11 runners take on 3km in Camberwell and garden / sweat with joy.

This week guest starred Ana, the new GoodGym Wandsworth trainer (launch day: 1st August) who came along to see what happens in Southwark and put us through our paces.

lunge nice and tall

A warm up on the edge of the rye got us nice and ready to clamber up the hills of Camberwell back to Grove Park Allotments. We met Lizzie there who had some strimming to be done, paths to be cleared and leaks to be found (or not found).

Michael set off to sort out the wild grass, goggles in place, and soon sorted out the orchard into a much more manageable area.

Helena, Matt, Deepak and Zoe got to work clearing the crazy weeds towards the back of the allotment areas.

Joelle and Jess did a sterling job of digging up the flag stones and around a potential leaky pipe under close observations. A lot of sweat, mud shifting and tap testing later and though the leak wasn't found, at least it wasn't in the most awkward place it could have been! Another job for another night? Hmm.

Becky, Ana and Lianne were focused in clearing the entrance of the allotments and watering any thirsty plants in sight.

40 minutes later, and much admiration of the land and how amazing it would be to have an allotment in London, and we were ready to say our goodbyes. After an easy amble down the hill, Ana led us onto the Rye. One lap, timed, at 95% followed by core work. During crunches and planks, we did our best to drown out any cheers and groans from the local pub showing the football.

some excellent side planking!

Not quite ready to finish the session, it was time to set off on lap two to try and beat the first lap. Either the core work had warmed everyone up or a little bit of extra effort had been held back for the final piece of work. Either way, some excellent sprinting to finish off a lovely evening.

14 runners crossing a borough (again) to clear hedges & weeds at Surrey Docks Farm.

Finally, the rain cleared and the mugginess came back for us to run across into the shadow of Canary Wharf to the lovely farm. After bobbing and weaving down Rye Lane and waiting for a lot of green men, we eventually, and rather sweatily, made it to meet Gemma. She had already gotten to work with a chain saw on the hedge along the Thames Path and we were to clear it.

Lots of glove matching and hoeing later and we were filling wheelbarrows with green stuff. Zoe took the challenge of jumping on the compost heap to crush it down.

Trampoline time!

After almost no time, we had to pack away. Luckily, we got to walk passed all of the animals we'd seen last time. The tallest goats in the world were hiding. too much height pressure the beautiful calf was looking much more grown up. Esther, the pregnant sow was due to give birth on Monday. We watched with baited breath for her to...

go to the toilet...

No piglets tonight but it was still lovely to see all of the animals and work somewhere so amazing in the shadow of the concrete jungle.

A few press ups, tricep dips and wall sits later and we were back at Old Spike.

A decent crew of us made our way over to The Rye pub for some food and much needed fluids.

Lovely stuff GoodGym Southwark. Until next week.

On a warm summer evening 13 GoodGymers ran 10k to help the Sayers Croft Trust clean up an ecological park area

Summer had truly arrived and 13 amazing runners gave up the chance for a cold drink or ice cream in the sun and came and ran with GoodGym Westminster!

Summer

We were expecting to be digging holes but with tools unavailable and the ground not prepared we had a changeup of tasks but were still able to help Sayers Croft Trust. The Sayers Croft Trust is a charity that aims to involve the local community, especially young people, in the enjoyment and care of the environment.

With Cory unavailable, I was back in the game (no fluoro this week) and I’d decided we were gonna go off piste with our run up to Paddington Recreation Ground! With my trusty ‘google maps’ (other map providers are available) of written directions we set off. Howard and Graham ably backmarked the group and we had an enjoyable 5k slug through Regents Park, past Lords cricket ground and through St John’s Wood and Maida Vale to the ecological area at Paddington Rec.

‘google maps’

With keys collected we got our equipment and had a good old litter pick throughout what was really quite an immaculate area of the park. Still we filled two bags with various paraphernalia and even managed to fish a football and some balloons out of a pond! Despite the brevity of the task it was still great to help out and with the 5k return trip to go (uphill this time) we were welcome of the slightly less physical task.

Uphill!

With everyone gathered we headed back for the return leg, all went well apart from a slight mishap that meant I added a little loop (sorry India) just before the big hill and with Katie and Matthias leading the way we all safely returned to base. Some stretches were hastily done before I was politely reminded of the time and we all headed home!

Thanks to everyone and don’t forget to sign up for next week!

Thanks,

Pritesh

p.s. For the followers of 'coke and apples-gate' a pic is included!

3.5km for a sunset bonfire, weeding and wood cracking.

We welcomed a couple more new faces to the GG Southwark fold tonight and some old faces that we'd missed. After a quick GG intro, we set off up the familiar hill of Chadwick Road to Grove Park Allotments and to meet Lizzie. She already had a good fire going and lots of different tasks for us to get stuck into.

The optional task of bursting through the bonfire smoke in a Stars in their eyes manner may have occurred more than once.

(Watch this space for a karaoke social!) We were weeding the paths to widen them for wheelchair access, watering plants and clearing dead wood either into the fire or to dry for one of the allotment users wood burner. Sorting the thorny bits from the non-thorny bits was a bit haphazard but we survived relatively unscathed.

Once we'd finished up, it was another skipping warm up special as we made our way to Warwick Park for some glute work to finish off the session.

Hopping, clam walks and frog leaps were the order of the evening. This, in hindsight, was a little mean given two of our group had spent the previous days travelling back to the UK after epic trips. Nonetheless, the drills were finished with finesse and we ambled back in the final light of the day. Lovely.