Big cheers and welcome hugs for our first timers: Mira, Louise, Lizzy and Alex.

Hot news this evening: we have our very own set of gloves. This means we don't have to always rely on tasks to provide finger protection and can run around doing even more good. Glovely!

There was sooo much good to do this evening spread across three tasks and three locations: Freightliners Farm, Whittington Park Community Association and Barnsbury Community Centre.

FREIGHTLINERS

Steve led the group over to Freightliners Farm. Here's his account:

10 goodgym runners set off the 1K to Freightliners Farm, smack in the middle of Islington, to perform our usual function. This week it was all about clearing and recycling. We started by filling a skip with discarded soil and extra large and heavy lumps of concrete. Dangerous work but we soon polished it off. After that we recycled masses of pre-used timber into either 110 or 120 centimeter lengths using measuring tools, marker pens and handsaws, whilst another group got to grips with an unruly hedge and whipped it into shape. As ever, competition reared its ugly head and we were soon having timed saw-cut races. Sawing technique improved massively over the hour and upper body strength was increased. We finished by feeding the goats and going ahhh quite a lot! Just another Monday down on the farm.

Steve

WHITTINGTON

Navigator-extraordinaire Graham was leader of the WPCA bunch who were lucky enough to take the brand new gloves. Here's his description of the evening:

On a muggy Monday night, nine GoodGymers went for a 7k run to weed and tidy the garden at Whittington park.

Following a route there almost entirely straight along Holloway road, there was no way we could lost, right? Well, sort of. After taking a 'creative' route down Hornsey road, we added on an extra 0.5k or so - always an adventure!

Still managing to arrive at the task just about on time, we then met Adrian who let us in to tidy up pesky weeds at the park's 1 o'clock club.

Weeds were removed, chats were had, and our brand new gloves were thoroughly tested out. We also discussed possibly the most contentious question at GoodGym - what counts as a weed? Following 25 minutes of solid work, we managed to fill several bags full of weeds - good work team!

Successfully managing to run back the way we should have run initially, we threw in a good intervals session round Emirates and a couple of hill sprints to finish the evening off in style. More good, more running - standard Monday night!

Graham

BARNSBURY

Simon explains what went down at Barnsbury:

Nine of us bobbled over to Barnsbury Community Centre. There's never a shortage of soil at the centre and tonight was no exception.

Gloves donnned, of course, we spent a good 25 minutes or so shovelling and wheelbarrowing (and even dragging) tons of the stuff. Great upper body workout. We worked so hard that a couple of the wheelbarrows gave up before we did. Rock 'n' Roll!

The ring around the famous centre-piece (where all the soil came from) was looking a little patchy and bare, so we each grabbed a couple of handfuls of grass seed and scattered the goodness around. We possibly over did it, so it'll be very interesting to come back and see the jungle we created in a few weeks or so.

Goodness all done it was time to do some fitness. We had a cone relay race, then we had a handicap cone relay race (my team lost so results are irrelevant) and on the way back to the pool we played the only game that is fit for a journey back from Barnsbury Community Centre: secret surges! Then a little work on our technique (run tall! run ninja!) before destroying ourselves with a high-knee/lunges combination. Phew.

Simon

DEBATE

On such a glovely evening it only seemed right to debate something glove related. Are fingerless gloves stupid? Some people thought so, but reckoned that the padded variety for cycling were fair game. Quite a few agreed that those gloves that are fingerless but have a detachable mitten bit were brilliant. Put to the vote, the large majority said that they were fine. So, there you have it. May your palms stay toasty and your fingers frosty.

BISCUITS

What goes in gloves? Biscuits. I mean Fingers, so we had a special treat with some chocolate fingers. Yum. Even better than this Graham - fresh from WINNING Man vs. Horse as part of the fastest mixed relay team - had brought along a few mini-buckets of posh biscuity treats. And Beth is going to MAKE biscuits next week. Biscuits!

Remember that glove is all need. See you next week,
Simon

Lots of Bank Holiday goodness done and fitness gotten this eve.

Welcome

Welcome to Ruby who already volunteers for Age UK and Send a Cow but wanted to do even more, and welcome to Simon F on his first visit to Islington after visiting GG Hackney once before. We also said hi to Marco, the first ever member of GoodGym Islington, who hasn't been since our launch event back in January 2015!

Unobservant

Nobody noticed the "mention this line and get a prize" bit on the sign in sheet. What am I to do with these Curly Wurlys I got as prizes?

Anyway, we had two tasks this evening. Six were needed to go and tackle some elder roots over at Thornhill Square Gardens. Here's Aidan's account of the evening:

Thornhill

6 eager GoodGymers took on the challenge of the longer run this week...well a bit longer...nearly 2km. Dropping off the main group at Barnsbury we continued on to Thornhill.

The task at hand was removing the unwanted plants and roots from around the garden, plenty of challenges for us to get stuck in to. We definitely had the right equipment for the job with a variety of saws, shovels, forks, secateurs and an axe. We all got stuck in and showed those roots who was boss. Everyone had the satisfying feeling of triumphing over nature, with Steve commending newbie Ruby on her upper body strength for launching some roots out of the ground. We did have one casualty, sadly one root was too tough for the fork and we had to say goodbye to one of the tools, RIP fork you did some great work.

After a quick tidy up and photo we headed off ready for the hill training!

B. Square

The rest of us nipped over to Barnsubry Square to meet Lucy, Carmela and Wesley the dog. We had a few jobs to do: getting rid of weeds (so many weeds), doing a spot of watering, a little bit of mulching and a dash of pruning. Most of us had a biscuit. Graham didn't cos he was feeling ill and delivered the line of the evening: "Well, I bought some reduced pineapple juice from Lidl..."

Hills

There's a little hill by the pool. It's hardly even a hill, so we figured nobody would notice if we made them run "up" it. The prescription was simple: run up to that bin hard. When you get there turn around and jog back down and repeat for 7 minutes.

Heroes of the evening: Marco and Jill who were the only ones hard enough to chuck in an extra rep when the 20 seconds remaining call was put out. They won a Curly Wurly (Marco didn't even know what a Curly Wurly was until about 20 minutes prior to this)

Meta

We went meta with our debate this evening: "What should our debate be for next week?". Some awful suggestions and some good ones:

• "Would you rather have no legs or no arms"

• "Best time of the day to train?"

• "Cyclops or uni-boob?"

• "Blackpool or Brighton?"

• "Should headphones be allowed in races?"

• "If you wake up late - say at midday - then you eat, is that breakfast or lunch?"

Marco suggested "Who will win the Euros" and Ruby thought a discussion about The EU would be a good idea. Clearly they weren't aware of things we should never debate at GoodGym Islington

Anyway, the headphones one from Simon F got the most votes, so we'll be discussing that next week. Then we'll do all the others.

See you next week for a brand new task and the re-introduction of our monthly time trial. Oooh.

Simon

The good weather clearly brings high spirits as an impressive 32 of us met up at the usual spot. The reguIar runners were delighted to see some new faces, both to Good Gym and to the Tower Hamlets group. To warm up, we set off on a gentle 2.5k jog down to Stepney City Farm where we were greeted by Simon who had plenty of tasks to divvy out. One group set off to shift some hay across the farm, merrilly jogging their wheelbarrows along. Another picked up some pitchforks to aerate a field, while the remaining few turned compost and shifted rubble.

On the way back, we split into three groups. Alison led the first down the canal at a more leisurely pace, Tom took the medium group through Mile End Park for some hilly intervals and Andy steered the final group at a dust lifting speed. We all met up again at base for a final cool-down stretch.

Isabel

BYE BYE, SUMMER

So, summer's over.

But that didn't stop 33 of us, including 5 newcomers who don't mind braving the rain. Welcome to Vicky, Jill, Sarah, Shirin and Katie.

Double Tasking tonight!

Barnsbury

Simon describes the trip to Barnsbury Community Centre:

It was just under a year ago that we first visited Barnsbury Community Centre to start helping with their project to transform the vacant green spaces on the Barnsbury Estate into sustainable, community-friendly gardens.

Over the last year we've paid several visits. We've hammered in stakes, we've dug rings and circles, we've shifted tons of soil, we've filled raised beds, we've hammered in nails, we've painted, we've weeded, we've stapled, we've watered and we've constructed raised beds and a gigantic "S"! The project has really taken shape now and it's so nice to see such a big transformation. It was basically a big patch of grass when we first visited.

We were supposed to be doing a bit of painting and watering of plants tonight, but the rain stole the job of watering and ruined the possibility of painting. Thanks a bunch, rain! However, there was plenty still to do. The recent hot spell meant that weeds have sprung up everywhere, especially around the beautiful S-shaped feature in the garden, so a big group set about weeding and making sure that stays looking lovely. Another group had the task of transporting gigantic sacks of soil from one side of the garden's back gate to the other. Then local resident Elizabeth appeared and asked if she could have the soil transported round to the estate gardens next door. No problem. We were happy to oblige and wheelbarrowed like crazy.

We did get a little soggy, but spirits were not damp as we worked hard for 30 minutes and enjoyed a delicious malted milk biscuit.

On the way back to the pool we split into two groups. Patrick and Steve led an easier-paced group back for circuits/cones and Simon worked a group hard with lunges, high knees running, hops, skips and pogos. We discovered that pogos are even more fun if you add sound effects "boing boing boing".

WPCA

Whittington Park Community Association needed some folk to help keep the ground of their newly-refurbished One O'Clock Club weed free. John led the group up for this one and Aidan describes their evening:

9 Goodgymers took up the challenge of a longer run and with the rain and humidity it was a bit tougher than normal! Arriving at the task we were ready to start weeding, but we had a massive shortage of gloves between us. Luckily Alex had an improvised idea which led to the creation of some waterproof gloves with a sleek design (a ripped up black bag tied at the wrist) but they worked great and we set to work.

The heat and rain had brought the snails out so we had to be careful not to step on them and we did a bit of rehousing, bringing snail families back together. This led on to a question no one could answer, how do snails reproduce? After a quick bit of googling our weeding turned into a biology lesson (FYI they lay eggs, up to 100 a time!). Next we had a few Goodgymers who were keen to do some quick exercises before we headed back. But what to do first, biscuits or exercises? Lucy thought exercises, Frances thought biscuits. Most people agreed biscuits first which Lucy wasn't happy about! (see photo)

A quick round of exercises included some planking, burpies, press ups, high knees and many more with a favourite being John's karate style kicks and punches. With the rain still drizzling we headed back with Frances egging Graham on to a sprint finish up the hill before getting back for Tim Tams at Highbury Pool (Thanks Alex!)

BEING IN LOVE, STRETCHING, TIM TAMS AND IMPERIAL GETTING LEATHERED

Courtesy of Patrick's 3G and famous speaker we had a nice listen to Ivo's interview with Chris Evans (it's at 2 hours 21 minutes) while stretching and enjoying one of Alex's Tim Tams all the way from Australia. Thank you Alex!

The big question for the evening was metric vs. imperial. We had a lot of "it depends" answers, but when we limited the question to distances - actually, just running distances, metric was the clear winner. BY MILES! HAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!11!!!

See you next week, Simon

P.S. Tip o' the GoodGym cap to Patrick for Run Report Title

RAIN

Rain doesn't stop play at GoodGym, and 21 of us were brave enough to face the elements this evening, including first timers, Adam, Matt, Rebecca, Edith, Ellie, Pam and Parveen.

LOST

For our journey up to Barnsbury Square Gardens Simon led a group on a direct route, while Graham took a bunch on a very very very scenic route. BUT, we all got there in the end and Lucy, Carmela and our canine chum Wesley were top hosts.

WORK

As usual, there was plenty to get involved with. As it drizzled and our hands got colder and colder we turned soil underneath trees to allow rain to reach the roots more easily, removed some horrible weeds and engaged in some "edging" (using spades to cut a nice straight line along edges around the garden).

FUEL

Following last week's bourbon adventures, we decided another hydrogenated fat filled biscuit would be the ticket and munched on custard creams to keep ourselves going.

SPEED

Post-task it was back into two groups. Graham promised his run back would be no more than 4k, while Simon took a group for a few sprinty sections and finished off with running relay and finally a skipping relay (which was more fun than the running relay, as promised!)

DEBATE

Following a bit of twitter banter between GG Islington and GG Camden, we decided to debate "What's the best way to get fit in North London?"

Answers:

• Cycling to work
• Skipping (this lot had just done a load of skipping)
• GoodGym! (no particular area specified)

So, there you have it. We're all one big happy family.

THE END

Have a wonderful week all and see you next Monday,
Simon