Allotments and Mile End Park

Last night, a group of keen runners gathered at York Hall for Good Gym's first group run since the clocks changed.  After a warm up we split into two teams; the first set off north towards the allotments, and the second started a similar route but peeled off eastwards along the canal, and into Victoria Park.The allotment team continued straight north into Hackney, the stamping ground of the team's leader Simon Cole (a long time Good Gym runner and also founder of Hackney Tours).  They reached the allotment in good time and embarked on a full hour of hearty digging.The team created 57 bags of waste which was 20 more than the last Good Gym group to do the same task.An hour of digging burns about 340 calories (depending on body weight) so this was a serious workout.By the time they returned, they'd clocked up a run of 8.7k over 56mins on top of the full hour of clearing land.The park group also set off at quite a pace and kept it up through Victoria Park.  They arrived in Mile End park with differing levels of exhaustion. This was soon rectified by some gentle warm up routines increasing to a jog & sprint drill to ensure everyone was sufficiently out of breath. We played a few games to burn off some more energy, and then set off back down the canal to create a loop back to the finish line at York Hall. The run totalled 4.8k plus half an hour of extra physical exertion.Photography: Simon Cole (Hackney Tours)