25 Hackneyites ran 5km and helped St Luke's Church with some gardening

With Joel recovering with his new knee it was my pleasure to cover for him. Welcome along to Valentina, Carolina, Claire, Aimee and Brenna - lovely to have you along!

In the news this week:

1. This month's long run is on Sunday 24th June with either 11km or 16km options - all details here
2. Danny is organising volunteering for the British 10km, with a GG team taking over an aid/water station - in return you'll get a free entry for a Virgin Event. See full details here

After a quick dynamic warm up we headed 2km to St Luke's Church, this is a regular task for GoodGym, the team making a big impact over the years.

Upon arrival we split into two teams tackling weeds, leaves and overgrowth. A team of 3 delicately picked weeds from a beautiful flower bed while the rest of the team cleared as much as possible from the churchyard gardens.

24 GGers + 30 minutes = 12 hours of work!

Over 30 minutes we made a huge impact, filling 12 bags of rubbish and weeds - nice! After a group picture we headed to the local park for a fitness session - getting into pairs one person sprinted while the other did a conditioning exercise - including press ups, squats, balancing, plank & squat jumps!

Sign up for next week here when Joel is back and you are off to help the Hackney Wick Community Garden Team!

PB out.

As we bring the Easter bank holiday to a close it seemed fitting to do some good work in a churchyard and tonight eighteen intrepid runners did just that as we headed out to the striking St. Luke's Church off Morning Lane in Hackney to clear a congregation of leaves from their yard.

The session began with warm-up in London Fields and the action then took us towards Hackney Town Hall for some drills in the shape of sprints and grapevining. There was some pretty nifty footwork on show from our runners and by now everyone was well limbered up for the next section of the 2.5 km run that took us to St Luke's.

We welcomed three new members to our group tonight, it was great to meet Robyn, Stephanie and Nowrin.

With no time to waste the group went hammer and tongs at the task of clearing a huge quantity of leaves from the churchyard. Two score and ten bin bags were stuffed to bursting completely clearing the churchyard and revealing a tranquil space that could almost have had Thomas Gray reaching for his quill and parchment.

With the sun beginning to set and the task done there was no let up for our band of sisters and brothers as we downed tools and hit the road over to Well Street Common picking up the pace before rounding the final bend along Well Street and back to our Bakehouse base. With 5 km, an interval session and a ton of cleared leaves under our belts it was a job well done.

Despite the great work, I have to end our report on a sad note and console with two of our group who became the victims of crime with a bike and a bike wheel being stolen from outside London Fields station. We all feel your pain guys, absolutely gutted for you, sadly there are some bad people out there and we all need to take every precaution against thievery.