20 amazing GoodGymers ran 3k to Wilton Estate Community Garden to dig, weed, water and untangle the ever expanding gardens.

After Super Saturday at the GG Olympics everyone was on a GoodGym high! Great to have our first timers and intrepid tourists along for a sweet session in one of the longest running tasks in GoodGym history!

With only a short distance to cover we took the long loop around to get in a well constructed 2k of running into our legs so we were warm and mobile for some big time gardening!

With the garden under a new committee there was lots to do and we split up into crack units to take on each task.

Weeding long flower beds, dead heading, replanting, epic amounts of watering, chopping back and digging over and the unbelievable levels of untangling the binding that had been growing around the fences!

Brown big after brown bin was filled and we were 6 deep by the end with a push to clear up we left the site clear, tidy and much smarter!

With time tight we zipped back on the short route to make sure we grabbed our stuff before the Bakehouse closed for the evening!!

Thanks for coming along and hope you are able to join next week where Peter is leading the squad to Abney!

See you in 2

Joel

15 Sun soaked GoodGymers ran 6k to the River Lea to litter pick and cut bat prickly over hanging vegetation!

A beautiful summers evening with a picturesque inner city running route took us through Well Street Common, Victoria Park and along the River path of the River Lea.

3k down and we picked up our grabbers, bin liners and cutters then headed out in both directions to reduced the waste getting into the waterways!

Clearing tins, cigarette butts, plastic bottles while printing back any invading overhanging prickly branches from Hackney Wick to the Limehouse Cut.

With everything we could see swept, picked and trimmed we dumped it off fir recycling and headed off back to base taking in the sights and sounds of London Town!

6k all complete with a little stretch out to make sure we are all good to go.

We headed off to relax and refuel!!

See you next week for our Hackney Parks visit

Joel

10 GoodGym Hackney flyers ran 6k to Abney Park Cemetery and cleared 150 metres of concrete pathway to allow easy and safe access all year round to the far end of the park.

A balmy evening in Hackney brought alone a highly skilled group for the Group Run Party!!

Welcoming Tyler for her maiden run in GG colours!!

Setting off weaving our way3k to Stoke Newington and the very lush Abney Park Cemetery, steeped in history and part of the magnificent 7 London cemeteries it is amazing to partner with Hackney Parks to keep this enchanting park fit for use to enable a wide variety of uses for the park.

Heading off armed with brooms and shovels to the far corner of the park to clear the last concrete path of the year. By keeping the path clear it allows safe and frequent use of the path to encourage people to use this amazing green space.
Without it getting cleared each summer the few concrete paths get built up with debris and cause the paths to be unsafe and difficult to use.

So we swept away a long line of fallen debris, shovelling it up and letting it decompose in the undergrowth rather than build up on the pathway.

45 minutes of hard work must have turned our blood sweeter and Dharmesh was like a mosquito attraction (which was a very selfless act for everyone else!!). So we buzzed out with 150 metres of pathway cleared.

Fortunately/unfortunately were were trapped into the park with a dress rehearsal of Wind in the Willows so we got to see Ratty do his stuff for an upcoming performance!

Leaving a bit late we powered back to base with a strong running effort to round off a successful evening!!

See you next week!!

Joel

19 fantastic GoodGymers ran 6k to the River Lea to pick up 15 bags of rubbish to help keep as much plastic and contaminated out of our waterways!

Celebration time in Hackney!! Special super social to congratulate *Alex’s 50th GoodDeed!! * A fantastic achievement of dedication, fun, smiles, running and community tasks!! Well done Alex,and great to see you running again!!

A bit more than a Hop Skip and a jump over towards the shadows of the Olympic park to meet Ross from the Canal and River Trust. Great to be partnering up to adopt a busy stretch of river path to minimise the plastic pollution getting into the waterways. We have from the Limehouse cut to Hackney Wick with a focus around Old Ford Lock to take care of! Mainly with litter picking but we also have tools to keep the vegetation in check!!

We started off strong bagging up bag after bag of rubbish full of plastics, cans and food wrappers. We then picked hundreds of cigarette butts which are a huge plastic contaminator as they contain 4 different plastics within each filter.

Great to see the river in such use and watching our efforts pile up showed what a difference we could make!!

45 minutes of picking and a few trips to the bin and we were done! Pictures and tools down we zipped back with a strung out run back to base!!

There followed a top refuelling stop and short bread munch at Tad!!

See you next week for our visit to Abney Park!!

Joel