With regular Camden trainer Paul “PB” Bown off performing in Les Mis (that’s right, isn’t it?) , Simon from Islington popped over to say hello tonight.

It was a quick getaway for the first group of Camdenites who were ably led by Becky and Pritesh to go and help make some beds at the homeless shelter in Goodge Street (as in sheets, not constructing the frames or anything).

For the last time this winter we headed to the American International Church to help Stephanie make beds for the homeless. In total only four beds needed to be made, testament to the work that the churches have done to help re-home those that have needed their help over the winter. With only a few beds needing to be made we also helped set the dinner table for that evening. This gave us a chance to show off our napkin origami with Becky being particularly skilled at making mice! Hidden talents everywhere! With that done we said our final goodbyes to Stephanie who is heading back to the USA and then headed off to join the group at the foodbank!

The rest of us – including first timer Nathan - had a little more time on our hands and did a nice warm up including a quick go at a couple of Running A- and B-drills before putting our new technical skills into practice with a few speedy strides.

Polly led us over to Chalk Farm foodbank where we were met by the lovely Adrienne who explained that our job for the evening was to collect crates of grub and affix different coloured stickers to each item of food according to its expiry year. There seemed to be a lot of cereal and breakfast food (or maybe I’m just saying that cos it makes the run report title easier). I don’t think any of us realised how tough it is to find the best before date on a lot of these packages. But we managed it and got through the whole lot. We were helped by the bed makers who finished their first task super speedily and joined us not long after the first group arrived.

Before hitting the streets for the journey home we took advantage of the carpeted floor and did a bit of core work. There were supermans, press ups, burpees, calf raises, split squats and a little bit of core-dination at the end.

For the trip back we split into two groups with Pritesh and Becky taking a longer route via recycling bins to drop off a few bits and pieces and Simon and Polly taking a more direct route and playing a little game of secret surges.

As we had a nice stretch back at the centre the new Camden “Top Tip of the Week” feature was introduced. This week the advice was to not waste money on expensive protein shakes. A blend of 500ml of milk, 50 grams of skimmed milk powder and 50 grams of milkshake powder will provide a nutritionally equivalent supplement for about a fifth of the price.

See you at some point in April, Camden. A pleasure as always :)

Simon

On a chilly evening 28 wonderful GoodGymers met in Camden to tackle two tasks head on!

The news last night was that there are new members of the Camden TaskForce, (Polly, Meredith, Jess, Chris and Frances will be joining Pritesh - woop woop. Also we are racing the Regents Park 10k and Hackney Half Marathon - come and join us!

First Task - Homeless Shelter - written by Pritesh:

On an annoyingly cold night 10 prompt arrivers (including first time runners Laura, Gabriel and Will) set off for our penultimate visit to the American International Church, with myself and Becky leading and back-marking the group we made swift progress to the church and there met Stephanie who doled out our instructions.

Methodical approach

A slightly easier night with only 11 beds needed, we went for the methodical approach this week doing duvets and pillows first before laying out the mattresses and applying our best ‘hospital corners’ to the sheets and then getting the beds evenly spaced out before we could survey our work and fit in a quick group snap.

We then made our way to Granary Square and got ourselves involved in some exercises.

Second Task - Skip Garden - written by Polly and Paul:

Our second task of the evening was to Skip Garden, a project which aims to connect people to each other and the natural world by creating hands-on and reflective opportunities. Today we were tasked with turning the compost machine to keep the garden green and fed. We split into two teams of 8, one led by Lucia and the other led by Polly. The latter wrote the following task report:

Kept warm with a duvet, the mechanical composter likes to be fed a mix of "browns and greens" (wood chip pellets and garden waste). It had only been fed greens recently and had got a bit bunged up.

Browns and Greens

Chief Gnome, Paul, tasked us with turning a big handle on its side which activates a big cork screw, mulch​ing up all the ingredients inside. A bucket at its bottom collect​ed the compost cocktail. This cocktail is then fed back into the​ ​machine with pellets. This must be repeated until it poops out nice brown compost. Lovely.

Liz afterwards said pushing that lever around for the compost machine was like flying around like a hamster!

While Team Polly got to work Paul led the rest of the group to a local square and benches to do some conditioning exercises and intervals. Firstly we started off with some step exercises to strengthen our glutes and legs, then we did an interval session to build fitness and then we did triceps dips and squats for further conditioning.

Then the teams switched and repeated the above. With the arrival of the Task One team we were all collected together for the first time, said goodbye to Paul from Skip Garden and headed to the canal for either a 3 or 5km run.

Next week there'll be two tasks again, it will be the last time we are going to the homeless shelter for the winter season and another group will be off to Camden Foodbank, Simon the Islington Trainer will be leading.

See you in two weeks - enjoy!

PB out.