Scenes! Scenes were had as 16 (and a half!) runners descended upon the grounds of T On The Green in Bruce Castle Park, having run a cool 4k, and in full action mode set out to give them a hand to make the site even more beautiful.

We painted. We panted. We scrubbed. We weeded. We wash-blasted. We littered picked. We secured fences. Scenes!

Shout-out Central!

GoodGym Haringey welcomed Keir, Karen, and Rafael who were joining us for their first ever GoodGym run. Give them some love. Also Sophie and Natalie joined for their first run in a while and they looked like they were never away. Stars. Finally big love for Rhiannon who's the first person to ever reply to my 'Might you be pregnant?' question with a massive yes. She was awesome, worked for 2, and even offered to do modified burpees. Boom!

Just water for the T-totals

I'm not going to complain about the weather but it was muggy out there this eve.

We ran the long way to T On The Green and were very pleased to be welcomed with open arms and nice, cold water by Carol, the task owner at T On The Green.

She handed us a multitude of tasks and our 16.5 inTrepid runners threw themselves at it. We painted some planting boxes at lightning speed, weeded some recently peebled areas with aplomb, secured a fence that earlier this very day caused a kiddie to fall over, we littered-picked the grounds, we smartened up the BBQ area, and we wash-blasted the entry ramp. All in 45 minutes. Pats on the back all around.

Back at base camp we did some stretches, and then headed home still slightly light-headed after such a dizzying performance.

Next week we're visiting our friends at Westbury Banks Nature Reserve - come and join us!

Also, please remember to check out our community mission at Chestnut Park on the 20th of July and sign up if interested.

Peace!

6 runners beat the heat by running 6km to help out the shaded Westbury Banks Nature Reserve.

The Tottenham Green Pools had all the doors thrown open to let the air in when we arrived. Big cheers to Jai and George who came along for the first GGH run, despite the heat! And welcome back to Ollie, who fulfilled my prediction to Jai by turning up at exactly 7:02pm.

After some dynamic stretches, we warmed up with a game of shoulder tag, which was declared as draws all round, with somehow only Dave losing. Then off we ran through Downhills Park and Lordship Rec.

When we arrived, we were greated by another volunteer from NextDoor, who volunteered to take our group photo.

There was a new and really interesting ask awaiting us. A biodiversity survey. Or counting all the trees on this patch of land. These roadside patches of semi-wild land can be a real haven for nature.

We split into two groups, and plunged into the undergrowth, armed only with a plant identifying app, and got counting.

Team East End

small spruce trees 4

elms 3

horse chestnut 1

sycamore 1

Team West End

Sycamore 4

Elderflowers 7

Cherry 23

Hawthorne 4

Pear 1

Plum 2

Unknown 2

Apple 2

Ever green oak 1

Copper beech 1

& Sycamore saplings 23

These sycamore saplings are in danger of taking over the land, so we spent a few more minutes uprooting them, before it was time to leave.

On the return leg, we took part in the GG Olympic 1k dash, round Downhills Park.

According to my haphazard time keeping the results were:

1. 3:43 George
2. 4:23 Jai
3. 4:32 Ollie
4. 5:20 Sophie

& the Salvador Dali award for excellence in the field of GPS art handwriting goes to Cathy!

Despite our tired legs, we still ran back to base, and finished with those all important stretches.

This week 6 marvelous GoodGym-ers ran almost 3km to help Tottenham Green turn fallen leaves into the ground (while two runners met us there).

We had a last minute change of plans, as our original task for this evening had to be called off due to a heavy case of jet lag. Luckily Laura was on hand to provide us with an emergency task of carrying on from where we left off last time. This time, however, she'd spent hours watering the ground, which made it much much easier to dig and turn!

The team quickly split into leaf collectors, mud forkers, shovellers and water transporters. We had to shift all the soil we turned last week and fill the trench with the leaves, then cover it up again as quickly as possible. We were so efficient, we managed to do a whole extra strip next to our original strip, meaning we doubled down on trench filling and made use of tonnes of fallen leaves. Nothing like a bit of nature to help nature sort itself out. We could practically see the worms getting to work before our eyes.

Just 35 minutes later and it was time to pack up our things and take a team photo. Great work! (as always!)

We then finished up with some sprints, focusing on picking our feet up, before heading back to base for stretches.

Don't forget to sign up for the Olympics, here And for Race the Neighbours here.

This week's run was off to a rocky start, with Enfield-to-Haringey traffic off the charts, making me a little late to the party. Luckily Dave was on hand to get things going until I got there.

We were joined by GG newbie Roxi this week, who's trying to get into the running - and started off by voting for the longer run route, which is always a wonderful idea and deserves all the cheering!

We were helping Friends of Tottenham Green dig a new green patch for seeding and planting a few bulbs. The ground was harder than we anticipated and the group worked real hard to break into it, managing to turn the soil across a big strip, while Chi and Julie planted the bulbs.

We started with a big of litter picking to clear the area. We found all sorts: nuts, bricks, plastic. It's a real shame that people are always throwing trash about and it's real lucky there are so many cheery GoodGym-ers out here helping out.

After 40 minutes of all the digging and the twig cutting, it was time to tidy up our things and say our goodbyes.

This week's fitness session focused on press ups and burpees, doing work on the negative movement pattern so the group could train the necessary muscles to build up to the full move. Everyone made a little progress and know how to progress further, with Chi even doing some alternative spider plyometric press ups to finish, before we headed over to the road for some final sprints.

Dave kindly demonstrated the sprinting form for me, so I could get everybody to focus on pushing off that back leg, rather than stepping forwards with the front one.

Real great sprinting all-round, with a quick photo finish and a final sprint to base for stretches.

8 runners ran 5km to help sow some spring seeds for the Westbury Banks Nature Reserve.

It was good to see Danny wander over from Brent for a bit of GoodGym tourism, go give him a cheer!

It was already a warm day, but that doesn't mean we skipped the warm-up. Some high knees and drag runs soon got everyone's heart rates up. We wound our way over to Westbury, with wall sits and planks while waiting for the group to gather up.

Luke welcomed us to the task, and showed us a series of planters they'd had donated recently. The team split in two, with some filling the planters, and other tidying up the spot where they'd would be deployed. With them filled the next step was to fill them with #WildflowersForLondoners, and artistically arrange some logs around them. Which of course meant ferrying the logs from the other end of the Nature Reserve. With that done, our time was up, and time to head back. Really looking forward to some return trips to see the flowers in bloom!

On the way back we paused in Downhills Park, for a reverse pyramid of burpees, opposite elbow horizontal mountain climbers, and vertical mountain climbers. The technique of slapping alternative knees or dancing like a puppet was debated, but overthinking it just makes the mountain climbers even harder!

Then when everyone was good and tired, we did a couple of short runs, to show the importance of the core strength we'd been working on. Imagining a balloon pulling you up from the crown of your head sounds silly, but makes a huge difference to running efficiency, especially when tired.

Then back to base for stretches.

We'll be putting together team to Race the Neighbours from GG Barnet on 1st July, so watch this space!

After next week's run, we'll have our monthly social if you feel a bit peckish post-run.

This week seven brilliant GoodGym-ers ran 2.5km to help Chestnuts Park mulch trees. We were joined by THREE new runners: Natalie, Sophie and Raphael – Give 'em a cheer!

After some traffic issues and a minor locker malfunction, we were off to a late start. I stalled for time with bonus warm up exercises and some resistance running in pairs, while the technical problems were dealt with inside.

We then made our way to Chestnuts park to meet Ceri and co. We were quickly assigned our tasks, with half the team on digging and laying duties and the other half on mulch collecting. In half an hour we'd re-mulched seven fruit trees, some of which still had some left over from when we did it last year. We met the famous Willow Weaver and were told maybe we could do some weaving next time, which is a very exciting task prospect indeed.

We then said our goodbyes, packed up our tools and headed over to our starting line for our Chestnuts 800m dash. Some real speedy running from the gang, but with some rather twisty arm drives - so we focused on getting that alignment right, building power in the elbow drive and trying not to cross the hands across the body. This was particularly challenging for all our newbies who'd not done it before, but over time these things get easier. It takes time to relearn new shapes; but the more you practice, the more natural these things become and then the more efficient your running will get.

We then made our way back to base, with Cathy our trusty back-marker and Hazel speeding ahead to lead us home.

This week's pun was the brain child of Ollie