Double deeding means double reporting!

The first is brought to you by Steve, who led a group with Patrick (star photographer) up to Girdlestone Gardening Club:

Nine enthusiastic Islington goodgymers set off visit the Girdlestone Gardening Club, new task venue, at the far northern reaches of the borough in Archway. Leaving promptly, we raced up Holloway Road disccussing our favourite running conditions and avoiding the massed throngs along the way.

We arrived at the site and were met by Jan who let us into the garden where we cleared and pruned masses of overgrown vegetation. The bonus was that they were raspberry canes that needed clearing and they provided us with a late autumn bounty of sweet fruit to sustain us before the inevitable supply of biscuits was offered to all.

With undergrowth cleared and all tidied away we set of for a race down an emptier Holloway Road and a sneaky fartlek round the Emirates before meeting up with the other half of the group at Highbury Pool. Another satisfying evening.

Steve

Then we have Caroline's report for the group led by her and Simon, who visited Barnsbury Community Centre.

It's like a James Bond Movie sequel, we had another benefical trip to Barnsbury Community Centre. Our 'secret agents' on the way ran 2k, got there earlier than expected and even had time to do lunges on the way.

At the task we struggled with the lock to get in but were saved by codebreaker Helena who managed to put in the code in the right place.

We split into two groups. One group continued to removed a mountain of horrible soil (mank mountain) into removal bags. The other group was putting new soil into planters. This weeks biscuits were Lemon Puffs... (what do you think of Lemon Puffs could have been our weekly debate because they are like marmite... you either love em or hate em).

On the journey back there was a hill (or at least hilly by 8:15pm standards). Simon had us do some cool running games including Indian File and intervals. For once we made it back to the pool on time to play a game called cups and cones (basically we get into 2 teams and have to turn over the other teams cones). The cups team won and cones had to clean up.

We had a several stretches of the week this week. Caroline did her relaxing zombie move again and Helena presented a new twist on the classic ITB stretch.

Finally, there was the debate... what is the best condition to run in? Most people agreed varying temperatures between 5 degrees and 15 degrees and a few liked a bit of rain.

Caroline