15 awesome runners ran 3km to shift 5 tonnes of soil at St Lukes school!!

Sorry for the awful Tom Jones pun title there, I know they get worse each week but it's truly the hardest part of this job... if anyone has some good puns for future run report titles... PLEASE send them my way!!!

Anyhoo... we had a lovely run this evening. The rain held off (yes!!) and we were joined by two new runners, GG Bromley runner Hannah and new GoodGymmer and airline pilot Alex... welcome both! Hope you enjoyed your first run with us!

Just quickly for those who are fairly new, please join our GoodGym Greenwich Facebook Group to keep up to date on races and other bits and pieces that people in the group doing!

What's new pussycat?

So it was pretty manic at the uni with seemingly the whole world coming to Greenwich to see the legend that is Tom Jones! Luckily we all managed to find each other at the beginning and we got the show on the road pretty sharpish!

We set off north of the river, through the foot tunnel and within about 10 minutes we had arrived at the school, and just as well because there was so much to get through! They had 5 tonnes of soil that had been delivered since the last time we were there and it all needed to be shifted onto the bags that we had laid down 2 weeks ago!

So it was all hands on deck from the very beginning! Everyone grabbed a shovel or a rake or a wheelbarrow and got to work! After just 10 minutes we had already made a huge dent in the pile... but there was still lots to get through! We rotated roles to bring some fresh muscle to the shoveling role to get as much done as quickly as we could. Time was a-ticking!

It had got to 8 o'clock and we were so painfully close to clearing the pile, so another 10 minutes and that just about did it!!! It had all been carefully raked into position and will soon be ready to be planted on! I can't wait to see what it's going to look like when it's done!

We took a group photo and then headed back to the uni for a little stretch!

Great work everyone! Well done for putting your back into it and getting it all done!!! That would have taken the volunteers a whole day to do what you managed to do in 40 minutes so you should be so proud and pleased! They are so happy with what you achieved!!! See you next week!

20 runners ran 3.5km to rip out weeds at the Christchurch Community Garden!

It was another warm summers evening at GoodGym Greenwich. We had 3 lovely new runners join us, Mani, Shelomoh and my probably one of my oldest friends Marina! Great to have you all along with us!

HAPPY PINEAPPLE DAY!!!

It was pineapple day yesterday so we went round and found out everyones favourite fruit, we posed like pineapples in our photos and a few people even went out for some post run piñas! Nice one!!

We did a little warm up and then made our way along the river to Christchurch garden. We were greeted by Kate who had lots of tools and gloves ready for us. And then it was all hands on deck, literally! Everyone took to the floor to yank out as many weeds as possible. Some of them were super stubborn but it was always really satisfying when they came out, roots n all!

After about 20 minutes, we could really notice the difference, patches of weed-free areas were growing bigger and bigger! And the buckets of weeds were filling up rapidly! By 8 o'clock it was time for us to leave. We gave the place a final sweep, had a group pic and then made our way to the park!

Hill repeats!

We had a bit of time to spare so we made the most of it with some hill repeats up One Tree Hill. We had 10 minutes to complete as many ups and downs as possible. There are quite a few steps and you soon feel the burn (I did 25 of these on Tuesday so I know how you guys felt!) but it's a great thing to incorporate into your training to build leg strength and strength endurance which will ultimately make you a faster and stronger runner!

Not sprints!

When you hear about hills you usually hear the term "hill sprints" so you often see people charging up a hill at full speed but that's not what we want to be doing! If you sprint up those hills, you will burn out and be too tired to complete more than a couple of reps, its better to just go up them at a steady speed and then recover on the downhills and do 6-10 reps rather than be completely wrecked by the time you get to the top on the first one!

So give it a go next time you're in the park. Ideally once a week you want to be getting in some kind of session like this is, whether it's hills or intervals and you will see dramatic improvements in your running fitness!

After 10 minutes, we had a nice little jog back to the uni with the sun setting ahead of us. LOVELY!

A little stretch and we were done!

GoodGym Olympics!

A few people asked me yesterday about the GoodGym Olympics, you can find all the info here and while there is no space for any events, it will be great to have as many of you down cheering and helping out as possible! It will be such a fun day with loads to get involved in! Hopefully see you there :)

Great work last night everyone! Well done for getting so stuck and for embracing those hill repeats! See you next time!