15 do gooders hit the streets, smashed out the task, a plank off and some tabata

I couldn’t wait to get stuck into this week’s session as I was unable to run last week. I rode to the meet as quickly as my little legs could handle, so much so that the wind swept my eyelids back. Anyways.

braved the cold and the plank off

First to arrive at HQ was Dawn who kept me company while we awaited the others. Next up was Ollie who was followed by a steady trickle of red running jerseys. Then came a few newbies. Mahoosive shouts out to Sara, Haley and Bex welcome to GoodGym Haringey guys. You guys were great last night - well done. In fact, well done to everyone who came down and braved the cold and the plank off.

smidge of babbling

Ah I’d also like to give a huge shout out to the legendary Patrick who received his wings for completing his 100th good deed and in such a short time. Very impressive! As Patrick arrived we headed outside to welcome the newcomers during our high knees role call, a warm up and a quick briefing. Now with it being me there was a smidge of babbling but I’m getting better so after a few minutes we were off. Ali and Beth took the front (as I’m still slightly injured) and I took the back. The journey there was pretty relaxed as we ran at a steady pace apart from Dashing Dave steaming ahead to get pictures. This is now commonplace. Cracking job as ever Dave.

Oh the shame

We arrived at the Gates of the Styx premises to find the gates were locked. I had been given the code to the gate previously so preceded to try and unlock the gate but to no avail. I began to panic just a tad. With 14 onlookers I just couldn’t bear to let down. As the lights were on and there were vehicles in the drive I decided to hop, skip and jump over the gate to raise the attention of those inside. I went in and found Joseph who came out to get the crew through the gates. To my embarrassment Joseph tinkered with the gate and said “dude it’s open”. Oh the shame.

The team pulled together

As I was getting over this, Joseph lead the crew into the hanger like space which houses live music, community yoga and poetry among other things. He then explained what we would be doing. This had slightly changed however. Instead of staining some wood banisters and shifting a pile of wood into the wood store we would now be shifting a load of wooden benches we had previously stained to line the edges of the hanger like space, along with arranging some furniture for a poetry session that was being put on for the local community the following evening. There was also the small task of clearing some items from the back room and giving the place a little tidy. This was dealt with in a flash. The team pulled together and wasted no time at all in getting this sorted.

PLANK OFF

Once finished I asked Joseph to tell everyone a little more about Styx so everybody huddled around to listen in on some Styx history. This looked pretty cosy. I then told everyone that because they had smashed out the task so quickly we had a little free time to waste. PLANK OFF screamed out in my head. So after some more babbling from myself we got the plank off under way. Bodies were strewn across the warehouse floor. Everybody did really well, the timings were very tight. We'll be revisiting this regularly to increase peoples PBs. Congratulations to all who held it for as long as they could. Patrick managed to hold his plank for no less than 4min 6sec. Crikey that’s some plank.

sprint finish

After a quick conversation about Beavertowns beverages we were all set to hit the streets again. Once outside the Styx premises we took part in our mandatory high fives then we were off. With Dashing Dave doing his usual bit of Dashing and our now standard sprint finish we were back at HQ and just about ready for some tabata. We thrashed out some vertical mountain climbers, burpees, horizontal mountain climbers then press ups. Wait… did I get that the right way round *chuckle. Good to see everyone was on their toes and listening to my instructions.

GGH social

After a warm down and some stretches we had a little fun with some sparklers I had left over from bonfire night before heading over to Chicken Town for our GGH social where we enjoyed lots of banter, breasts (of chicken), and bottled beverages by Beavertown. Ok the drinks were canned but the alliteration was good no? We fed the bellies until they were full and had many a belly laugh. It was great to kick it with y’all guys.

Until next week folks - stay fit, do good and look out for the light.

Saturdays Parkrun: https://www.goodgym.org/races/goodgym-parkrun-tour-finsbury-park

Saturdays mission: https://www.goodgym.org/missions/do-good-at-the-kori-kids-playground

Next week’s task: https://www.goodgym.org/group_runs/run-to-do-good-in-haringey-e68d72c0-800e-4b8a-9e7a-3ae23d3d929c