19 Hackney GoodGymers ran 7.5k to Stamford Hill Estate Community garden to plant bulbs, seeds and did our 2 tough shrubs!

Thanks for coming along to a fun night of running in Hackney!! Great to have some new faces to the team for the evenings physicality!

Lots of news this week!!

Thursday sees us jointly host the monthly GG London Social. Be great to have as many of you along!! Find the details here.

The 18th of November seeding a big GG contingent volunteering at the Fulham 10k. If you fancy cheers along to help the runners out as well as picking up a race discount and Adidas Top all the details are here.

Eva is organising a great community mission on the 24th at St Joseph’s Hospice clearing away the fundraising jumble sale. Details here.

So getting underway with a solid 3.5k run at a flowing pace to the North of the borough to find Zoe who was looking after us for the evening. Grabbing all the tools, seeds, bulbs we could we broke off into mini groups to make the GG magic happen!!

The bulb and seed planters were on great form sewing great lines of seeds and with an amazing digging contraption the daffodil bulbs flew into the ground in no time!

However the there was a battle being waged on 2 of the most stubborn shrubs in all of Hackney!! Digging down, spear fishing type moves, the old fashioned physically persuasive grabbing and pulling managed to remove both shrubs in the nick of time.

With some newly dug holes found a great more appropriate home to allow the flower beds to be planted up ready for Spring.

With a bounce in our step we headed back to base with a great session complete!!

Hope to see you all next week when we visit Abney Park!!

Smooth Running

Joel

We were a good sized team of 19 this evening, with a total of 7 new runners joining us!

Operation Aldgate

Task force member Dave was leading the flyering operation this evening, taking a small team of 5 on a longer run to Aldgate to meet with Laura, from Aldgate Community Events, to help promote the Aldgate Lantern Parade and Winter Fete on December 7th. The team not only ran a respectable distance, succeeded in distributing all but a handful of the leaflets, they then made it back to Hollybush Gardens in time for tonight’s Pilates sessions. Good going, Operation Aldgate.

A glossy finish

Meanwhile, I led the other runners to Hollybush Gardens for an evening of painting. I say ‘led’ but somehow I managed to get us lost on the 0.2m run to our task, as I hadn’t been to the Hollybush Community Centre before. Thanks to Leanne for saving the day, and getting us to our destination and on time. On arrival at the task, experienced task owner Margaret had thought of everything: runners were dispatched at lightning speed to the hallway to paint doors and skirting boards. Shoe-covers, gloves, disposable brushes, snacks and juice were all ready and waiting and the runners completed the task in record time. Before long, we were gathering as usual for our goodbyes and forming multiple rows in the Community Centre for this evening’s Pilates class.

P is for Pilates. And planks.

Surprisingly refreshed-looking runners whizzed through some standing balance moves, shoulder-tap planks and then some seated abdominal work before racing back to base for some much-needed glute stretches.

Awesome Autumn teamwork

Tonight was a real team effort and a half. Thanks to our brilliant task force, for usual behind-the-scenes Monday planning; to Dave for heading up the flyering task; Leanne for saving the Hollybush route day and helping close up the centre; to Leanne and Dave for leading the routes back.

And tonight’s pun was brought to you by the brilliant Danny (when are you coming to join us again, btw, Danny?). Thank you for an eleventh hour comedy contribution.

A massive, smiley GG welcome to our wonderful new runners tonight: JoJo, Sarah (not new to GG by any means, just to TH), Thaisa, Nikki, Lisa, Juliette, Tim – thank you for being so productive, speedy and welcoming to fellow new runners, on your first run with Team Tower Hamlets, and we hope to see you again very soon.

Next week, we're heading to hospital...

Next week, we’re on an indoor task at the first of a two-week task at the Royal London, where those who are interested in returning for a second week to visit the dementia wards can undertake a training task with the Head of Dementia. Not a task to be missed, IMO, so sign up here. In the meantime, have a brilliant week, and look forward to seeing you very soon.