14 people ran 3.5km to plant some trees on the Canal

It was welcome to two new GoodGymer’s tonight, with Andy and Dave joining us for the first time. Please give them a cheer! We set on our way with Lee being the front marker and myself taking on the role of back marker as I was struggling somewhat with a calve strain I had picked up earlier that day! We ran just over a mile to the Canal and River Trust offices where we met Nick who bought the trees down for us to plant.

Papped!!

To make tonight even more exciting we had a full media team joining us both from The Guardian newspaper and the Canal and River Trust’s own media section! Firstly, the group got videoed and photographed running on the canal, I had more photos taken of me then when Kim Kardashian does her grocery shopping and there were interviews galore. After all this, we eventually got on with planting the trees! This was done in no time with a good numbered group tonight. Once the ‘plantathon’ was done there was a couple more videos taken of the group running and a few pics for good measure and it was ready for our run back! Keep an eye out for the Guardian online this week!

Who is the best planker?!

Once nearly back we stopped in St Paul’s square where we did some press ups, Phill smashing them out like usual, followed by some core work, both John and Sandy showing great determination. Then it was onto the grass for some lung busting burpees, (everyone loves a burpee…..yeah right 😉), Sophie and Alex working hard, putting their all into each set. Once this was done we finished off with a plank challenge, who could hold it the longest? Well Sandy and Dave showed they had great cores both holding the plank for 3 whole minutes! Well done fellas!

Once done and everyone exhausted it was time for a gentle run back to base, for a bit of a stretch Next week we will be out doing good again, it would be great if you could join us sign up here.

9 people ran 6.5km to tidy the canal towpath

On a rather wet and cold night we had 9 hardy souls looking to do some good. It was great to see Lee back after his first session last week and Phil back off his holiday. Once the introductions were done our ‘wombles’ got their ‘tidy bags’ out and off we went down to our adopted part of the canal. We split up into 3 groups each clearing part of the towpath, before meeting up in the middle to leave our bags to be picked up by the canal and river trust.

Interval training

On the way back we did an interval session, completing 6 heart rate soaring efforts. Phil showed us his 400m runner speed once again by leading the way. James, Eva and Shalini showed great effort and really worked hard. I took about 186 pictures, most were terrible, but what can I say you were all running to fast!

what no wall squats?

Once the intervals were complete we took a steady run back towards our base, Lee leading the way showing us a new route to leave the canal. Just before this we had a ‘quick’ or not so in my case selfie (we were missing Chan ‘the selfie king’ tonight, due to his weekend half marathon exploits) and we were on our way! On the way back we called in on our ‘second home’, St Paul’s square for a little fitness session. Everyone knows how much I love a wall squat so of course I didn’t want to disappoint and so on we got with them, 3 of the beauties to be precise, Carol and John held a great squat and you could see how keen Garry is to get that ‘Jennifer Aniston esk peachy bum’ putting in top effort to maintain his squat! After each wall squat we had a rest…… pull the other one! it was straight into some lung bursting tuck jumps…….and then we were done, well virtually, we just had the little jog-a-log back to 1000 Trades.

Next week we will be out doing good again, it would be great if you could join us sign up here

14 people ran 6k to clear rubbish from a driveway into a skip for a homeless hostel

It was great to have a virtually tropical evening for tonight’s run. It was great to see first time GoodGym’er Sandy at tonight’s gathering. After the intro, we were on our way, running through the city centre, passing the bull ring, down the steps and on to Highgate. Nearly at the hostel we added in a couple of ‘lung busting hill sprints’ before arriving at our destination.

"What a stink!!"

The task was to move all the rubbish which included mattresses, Tv’s, chairs amongst other items into a large skip. Unfortunately, there was a little surprise, a big plastic bin was full of water, which spilled over the drive, causing one hell of a stink!! I think the water must have been in there since the 19th century!! Oh well Goodgymer’s are not fazed by this sort of thing (though I did think for a moment a few might pass out!), so we took it in turns in going back and forth to the tap to fill a bucket with water and swill the ‘stinky’ water away. There you are an extra work out! Once the task was completed and the skip couldn’t take anymore rubbish we were on are way back.

"Time to burn"

On are way back, again we incorporated a few sprints on the hills, James showing great determination powering up those hills and Phil showing his 400-metre runner speed. After that we ended up in St Paul’s square we got those thighs and bums burning with some lunges and a 1 minute wall squat and we even threw in a few tuck jumps to get that heart racing! Chan showing a great technique, Charlotte getting nice and deep with those lunges and Suki offering great encouragement as always

We then finished up with a short jog back to base, finishing with the all important stretching.

Next week we are going to be cleaning a gym at the Salvation Army, it would be great if you could join us sign up here

Ps. Thanks to Chan for the couple of ‘task photos’ top man!