Stake and Chips

28 runners ran between 5-7k to lift some wooden stakes, shift some woodchip and clear some gardens

We had another cracking run at GoodGym Camden this week- with 2 tasks to get our teeth stuck into.

Task 1- St Mary's Flat Somers Town

This is one of our regular haunts- we have been helping Jon and his gardening club to tidy up the communal gardens around the estate. Jon is incredibly grateful for all the hard work we put in and we've seen huge changes in the year or so that we have been coming. Jon and his team were recently presented an award for their efforts to turn this little space into somewhere to be proud of- he asked me to thank everyone for all the work they had put in that had contributed to that.

Chip.... around the old block

Jon had just received a 3 tonne dump of woodchip and needed some help shifting it round the block. We had three beds or gardens to cover- all of which needed clearing and weeding before we laid the woodchip on top. We split into 3 teams and went at it- quickly clearing and preparing the beds. The woodchip spreading proved to be slightly tougher. With only one spadesman (nice job Will) and a handful of plant pots to carry it in, we were forced to improvise in order to get the chip out as quick as we could. Hand's, brooms and feet were used to shovel the woodchip and people filled plastic bags, hands (Pritesh), and their t-shirts (....Pritesh again) with woodchip before dashing off around the estate. In 45mins we had covered the entire gardens with lovely woodchip, tidied two gardens, snapped one broom and filled our lungs up with woodchip dust. Brilliant.

Task 2- That's the sound of the men (and women) working on the....Chaaaaaain gang

A second smaller group headed to the Urban Orchard Project's King Cross Orchard. They had just taken delivery of lots of large wooden stakes and grills they need to protect the trees and needed some help moving them. It's a job that would take Amber from the project a good few hours to do on her own- but we can do it in 30mins. We formed a human chain and quickly shifted around 250 stakes and big metal grills round the back of the building. Great work.

The Run

We all managed to meet up together and made our way to the Regents Canal where we tried a Progression Run- starting off slow and building up the pace and tempo. We finished off with a stretch / tempo before heading back to Somers Town. Nice one.