before being expertly lead the 2.5k to the HUG garden on Hackney Downs by Cecilia. We were met by Myra the heart and soul of the garden and driving force behind the project to create a great a community garden and many more projects that will have an uplifting impact on the lives of local people.

We split into pairs with the digger cutting in and digging out the turf or as Myra calls in Landscape Art and the runner carrying the turf at great pace to do Landscape design in the under 5's area of the garden to create an amazing environment for the little ones to explore. With Tom cutting in harder and fast than anyone could imagine there were times when we all stopped and watched Tom in full digging flight in utter amazement!! With supper digging sprint finish we managed to create 8 beautifully shaped flower beds and turf adventure landscape in 40 minutes. The beds will form the base of the garden with vegetables growing as well as beautiful plants in the coming weeks.

A quick rewarm of our running muscles saw us ready to return to base, a swift detour to take back the tools before we split into out regular Speedy and Sexy groups for the 3.5k run back to base. Some really strong running from both groups saw us home in perfect time for a static stretch out and a congratulatory round of applause for a top evenings work!!

Great to see a few signs up for the Hackney Half in 12 days time!! Getting excitingly close now! If you have any questions about race day or the lead up to it give me a shout on email or talk to me next week.

Next week we are off to the Open Barbers to get painting!! Please sign up here for some amazing running fun. We will be doing a little sharpening running session in preparation for race day to.

Good luck to those in the last weeks of training, trust it don't chase it!!

Smooth Running

Joel

On a beautiful clear Hackney evening 26 Hackney GoodGymers ran 5k to the Food Growers Group to help maintain there garden or 3k to St Luke's Church to deliver flyers.

We started an action packed evening with a supersonic start! With all 26 runners getting mobile with a series of mobilising warm up drills, some hopping and skipping got us prepared to walking lunge and side squat into 5 explosive flying 30 meter sprints with active jogging recovery. With the legs turning over an a scorching rate it was time to split into two groups for the evenings tasks. 19 runners being brilliantly lead by The brilliant Hackney Task Force members Cecilia and Jack who guided the squad to Dalston to meet Joy at the Food Growers Group community garden.

Here is Cecilia's report; After a smooth run over to the Dalston Food Growers site in Crosby Walk, we were met by Joy, who had a list of tasks for the GoodGym team. She asked that a couple of GoodGymers shovel compost in to two wheelbarrows and manoeuvre them to the cafe site in Abbot Street, as many times as possible, in order to fill some wooden planters in readiness for new greens. We walked over to the cafe, where four Goodgymers donned protective suits and got to work painting the internal walls, others rolled metal barrels of soil in to the courtyard around the corner and then a large group got to lifting/ shifting heavy grow-bags of soil up to the roof garden of the Print House. This hefty work initially involved wheels - in the form of a trolley - but then required manual loading in to a lift and carrying up a flight of stairs. The lift could only take so much weight before the automated voice announced that it was "out of order" (!) so it took several goes. A fantastic team effort, Joy was really pleased with the amount achieved in such a short space of time. The roof garden bar officially opens on the 1st of May. Joy invited us to attend the opening event on the 29th April, where you will be able to enjoy a drink while admiring your good work

While all the lifting and shifting was going down in Dalston 7 runners ran down to St Luke's Church to meet Keli and deliver leaflets about an upcoming course to the local residents on the estate surrounding the church. With clinical efficacy up and down stairs over 500 leaflets were delivered in 9 tower blocks over 44 floors in 40 minutes of consistant and sustained letter box stuffing action! 🏃🏽🏃🏃🏿🏃🏻 With some of the most stunning views over London in our memories we headed back to base playing a little loop up and back action to add a bit of distance and speed for those that wanted it. With the two groups meeting up for some cool down stretches and a big round of applause for two very well done tasks we headed on our way into the clear and beautiful night.

Next week we are running back to meet Bruce and his Team at Daubany Fields to finish off our clearance of the park getting it ready for the Parks authorities to regenerate the space in the coming weeks. Please help we keep what little hair I have left and sign up here nice and early if you know you are coming along. Next week we will be having our monthly social visit to a local eating and drinking establishment after the group run, so please come along and have a drink, get some food have a chat.

Until next week

Have a smooth sunshine filled time

Joel

Twenty Two amazing Hackney GoodGymers ran 6k to clear Daubeney Fields of Rumble, Rubbish and other random Fly tipping.

On a Beautiful Spring evening in H-Town Team Hackney were out in Force. We split into two units to help navigate through the streets of Hackney, led perfectley by Hackney task force members Cecilia and Clare.

On one of the longest runs of the year we kept a smooth and steady pace as we discovered a some new parts of Hackney as well as got a reccy in of the first mile of the Hackney Half marathon.

Once we got to Daubeney Fields to meet Bruce The Parks development officer and his team from Hackney Leisure and Green Spaces. We gloved up and got our grabbers, split into 2 pods and attacked everything we could find! We found the weird and wonderful from bones to carpet, fencing to footballs doors to debris and a never ending mountain of rubble!! We also had a treat with DJ Pat in the house spinning some 90's tunes while putting a revolving door of runners through there paces with a quadruple circuit to really work on our physical preparation for running the longer distances in the lead up to our spring races. Patrick had everyone's conditioning really tested in a fun and diverse series of session great job DJ P 💪🏾💪🏼💪🏽

With TLC's Waterfalls blazing on the decks the rubble flowed down to the van at such a rate that the van it begged for mercy from the weight! After 35 minutes of action we beat the darkness coming in to clear all the area of all the very best random rubbish you could imagine and totally fill all the van and buggy, great job team 👏🏾👏🏿👏🏽👏🏻. With the huge thanks from Bruce and his crew we got on our was with the legendary Chase back to Base with a final leg blast for team Speedy at the park the Sexy crew started out on the 3k run home throwing in a few leg blasting exercises along the way but we were no match from a monstrous performance from the Speedy crew lead by Task force member Jack but spearheaded by a super human running performance from Patrick. 🏃🏽🏃🏻🏃🏃🏿

With a few stretches and a huge round of applause for a great Team Hackney group run we said our goodbyes and headed off into the night!!

Next week we are double tasking at The Food Groweres Group in Dalston and Flyering at St Luke's Church please please sign up here for some more fun on a Spring run.especially important on double task weeks so please let me know you are coming!!

Until next week,

Focus, run Smooth and Silky

Joel