What a cracking way to start 2020 with Goodgym Islington- taking on one of our favourite annual tasks! 18 runners joined us at the Arc Centre last night (our alternative start location due to a rare Monday football match- back to the Emirates Hub next week) to gather Christmas Trees from the area immediately surrounding Rosemary Gardens. Welcome to our first timers Stephen and Nicholas, well done for getting stuck in!

The Count-Off

Before setting off, we asked the question: What are your New Year's Resolutions? Are you giving up anything? Starting anything? Or are they rubbish?

Our answers included:

• Continue training for London Marathon
• No more caffeine
• I'm a dry vegan!
• Going to actually listen to my physio...
• Nah. No changes. Keep doing what I'm doing!

Rosemary Gardens

We jogged over to our local Christmas Tree drop-off point in Rosemary Gardens, and became aware of what a massive task we were about to undertake- there were Christmas Trees everywhere! Islington is clearly a hotspot for Christmas Tree dumping.

Firstly, we performed a few warm-up drills (ankling, high knees, can-cans) to get the blood pumping. We then split into pairs, and ran a mini-circuit session. Half the group across the park and back to stretch the legs, whilst the other half of the group preformed a series of lateral leg swings, whilst holding onto their partner's shoulders for balance.

These paired up groups then became groups of 4 and 5, and our Goodgym crew scoured the local area hunting and dropping off Christmas Trees for approx 40 minutes (or as long as we could before our arms got tired!). Someone mentioned that they had found a "Festive Christmas Graveyard" of discarded trees just 100m away from our drop off point!

Honestly, it was pretty insane how many trees we gathered up in this time. The drop point was absolutely full to the brim, and we needed to enlist some top level tree wanging skills to fit them all in. We estimate that 105 trees were picked up within our time limit, and there were still plenty more to grab in the surrounding area (we also suspect that word got out that we were collecting trees, as some mysterious pines started appearing outside people's front doors).

Starter Session

This Sunday, we will be hosting an additional group run session for the January Challenge- a great introduction to Goodgym for new participants. And it's on a weekend!

Back to the Arc Centre to help clean and tidy their community space for the new year. We will start with a fitness session in the local area, but the task itself will be indoors.

Sign up here for more information.

Met League Cross Country

The next fixture for the Met League XC season is this Saturday (11th January) at the easily accessible Ally Pally! Goodgym Race Team is an extension of Goodgym which participates in events throughout the year, and is excellent fun. If you have never tried cross country before, I fully recommend joining our friendly, all abilities crew to give it a try.

Sign up here for more information about the Alexandra Palace fixture.

36 Goodgymers ran between 5-11km to collect up a massive 125 Christmas Trees for recycling!!!

Welcome along to Emily, Natalie and Mel whose first time it was last night. Plenty of regulars and tourists around too.

In the news this week:

1. It's GoodGym Islington 4th birthday next Monday, come along for Thai food and drinks next Monday after the group run.
2. There is a GG Islington Starter Session on Saturday 26th January - sign up here.
3. Chi is doing a training session this Sunday in Islington and Olivia is leading a long run in Richmond - join in.

Corrrr blimey what a welcome to 2019, we not only had more attendances than we've had for 18 months but we arguably broke a GoodGym record with 125 Christmas Trees collected on a group run.

GG's Angels

After a big old intro we warmed up and split into our four groups to cover as much as Islington as possible, looking for those Christmas trees. It is technically fly tipping leaving them out on the street and of course it's a real hazard. Therefore we are helping the community in lots of ways getting them collected and recycled.

We had four teams and there final scores were:

• Team Steve - ran 11km to Crouch End and collected 8 trees
• Team Paul - ran 6-8k around Highbury and collected 29 trees
• Team Paradise (Graham) - ran 6-8km to Paradise Park, Callie Road and Holloway Road and collected 40 trees
• Team James - ran to Barnsbury and collected 48 trees!!!

This is an insane amount of pulling, carrying and tossing of our piney friends - good work all.

Next week we will be helping St Lukes Community Centre and doing another round of Christmas Tree Collections - sign up here.

PB out

Back to school

It was a task-with-a-difference this evening as 31 of us headed off to the Royal London to undertake some intensive training, under the care of fabulous task owners Nancy and Richard of Barts Volunteers.

Preparing to head onto the wards...

We've enjoyed a few tasks at the hospital over the last few months and so with runners previously expressing a desire to visit patients on the wards, Nancy and her team arranged for us to participate in an evening's training at the hospital's Education Academy. The training covered not only the logistics and health & safety aspects of going onto the wards, it also gave us an insight into what's involved when visiting wards which treat patients suffering with dementia.

No sooner had we arrived at the hospital, were we all seated on benches in the lecture theatre, and learning about what goes on inside the Trust, and watching invaluable and moving footage of a hospital experience through the eyes of a dementia sufferer. The runners became absorbed in the training and engaged well - well done as usual, team!

Nancy also took this opportunity to thank the runners for previous work undertaken at the hospital, explaining that the litter-picking and gardening previously blitzed by Good Gymers in the hospital's John Harrison garden had been really well maintained, and, Nancy felt, had contributed to an improved perception of the hospital's green space, leading to less litter being deposited. What a thing to hear! What a thing to be responsible for! Another well done, team.

Greyhound and hare-ing it back to base

And then a brief hour later, we were heading back to base, playing our favourite greyhound-and-hare game, with Danny leading the greyhounds who caught us up at...the first set of lights, before co-hosting the stretching session with Leanne.

It was a really great night, and we look forward to returning next week to pick up where we left off.

A record number of first time runners!

And what a fabulous number of new runners joined us tonight! A big hello and welcome to our 8 first time GG runners: Hannah, Jess, Pippa, Lynda, Sarah, Sian, Sean, Sophie and Cath (new to TH but not to GG).

Monday night medalists

Tonight's Group Run thank-you's go to: Leanne and Lisa for back-marking; Leanne and Danny for leading our post-run stretching session (great job!); Danny for leading the greyhound runners, and to Joel for this week's perfect pun.

Come and join in next week! (even if you didn't come this evening)

Next week we're returning to the hospital for Week 2 - but if you didn't attend this evening's training - don't worry, there'll be tasks available for you to do that don't require training!

Thanks for coming along on a beautiful but humid evening in Islington, due to the weather we did our intro outside and welcomed Faye, Emily and Harry - lovely for you to join us.

In the news this week:

1. Well done to everyone who ran, cheered, volunteered and paced Hackney Half Marathon on Sunday - amazing to have GoodGym everywhere!
2. This Sunday is May's Long Run - there is a 20km or 11km option going from Battersea Park to Richmond for lunch!

After warming up we headed north to help Caxton House, it's a steady incline all the way up but we did great tackling the humidity. Upon our arrival Steve Lee (who'd cycled) was already there working hard, Rose told us the tasks were as follows:

• Cutting back bushes and trees around the side entrance
• Clearing and digging up weeds at the front
• And the main task of clearing the pavement and walls of moss and weeds

Caxton House is a brilliant community centre we've been helping for over 3 years - they offer a number of education, fitness and arts projects; and provide a key link between like-minded organisations and the local community. Really cool!

Penguin Biscuits!

Over 30 minutes over hard work we made a massive impact making the area look lovely! We found a combination of brushes and trowels worked best to really get in those cracks. After tidying up, having a fun group photo we headed to a nearby hill for a workout.

Importantly technique to remember - arms at 90 degrees & not crossing over, straight back and lifting the legs slightly higher - nice! People did 2-3 hill sprints with Hob Nobs as a reward - yum!

Our downhill home run was lovely and quick - Jonny and Harry headed for the extra lap of the Emirates while the rest of us stretched out.

Next week is the Bank Holiday but we'll be still doing good - helping Compton Square Gardens (outside Union Chapel) with some weeding - sign up now.

PB out.

Last night 20 runners ran 6.5 km to Waterside Adventure Playground to make it safer for the children who play there

While Paul Bown rested his weary legs last night in the aftermath of an absolutely THUNDEROUS London Marathon (read his inspiring blog post about it here!) I popped over from Southwark to lead Islington out on a run. It was great to see familiar Islington faces and plenty of new ones. Big shout out to Morgan and Francesca who joined us for the first time last night. Kudos to you! And a big old hoorah for Kike who did her 200th good deed last night. Blimey o riley!

After an intro and a briefing we set off with Speed Steve Coman leading us on a scenic tour of Islington on our way to Waterside Adventure Playground. There we were greeted by an always enthusiastic Dawn who set everyone to work in groups. Most of the group were tasked with forking over the bark around the structure itself in order to make it softer for the children who land/throw themselves on it. Others were turning over the earth in flower beds and generally tidying the whole area up.

Much hard work was done and we finished in 30 minutes what would have taken Dawn on her own the best part of a day!

The playground is now safe, clean and looks fabulous. Great work team! Dawn particularly enjoyed Kike and Graham racing to finish their section of ground before we had to leave. We’re nothing if not committed!

Before leaving we (obviously) had to take advantage of being on a giant climbing frame to get an awesome group photo.

We thanked Dawn and off we went, pausing at Highbury Fields for a strong sprint all the way across. Stopping to catch our breath using belly breathing we then carried on back to base where Graham crept in stealth-like with a packet of hobnobs whilst we were stretching.

Thank you Dawn, we can't wait to come back :)

Next week Islington are off to help Age UK tidy up furniture. Sign up here.

Thanks for a great evening! Come see me in Southwark sometime!

Keep running happy, Lucy J