14 rain defying Hackney GoodGymers ran 4K to Bootstrap and move 12 huge oil barrels filled with soil from the roof garden to Bootyard.

On a typically British summers evening we were treated to a shower on our way to the E5 Bakehouse. Given the huge workload we had in store it was probably a blessing in disguise!! Hearing about Hackney Coach Run Rep Andreana's epic assault cause Legendary triple header on the weekend we were all spurred onto to physical excellence.

After welcoming two GoodGym newbies Eda & Sarah to the squad we got on our way to the warm up area to get our bodies physically prepared for the efforts that lay ahead. Following our muscle activating and joint mobilising dynamic warm up we did some arm drive technique work, working on our 90 degree arm angles and driving our arms backwards from our pocket to socket (shoulder) for our efficient and relaxed arm action. We finished off with some balance aiding exercises and a little plyometric blast before heading out onto the Hackney back streets.

Nibblely dancing our way through the 2k run to Bootstrap in Dalston we were soon at the Bootyard to meet Matt. We stormed up to the Roof terrace and got to work, splitting into two groups we manoeuvred the huge soil filled oil barrels which must have weighed over a tonne each (I am sure). Across the terrace, down 2 flights of stairs, down the corridor, into the lift, down to the basement, then up to the ground floor (yes random) and finally spun into the Bootyard. A serious energy sapping task which worked the team seriously hard!! Matt was so impressed and grateful for all our hard work!

With a few weary bodies we decided to stick together for the run back to base and bask in the barrel moving glory as we weaved our way through Dalston. A 2k run and s quite cool down rounded off an excellent evenings work!

Next week we are off to a brand new and exciting task at Abney Park Cemetery to lay a pathway. Be great if you could come along for some Hackney style running fun!! Sign up here.

Here is the information on and place to sign up to Hackney Marshes ParkRun on the 9th of July!!. Would love to see the GG Hackney crew smash all their ParkRun PB's!!

We also had to unfortunately bid farewell to Charlotte who is returning back to Bristol following her studies. Charlotte has been a key member of the squad for the last few months and will be missed but has promised to go and keep Kev company at a GoodGym Bristol run very soon.

Smooth Spinning

Joel

15 hardy Hackney GoodGymers braved the myriad of weather conditions run 6k to cut in, cut out 8 flower beds in The brand new HUG garden on Hackney Downs.

Following a sprinkling of snow in the day and bright sunshine in the afternoon we knew we would be in for a beautiful yet Baltic evening in Hackney. Meeting at the Bakehouse we got to grips with the new DBS checking then got to it getting mobile in the joints and warm in our muscle fibres. Skipping, squatting, lunging and swinging we burst into life before being expertly lead the 2.5k to the HUG garden on Hackney Downs by Cecilia. We were met by Myra the heart and soul of the garden and driving force behind the project to create a great a community garden and many more projects that will have an uplifting impact on the lives of local people.

We split into pairs with the digger cutting in and digging out the turf or as Myra calls in Landscape Art and the runner carrying the turf at great pace to do Landscape design in the under 5's area of the garden to create an amazing environment for the little ones to explore. With Tom cutting in harder and fast than anyone could imagine there were times when we all stopped and watched Tom in full digging flight in utter amazement!! With supper digging sprint finish we managed to create 8 beautifully shaped flower beds and turf adventure landscape in 40 minutes. The beds will form the base of the garden with vegetables growing as well as beautiful plants in the coming weeks.

A quick rewarm of our running muscles saw us ready to return to base, a swift detour to take back the tools before we split into out regular Speedy and Sexy groups for the 3.5k run back to base. Some really strong running from both groups saw us home in perfect time for a static stretch out and a congratulatory round of applause for a top evenings work!!

Great to see a few signs up for the Hackney Half in 12 days time!! Getting excitingly close now! If you have any questions about race day or the lead up to it give me a shout on email or talk to me next week.

Next week we are off to the Open Barbers to get painting!! Please sign up here for some amazing running fun. We will be doing a little sharpening running session in preparation for race day to.

Good luck to those in the last weeks of training, trust it don't chase it!!

Smooth Running

Joel

13 Braved all that Storm Katie had to throw at us to run 5k to create a Willow tunnel for the H.U.G (Hackney Downs User Group) garden on Hackney Downs and create an impressive turf mound in the process.

On a night not for the faint hearted we huddled together in the Bakehouse before storming down the streets of Hackney not doing a great job of dodging the rain or the puddles! Running the 2.5k to the newly formed HUG garden to get started on a big project. Meeting Myra who had unfortunately just had her gardening tools stollen, we were a little light on spades to turned our efforts to frantically sprinting the expertly cut bits of turf to the ever growing Turf Mound. In 4 small pods we soon got into a solid rytham of cutting, digging and running the turf to the mound to create a snaking Williow tunnel for the under 5's to begin their gardening journey in the HUG garden. As light turned to dark we picked up the pace with the rain easing off to aid our efforts and in 30 solid minutes of graft we had completed the first of many missions with HUG.

We zipped away into the night keeping a strong pace mainly to keep warm back to our semi sheltered warm up area where Patrick had a treat I store for us Cups vs Cones in a battle to the death the best of 3 duel was an epic emotional journey for both teams. Not only battling a solid Effort from team Cones as well as some dubious counting from Patrick, Team Cups won the hearts of the fans and take the emotional victory even if the scoreboard says otherwise!

We returned to base wet, muddy but feeling great after a run evening with a great group of Team Hackney GoodGymers.

Big thank you to Patrick for the games and pictures and Cecilia for a brilliant navigational skills leading us to and from the task.

Next week we are brightening up Daubany fields by giving it a well needed Spring clean, please sign up here for some more fun on the run.

On Jack's request Strava published their blog entry last night, take a look here. Not sure the pictures any any better than my highly skilled efforts to be honest 😉.

Until next week

Smooth Sunshine

Joel

Twenty Four sensational Hackney GoodGymers ran 5k plus 5 laps of De Beauvoir Square to both shovel 10 tonnes of compost and lift shift and order a lot of wood.

On a windy night in H- Town team Hackney were out in Mega Force 💨💨💪🏽💪🏻💪🏾💨💨 to help make Hackney a nicer place to be while getting seriously fit along the way. We got our pulses raised with a short jog to our usual sheltered purpose built (well I like to think) warm up area. Then we began with a dynamic warm up to prepare the body for the energetic endeavours ahead before we started a new phase of our physical preparation with a series of Plyometric drills to increase Power, Strength and improve running Economy. We bounced, tuck jumped, jump squatted and jump lunged our way to Plyometric success before we split into two groups to take on this weeks Double Bouble tasks.

Seven fearless Runners set off to the Food Growers Group in Dalston lead by the superb Kev. Big question is will Kev make it to 100 Good Deeds before he leaves us for Bristol at the end of the month??? Just 4 Good Deeds needed!! Cheer Kev on to his Century of Good!! Here is what Kev had to say about the compost task:

Meanwhile a compost-hungry splinter cell of seven diggers dashed over to Dalston to assist Alex from The Food Growers Group shifting some compost out of the way of residents’ car parking spaces, it having been dropped by the council for use by local gardeners earlier this week. Eager to put their backs and cores to work to the familiar sound of spade-on-London-tarmac the group worked efficiently to 'find the line' while basking in the warming compost steam. Someone even speculated as to whether the emissions might be good for your skin, though the jury remains out on that one. Alex has a tonne of jobs lined up for a full crew and hopes to get us booked in for another visit soon. GGHackney’s gardening skills are in high demand these days!

Thanks Kev! We have another Double task in a couple of weeks with Alex and The Food Growers crew so look out for that one to.

While the bulk of the Team brilliantly lead to the task by Clare to the Hive where we were met by the usual array our alternative activities only found at The Hive. We bolted up to the top floor and began lifting, shifting and eventually sorting hundreds of pieces of wood. We got into the patented Daisy Chain to increase the wood movement pace and got stuck in! Then the call came as help was needed in the garden so 4 brave runners ran down to make pictured Totem poles from a series of tyres. The wood was sorted and moved created space for work to continue on the radio station, a last minute mission to pick up a door languishing on the 1st floor was complete before we set off on our way with a job well done.

We met up with the Compost crew at the beautiful De Beauvoir square, where they have kindly laid a perfect running oval primed for some lapping action! Building on the Plyometric techniques from the warm up we worked in pods of 3 bouncing, tuck jumping, lunge jumping and fast feeting between burning up the track with varying length tempo sprints around the track! ⚡️⚡️🔥🔥🏃🏃🏽🏃🏿🏃🏻🔥🔥⚡️⚡️. After a 5th and final all out lap the Team had produced a monumental running effort well played everyone 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾. We had the small matter of a 2k cool down to contented with which was super safely lead by Cecelia.

We stretched out and congratulated each other on a top fitness effort before 13 of us attempted to get our Pizza 🍕🍕🍕🍕 fill at the local Pizzaria. Unfortunately after a long wait only 9 made it (next time we are going to the pub!). But great to see so many runners growing the Team Hackney community even after the run. ##Top GG Hackney Vibes##

Next week we are getting our Green fingers working in Wilton Estate community garden 🍃🌿🌱please sign up here and look forward to seeing you all next week!

Smoothly Jump

Joel

15 Hackney GoodGymers ran 6k to the wonderful Gascoyne Estate community garden to fill raised beds, move a mountain of wood and create an emergency fire truck access for the neighboring day nursary.

Lovely to see a GG newbie starting out on the road to Goodness, as well as a few returning Team Hackney members who we have missed for a few weeks and our beautiful regular runners repping hard as usual.

We had a new lead runner this evening Clare who did a great job of shepparding us through the main, the back and side streets to our warm up area and then around to the task. Well done Clare hope to see you back leading the tribe very very soon! 👏🏻👏🏽👏🏾

We had a warm up with a difference this week, continuing on our strength phase of training we wanted to really toughen up are key running muscles in our core and lower limbs. So inspired by the NBA all star game I went oldskool and back to my basketball coaching days 🏀🏀🏀, getting into a half squat we did the line drill moving in every direction possible, grabbing rebounds, diving to get loose balls on the floor and working those fast feet all in a half squat and with our hands defending the passing lanes. Obviously this was not enough for the now legs of steal ⛓⛓⛓ Team Hackney so the Team begged for more and we jumped into a Lungeathon where we lunged in every direction continuously for a minute with a controlled eccentric calf raises as an active recovery then repeated 💪🏼💪🏻💪🏾 We knew the legs had taken some punishment as the first few strides of the run to the task there was in unison a collective grown!

We ran the 2.5k to the task to meet Varda, and we set to work uncovering the raised beds by removing wooden palettes and rocks which help to keep the foxes out. We then started shovelling mounds of soil to top up the beds, we were going so hard at it the wheelbarrow couldn't keep up and decided to go into early retirement. But on we charged, filling up 15 flower beds with soil. Then we employed the devastatingly efficient Daisy Chain 🌼🌼🌼 to move tones of wood to make make a perfect insect habitat. The insects are vital for the health of the garden and the new log habitat will give many insects a nice new home. 🐛🐌🐞🐜🕷🐝.

It was all hands on deck for the final phase of the task where we cleared a direct path for a fire entrance to a neighboring children's nursary by separating a huge mound of wood chip and soil then freeing up a perfect path to the fire entrance. 🚒🚒🚒🚒🚒🚒🚒

In 40 minutes of fun filled, super productive action we had showed how great Team Hackney are and Varda and the rest of the Gascoyne Estate community garden team were extremely greatful. Everyone is super excited to get more great work down on a Tuesday evening very soon on the Gascoyne Estate.

We headed back towards base aiming for a 2k steady run after our earlier leg exploits but out the corner of our eyes we saw something too intising to ignore. Victoria Park had a special preview of their night running track so we nipped in and had a sped out and back on the amazing pschyodelicly lite up track to add another 1.5k to the run. There will be structured running groups running in Viccy Park for the next few days, check info. We will try and return next Tuesday to have another go!

Hope to see you all next week when we return to Wilton Estate for some serious cutting action!! Please sign up here.

Until next week

Lunge smooth

Joel

Great to get stuck right into a new task tonight! Showed how we roll b