Sprints and the (Sand)Pauper

32 runners did something useful and ran in Camden last night

Picture the scene- its chilly, wet, its dark. It's January.

32 people emerge from the a small Community Centre in Somers Town and after some silly warmup exercises dash off in different directions to help 2 great projects in Camden. Coooor- sounds exciting doesn't it?

Veg box delivery

10 people went north to Dartmouth Park to help a Kentish Town Veg Box scheme a community led scheme offering affordable seasonal veg to local people with all projects invested back into growing projects. Here's Pritesh's report;

This week 10 of us took the long option and headed up towards Tufnell Park to do some flyering for the local veggie-box group that we have helped out before. After some typically fantastic directing by myself (a few wrong turns, a few map stops, the pavement being blocked off a few times) we found our location - the Lord Palmerston pub - which was going to be our start point.

After a very haphazard attempt to split the group into two (which number am I, again?!) we set about our work and due to some swift running and leaflet dropping we were done in around 10-15 minutes - great job team!

After a quick vote on the way we should run home we chose to go back the way we had come, we wanted to keep up the pace and we thought the Kentish Town route would be too busy. A good blast back down towards King’s Cross and with time still on our hands I decided to take us to Granary square to do some ‘geared’ laps. After a dismal attempt to explain the running gears we set off and everyone put in a brilliant effort including a sprint finish on the last section! We then slowly jogged back to base and then had a good old stretch out (hang on, which muscle are we stretching here? Not sure I should lead stretches!).

A great night - well done to the group for the effort on the task and the run - the pub was well deserved after and happy birthday Alex!

Sandpaper Caper

The other 22 people ran South to Our Camden's new offices in Kings Cross. They are pretty great- they're a community- interest- company. Their premise is to connect older people in Camden with other people, organisations, local businesses and social opportunities in Camden through a membership scheme. By creating this network they hope people will stay active, social and engaged into retirement. You should see some of the things they get up to (I want to do Archery in Camden!).

Anyway they have new offices. They haven't been used in a while so need some renovation- we're going to help them with that. Our first task was sanding anything that was either covered in gloss paint or was rough and peeling. With 22 hands we made light work of it- finishing 4 rooms in around 30mins. We also discovered Zach Morris from Save by the Bell's laptop computer flung in the corner with some other rubbish. Impressive stuff. Covered in dust we ran round the corner to Russell Square where we ran 4 lung busting intervals round the perimeter of this lovely park.

Home for celebratory pints

After the tough workout we dragged ourselves home to Somers Town where we met the other runners and headed to the pub to celebrate Alex's birthday in the local boozer.

See you next week for more running, painting, digging and, if you fancy it, post-run boozing.