21 awesome runners ran nearly 4km to help at the Christchurch Peace Garden!

The sun was out for Yorkshire day and we welcomed two new runners to our squad. Yorkshire gal and Lewisham runner Vic and new GG runner Tarek, welcome both!

100k good deeds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This week, we surpassed an amazing milestone and celebrated 100,000 Good Deeds since GoodGym first started.... ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND! Isn't that just crazy. So well done for being a part of it over the last few weeks, months and years, you have made such a difference to so many people's lives and you should be so proud!

We celebrated by doing a combined total of 100 laps as a warm up (20 of you guys running 5 laps each!) then did 100 reps of various exercises, 20 squats, 20 walking lunges, 30 star jumps, 10 burpees, 20 high knees! Then I think we were suitably warm so we set off along the river, had a photo and arrived at the garden a few minutes later!

We were greeted by Kate who used to be a teacher and you can definitely tell by how organised she was! There was a flipchart with all the jobs that needed doing and a crate full of tools and gloves so everyone grabbed something and got stuck in!

There was a bed of gravel which needed to be shoveled out and relocated, there were LOADS of weeds between the paving stones to be ripped out, bulbs to be sorted, benches to be moved, trees to be pruned into love heart shapes, plants to be watered, and lots of sweeping!!!

So much to be getting on with, we had half an hour and everyone was working at a nice fast pace! After 15 minutes, most of the gravel had been removed and transported via the flat tyred wheelbarrow and was looking pretty neat and tidy! Loads of grass and weeds had been plucked from between the bricks and after an initial sweep, it was starting to look pretty good!

Another 10 minutes passed and it was time to stop digging and start tidying. Tools went back in the crate and we had 2 brooms on the go sweeping everything whilst other people were bagging up all the debris! We took a photo and then waved farewell to Kate and set off for leg 2 of our run!

We zig-zagged through the park and arrived back to the uni for our last 100 themed thing which was 100m strides! Strides are a great thing to include in your runs each week, ideally just at the end of an easy run and it just gets your legs used to running fast and promotes good running form whilst strengthening the legs without putting too much stress through them (like a normal track session would) so you don't need much recovery time afterwards! We picked the bollards as the start and end points and did about 4-5 sets running at 90-95% effort and then slow jog or walk recovery back to the start to bring the heart rate down so you are fresh to go again.

Well done for putting in so much effort into your strides! It was awesome to see you all running so fast and really give it the beans!! After that it was time for a well earned stretch! And then we called it a night!

Well done everyone! Amazing running and great effort with the task, we got so much done! See you next week!

23 awesome runners ran 3km to clear leaves and weeds at St Marks church!

And so the heatwave continues, but it seems to be a good thing as it brought out 4 lovely new runners last night so please welcome to the gang Beth, James, Marianne and Rachael! Hope you enjoyed your first run with us!

We have a Facebook group for GoodGym Greenwich where people often post about races or other bits going on so feel free to join!

Yay for Bliss!

Big congratulations were in order yesterday as it was Bliss's 50th Good Deed! Well done Bliss, hope you celebrated with a tequila last night!

We headed off for a quick warm up and then ran through the park (which was looking rather sad and yellow) to St Marks Church! We were met by the lovely Tony who had got everything organised for us and even had some cold lemonade at the ready! What a fab host!

There were 3 tasks which needed some attention. The first one was sweeping and bagging up leaves at the front of the building. The second was weeding and clearing the courtyard and the third was cutting brambles and vines out the back!

We split off into groups and got going immediately! Everyone grabbed some tools and went for it. There were two stand out tools of the evening, the comedy broom which was about 10cm wide and the cool leaf grabber which was super effective! After 20 minutes, the front of the building had totally been transformed and lots of bags of leaves had accumulated. Nice work!

The other two groups were getting on just as well, group 3 even had some snacks to keep them going... blackberries from the brambles! They were REALLY sour though, probably because they were covered in fox wee hahaha.

After half an hour the place was looking WONDERFUL!!! The bags were brought around the back, tools were put away and a final drink was had before we took our group photo and headed off! What a transformation!

We went back through the park, back to the uni for a quick partner core session on the grass (which more resembled hay) and then called it a night!

Great work everyone as always! We got so much done!!! See you all next week!

9 awesome runners ran 3km to help out at Christchurch School

It was a lovely sunny evening in Greenwich last night but because of the World Cup (which we won't talk about), our numbers were slightly on the thin side... but it didn't matter! We still got loads done! We were joined by new runner Pieter, hope you had a good first run with us!

We headed off a little earlier than usual and made our way towards Christchurch school, we didn't even need to be watching the match as we could hear the screaming England fans from the houses and pubs along the way and before we'd even got to the task we were 1-0 up... WOOO! Oh yeah sorry I said I wouldn't talk about it...!

Upon arrival we were greeted by Fiona and Patrick who are both part of the EGRA (East Greenwich Residents Association) who are involved with a lot of community projects in the borough. They had lots of jobs for us to do. The main one was moving the bags of gravel which we actually filled up a few months back! The place has absolutely transformed since the first time we visited which is awesome! A new beehive had been installed as well as an outdoor playground/learning space, so lovely!

After about 10 minutes, all the bags were shifted and we moved onto the big sacks of bark which required a little more muscle power! But again, after a few minutes, these were cleared and out of the way! NICE!!

Once the heavy work was done it was time to give the place a good watering and clear a whole bunch of weeds. There was also a spot of litter picking to do! Once the weeds were cleared, it was time to head back, but not before a photo of course!

A little jog back to the uni and we finished off with a quick little core blast and we were done!

Thanks for all your hard work yesterday! You got so much done so you should be really chuffed! See you next week!

21 runners ran 3.5km to help at St Luke's school in Island Gardens!

It was a lovely and warm summer solsticey kind of evening last night! Perfect for an outdoor GoodGym gardening task woop!

We welcomed 3 new ladies to the gang.... Laura, Lizi and Marianne... great to have you with us!!

After spending many minutes talking about ice cream we started our run like we always do, with a little warm up on the quad before heading off for our task!

Back to the island!

We ventured north of the river into the realm of Tower Hamlets, exciting stuff!! After about 15 minutes we'd arrived at St Lukes and were greeted by the lovely teachers who had everything organised for us ready to go!

It was basically a continuation of last time we were there, filling the bags with soil and laying and flattening them out. We had some bags that were already filled that needed shifting to the right place and the rest of the bags needed filling! After Myra introduced everyone and everything, we got going! Everyone grabbed either a shovel, wheelbarrow or a sandbag and got to work!

There was lots to do but with over 20 people at hand it gets done extremely quickly! After half an hour we had cleared all of the soil and filled as many bags as we could! We even managed to clear some of the woodchip and start on the pathways! Excellent work!!!

The next step will be filling the rest of the bags and then covering the mounds with soil so that plants can then be grown on top of them... it will look quite spectacular once it's done! We will be back in two weeks time!

Once we were done, we headed back to the uni via Mudchute Park & Farm, which I can't believe I've never been to before! What a little hidden gem! I shall definitely be going back to pet the goats!

We had a nice run back through the woodland trails, back in the foot tunnel and to the uni in time for a super quick core session to finish off the evening!

A few of us then headed out for some food & drinks for my birthday which was LOVELY!!!

Thanks for coming last night everyone! Great job on the task and awesome running all round! Hopefully see you next week!