6 runners ran 5km to help the Canal and River Trust. Tonight saw a rather wet start to 2018 for Birmingham GoodGym, we had though a marvellous group of 6 runners who braved the elements and post-Christmas food and drink excess!
They were up for the challenge presented this evening of a litter pick along the canal two days post New Year! The regular litter picks we do are part of a link up GoodGym Birmingham has developed with the Canal and River Trust to help keep the lovely canals of Birmingham a clean place for everyone to enjoy. A little-known fact is that Birmingham has more canals than Venice, we also are meant to have more trees than Paris but I’m not as sure how they know for that one! Anyway enough with all that, onto to the task, being a smaller group tonight we decided to stick together and head to a well-known litter hot spot identified by David. On reaching the location we could certainly see that a very jolly New Year had been enjoyed by the locals! The team set to work quick and with help from headtorches were soon finding lots of rubbish hidden and scattered around our designated area. The group all got stuck in and worked really hard for 20 minutes at the location and by the end we had 5 bags brimming with rubbish, a bag per person when excluding the run leader!

5 Bags Full!

Then it was off to the drop off location at Aston locks which being a good few minutes further down the canal provided an extra bit of strengthening work with carrying those bags! Once our obligatory selfie was taken, with the team giving me some help on lighting and angle for it (still didn’t get the flash working but one step at a time right?!) we headed back along canal for our fitness session. Tonight this took place under the Snow Hill tunnel providing some slight protection from the rain which had begun again. First up was a series of strength and HITT exercises such as press ups, tricep dips, tuck jumps and finally in honour of our Trainer Jonny the wall sit! The team showed great effort and energy and when each set of the exercise was done it was a sprint to the stairs….not to escape though just as the rest point before the group re-grouped and took the recovery run back to the locks for the next exercise. Great work shown by both David’s powering through those press ups and hitting the sprints!

Leg workout!

However that was not the end…..we moved up next to the stairs for our next set of conditioning exercises focused on those all important legs! We did a minute of work on calf raises, ski squats, scissor lunges, leg swings with knee lift and squats into calf raises! Top work from George on the calf raises, great technique from Karin on the squats and Morwenna put in some great work on those lunges! Again really fantastic work rate by everyone, consider the mince pies and turkey well and truly worked off! From there we had a run back to base where we completed our cool down stretches. Many thanks for everyone who came along tonight! Jonny will be back with us next week with I’m sure news on his Australia adventure and a great task at Suited for Success, certainly one not to miss! A reminder on items which can be brought for donation include: Mens suits, women's suits, skirts, dresses, trousers, blouses, shirts, jackets, coats, smart shoes, jewellery, scarfs, belts, handbags, women's tights, new and packaged underwear. Please ask friends, family and work colleagues so that we can support this fantastic charity who help get disadvantaged people into work. Next week we will be out doing good again, it would be great if you could join us sign up here