11 runners formed a well oiled machine last night in Ealing as we took on trimming and Transition Community Orchard, The Ealing Mile AND an abs blast workout, gosh I tired just thinking about it all!

A big welcome last night to Erika who joined us at GoodGym for the first time and also to tourists Hannah and Chi visiting Ealing GoodGym from Wandsworth and Haringey!

With lots of new faces in the group we got things started by getting to know everyone a little better and in honour of our task (where on previous visits we've been given magic beans to take away and grow) we decided this week to discuss out favourite legumes, a bit random even by my standards! We had everything from the humble chickpea through to the baked bean as well as a few confused 'what the hell is a legume?!' answers, now I'll know you all by your favourite pulses!

Raising Pulses

With the pulses raised verbally it was time to raise some physical pulses with a quick jog down to Wapole Park for a warm up round of squat, squat, goose. Think duck, duck, goose but with added squats and sprints and you've got the gist of it! Then a quick stop off to retrieve the tools needed for the job before a final wheelbarrow jog down to The Transition Garden where Grant was ready waiting for us with a couple of big trimming jobs in mind.

We had two mains jobs to tackle last night, taming the hedge surrounding the site and the ongoing task of keeping the brambles inside the wild area under control. Everyone quickly grabbed their weapon of choice and got snipping! The hedge received a much needed hair cut and we cleared a good few wheel barrows worth of brambles from the wild area too. Great work everyone! Transition is such a lovely local project and a big thank you to Grant for coming down to meet us last night, I'm sure we will be back again soon to help some more!

Just One Mile...

With the task behind us it was onto Lammas Park for the second installment of The Ealing Mile. Throughout the lighter months our Tuesday night routes often take us around Lammas Park which is the home of The Ealing Mile and within the park there are 100m markers to mark out the distance. It's a great place to do intervals and the mile is a fantastic opportunity to test your fitness. Here are the results from last night:

Chris 5:52

Chi 6:11

Lauriane 6:41

Michael 7:37

Carlos 7:40

Beth 7:41

Jenni 8:32

Amanda 8:34

Erika 10:19

Hannah 10:21

Well done to Chris who took 25 seconds of his last attempt, Lauriane who shaved off 11 seconds and Jenni who came in over a minute faster! We'll get in a couple more attempts before summer is out so keep your eyes peeled on the future tasks!

With the mile done and dusted you'd think we were spent for the evening but as part of his tourism Chi likes to treat his chosen group to an abs blast workout, who was I to argue?! We dropped off the tools and hit the floor for grueling round of core exercises before a final jog back to the start.

What a night!