7 Running technique developing GoodGymers smashed 60 minutes of Running Fitness in Granary Square, Camden.

A bright and breezy Thursday brought together a great group of GoodGymer in Camden. After meeting on the green Riverside steps we headed around the corner to the carpet like grass of the new park.

Needing to oil the joints a little more than normal for a couple of injury niggles we had an extended dynamic warm up getting all our running muscles firing and joints activated.

We then threw in a 10 minute strength rehab block with a knee stability protection focus.

We then attacked our knee drive angle hitting a wide range of drills to keep our head, body and knees in the best possible running position. Working really hard and having a really good go at the coordination testing B-skip. With a lot to take on everyone made great strides forward in developing their range of their strides.

Putting our practice into action we ran some scorching 60 metre accelerations focusing on a couple of key areas each while getting in some speedy reps.

To round off the session we worked hard in some strength and conditioning particularly core exercises to give our bodies the robust, consistency to facilitate great running conditions!

A quick stretch out and we were away. Thank you for coming along and hope to see you all next week, same time same place!

Smooth Running

Joel

6 GoodGymers took on the Fitness 4 All challenge in Camden!

On a busy evening in Granary Square we started off a new month with a new starting location. After meeting on the Big Green stairs we made our way down to the newly laid park past the open air theatre.

We mobilised and activated our key areas of the body for the evening heavy on body conditioning and control!!

Firstly getting our Sally Pearson perfect hurdling flexibility on really firing up those hamstrings and glutes as well as test our balance with some single legs drills and skills and while continually testing our core strength and stamina!!

With 20 minutes of functional conditioning under our belt with raised the heart rates with a combination of plyometric and coordination running drills getting into a nice rhythm while introducing the all important knee drive to our running form!

With the neural pathways flowing and coordination at an all time high with smashed 10 minutes of strength work mainly focusing on our lower body with any number variations of lunges thrown in! Not to neglect our core and upper body with took on the press up/plank challenge all the way to 50!

Rounding off an all action evening with 7 minutes of speedy continuous strides with a walk/ jog recovery to bring the evening together nicely!!

Thanks for such great efforts tonight, really enjoyed the session!!

Hope to see you all in 2 weeks (17th) for the next round!! ** No session next week**

Smooth Running

Joel

On a lovely Wednesday evening 23 GoodGymers ran between 4-10km, delivered leaflets and did some DIY.

Wow lots of newcomers to GoodGym, welcome to Kat, Lucy, Mara, Sylwia, Rosie and Frederic. Fantastic to have you along!

In the news this week:

1. GG monthly drinks, an opportunity for everyone from GoodGym to meet up, is on Thursday 6th October (Pritesh's birthday), sign up here
2. Well done to Danica who completed Richmond Half Marathon on Sunday in 1.59.29 - completing her sub-2 hour goal. Well done #proud.
3. Also well done to Steve Moody for doing Hull Marathon at the weekend, he is planning to do a marathon a month between now and April, amazing!

Our tasks this week were to help Abbey Community Centre spread the word of their amazing work through leafleting and doing some DIY for C4WS, a national homeless charity.

DIY Run Report:

After a game of tag we did a short run to C4WS led by the wonderful Sophie Hedges, arriving to find a cabinet and desk to put together.

Ikea!

With Ikea instructions, great minds, allen keys, and focused hands we were sure to complete the task. We lacked a little space in the room so five of us headed for a run around the block while the other 10 split into teams, with Polly in overall charge, putting the furniture together.

With a swap of DIYers and runners we were only getting closer to finishing the mammoth task. Boom the cabinet was first to be put together, after a group pic 10 people headed to Russell Square while five team members stayed to continue the finishing the job.

We've done the Good now for the GYM!

Intervals - this weeks fitness session was based around a PYRAMID, using time as our tool. It went something like this:

• 1 min fast
• 1 min slow
• 2 min fast
• 2 min slow
• 1 min fast
• 1 min slow

Everyone did very well and really smashed the fitness session!

Meanwhile the DIYers continued to put together the table, with Steve, Arnulfo and Polly staying until 8.45pm! #commitment #good

Leaflet report written by Pritesh:

Tonight I had seven hardy runners joining me on my favourite run up to Abbey Community Centre. It was a great little group and we kept a good pace (including the ‘stomp’ up Primrose Hill) and had some nice chats about what we’d been up to over the summer and various race plans for the winter too.

Tower Block Climb!

We weren’t sure if there’d been a ‘cock-up’ as we arrived at the community centre as there seemed to be no lights on but Laura was awaiting us and was just saving some energy. Tonight’s task was some leaflet distribution in two nearby tower blocks to let the residents know about the various upcoming activities at the community centre. We had a 102 flats in each tower block and so we split into two teams (“How about girls vs boys?”) and Laura then led us out to the blocks.

Girls vs boys

The girls took on ‘Casterbridge’ and the boys ‘Snowman’, yup there really is a Snowman House – we suggested Steve might want to consider a new place here so he could have the address ‘Steve Coman, Snowman…’ Both teams went hard at the task but in the end the boys prevailed and were first back to the community centre. The girls were not far behind and Laura then showed us the mural that has gone up (we whitewashed the walls on a previous task so great to see the outcome) in the kids playground. There was some discussion over whether the boys might’ve taken the lift but the evidence was inconclusive and so thoughts turned to the pun…with ‘Snowman’ and ‘Thomas Hardy’ as possible references we thought we’d be in for a jackpot… we came up with nothing!

Lemonades!

So with that we had a quick group pic and some goodbyes and then we headed back into the night. We naturally split into a fast and faster group and headed back home for a good stretch and then a few lemonades at the pub. Smashing night – thanks all.

Thank you as always for coming along, sign up for next week's run here.

PB out.