22 energetic Hackney GoodGymers ran 6k to Abney Park Cemetery to shovel and shift a cubic tonne of mulch in 45 action packed minutes!

After a 3 month gap our wait was finally over!! We got to return to a firm Hackney favourite and a local treasure in Abney Park Cemetery!! Maybe coincidentally but the squad was back in force!! Great to have a big group back to help dominate a monster task!

Amy was on fire and showed a clean pair of heels leading us the 3k to Abney!

Meeting new Abney Park head honcho Quentin!! Arming ourselves with gloves, shovels and wheelbarrows we marched our way up to the back of the park and one of the paths that lead to the Chapel!

A huge mulch mound lay ahead of us and we got going shovelling and narrowing load after load of mulch and running it down to the Chapel.

We were boosting the paths so when the rains come the paths and so the park are still usable. In particular for an event next week in the Chapel where a large group of visitors will be using the area for an open air performance and standing water would be a massive dampener on the show.

Going at such a pace we ran out of barrows we re-upped our wheelbarrow numbers and increased our mulch carting production!!

Clearing the whole mound in 45 minutes of action was a brilliant effort!! As a reward we got to pick up the pace on a speedy 3k run back to the Bakehouse before our stuff got locked in!!

Thanks so much for coming along, hope to see you next week when we tackle the gnomes!

Have a look at the links for volunteering at Hackney Marshes parkrun and Shorditch 10k which Danny spoke about at the start.

Smooth Running

Joel

16 Hackney GoodGymers wiped away the tears of the late postponement of a glorious painting task to drop some serious running speed and core conditioning in Victoria Park.

A last minute change of plan this week meant instead of getting our artistic fix we got to really lay some running and conditioning foundations down!!

Heading over to Victoria Park with a nice 15 minute warm up run where we got down to 15 minutes of mobility exercises, balance holds and the all important running form drills. Getting the body ready for the intervals ahead.

We all systems activated we pressed go!!! Tearing into a wide range of time and distance focused running intervals allowing us to test our bodies exploring faster paces and our minds to dial into exact Pacing goals.

Finishing off with some super speedy 1 minute reps before we got our core conditioning on!! Hitting some distraction core holds, hand clapping partner planks and finally some team conditioning efforts in the ring of core fire.

A gentle jog back rounded off a great fitness filled evening!!

See you next week for our return trip to Abney!!

Smooth Running

Joel