29 runners wrapped up and braced the cold last night to blast GoodGym Camden into a good start for February!

We were joined by another new face joining the herd - hey Alex! - hope you enjoyed yourself in the spoof Inside the Factory tour (more on that later) and will be back with us again soon. Why not go and give him a cheer for becoming a fully-fledged GoodGym runner now?

After a quick intro speech, Louise took 10 runners over to the American International Church to make the beds, and I explained a little more about our bigger task at Alara Wholefoods before we got outside and stretched.

C4WS Report (written by Louise)

Nine runners came on our 13th visit to the American International Church, helping make 17 beds for the homeless people's shelter. It was almost unlucky, but we narrowly avoided duvetgeddon in the hunt for a rogue bag of bedding! With our human chain in action, we achieved in a few minutes what would have taken an hour for the busy volunteers at the church. Afterwards we took a longer route to Granary Square for a quick fitness session and to take in the new light displays.

Alara Report

17 of us arrived at Alara dreaming of mulch and granola. Alex was there to greet us and, boy, was there a bit to get through tonight, even if we were so many.

Two types of mulch needed to be shoveled (by hand and spade - see pictures!) and moved into two different areas with buckets and wheelbarrows - one of the types was fresh and was used in the permaculture garden and the other was a bit more ripe and needed to be shoveled onto the beds above the tires. Another team were in charge of litter-picking the gardens outside the front of the warehouse. It's lovely to see how much difference about 20 minutes of litterpicking can do to brighten up an area that was otherwise dotted with crisp packets and gum packets. One last team was tasked with lifting and lugging the big branches that were in between the layers of the riper mulch and moving them to the back of the garden. With everyone working flat out and rotating tasks to keep warm, we got everything finished by 8pm and then the real fun began.

Alex outdid himself this time with showing us their operation at Alara; we got a behind the scenes Inside the Factory (BBC2) style tour! From seed milling (a huge pallet-full stacked up with at least twenty 10kg bags takes around 3 hours apparently) to compostable bagging, it was fascinating to see how the production line comes together to make the delicious granola we all know and love. After the factory tour had finished, Alex wizzed us over to the warehouse and gave us all a box of their new fancy product; acai bowl powder!

The extended factory tour meant that we didn't have time for a few laps of Granary Square, but instead ran home via there so we could catch a glimpse at the new light displays. Very Canary Wharf of them, don't you think?

NEXT TIME

Community, Community, Community: Liz has set up a few tasks for us next weekend at Camden Highline. There are three in total and you can sign up to all of them right here.

Next week: We're going back to C4WS next week as normal, but there'll be a bigger task that I'm working to confirm in the meantime. Should know more in time for the Monday weekly email. Get your name down for next week's run here.

LET'S GET SOCIAL! As I mentioned at the end of the run, we've got a Camden Socials WhatsApp group. John has organised a pub quiz for us on the 20th February (Thursday night) that you can sign up to there. The next social after that will be axe-throwing in March (organised by yours truly), so plenty of variety on top of our regular appearances at the pub after Wednesday runs.

See you next week!

Happy running in the meantime

GOODGYM CAMDEN PIZZA PARTY: As it's nearly Christmas, we're all going to get together after next week's run and eat pizza at Happy Face in Granary Square. We're a big group - there's 28 of you signed up to come - so the restaurant is asking for a £5 deposit per head. If you've signed up online, please give me your choice of pizza and find out how to send me your fiver here.

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28 GoodGymers came out in the freezing cold tonight to run with Camden on Wednesday night and what a night it was.

We had THREE newbies join the herd tonight - welcome Emily, Jen and Isabelle (thanks for singing our praises, Poppy)! I hope you thought GoodGym was even better than you expected it'd be and we look forward to having you back with us soon.

Here's next week's run in case you want to sign up right now - we'll be bed-making and Christmas-decorating and then... PIZZA EATING.

Before we got warmed up, there were not one but TWO huge announcements to be made:

• Steve Coman has just reached his 400th Good Deed! That's massive, Steve, and you should be really proud of what you've achieved. That's 400 times you could otherwise have been doing something else but instead you chose to come along and do good for the community, big congrats for that!
• Liz also achieved the previously un-achievable; she's only gone and managed to do 250 Good Deeds in a year (and counting!). With 365 days in a year, Liz has shown some serious, serious commitment to GoodGym all across London, from community missions, to group runs and missions - often completing several in a day. All our hats are doffed to both of ye!

As with all our winter tasks, we split the group. One group ran with Louise up to Cecil Sharp House and another smaller group ran with me to C4WS to make some beds.

Cecil Sharp House Louise took 16 runners up to the Home of Folk. Susannah wasn't there, but had instead transformed into Clark and David who told the group what needed doing. Splitting the 16 up in a Ronseal approach, there was Team Front, Team Path, Team Back Garden and Team Car Park - who said GoodGym wasn't glamorous! While being serenaded by a choir concert happening at the same time the teams got on with sweeping and leafing. EIGHT BAGS of leaves were filled up in no time at all, and soon it was time to head back to base.

C4WS After a short run down to C4WS, 12 of us got stuck into into bed-making for the Jonathan and the American International Church team. There were 5 beds to be made in the women's room and 12 beds in the mens. Unfortunately, there was a bit of confusion about missing sheets, duvet covers, duvets and pillows which meant we overran a bit (the group collectively breathed a sigh of relief that there would be one less lap of Granary Square!). Jonathan had to run out to Primark while the folks were having their dinner at the shelter for the last 7 duvet covers, but promised us that next week it would be back to the slick operation it otherwise always is!

After a run on to Granary Square, the group did a lap, had a quick photo with the Christmas trees (not the neon one, but the nicer ones) and then a slow jog back to the Living Centre for a stretch and a cool down.

As it was Liz's 250th Good Deed in just a year (she's done even more than that, don't worry!) - I baked a lemon drizzle cake and Beth made her a really lovely bracelet with the GoodGym colours which we ate and admired (in that order) at the pub later on.

COMING UP

COMMUNITY MISSION: David from Russell Square Gardens has asked for our help once more this coming Saturday to bulb-plant and leaf-clear. Four of us were there last week and it would be great to see some more friendly faces - it kicks off at 11am and you can sign up right here.

GOODGYM CHRISTMAS PARTY: GoodGym are getting festive this Friday at Stephen's House in Finchley Central from 7pm. It's £5 entry and fancy dress is very very welcome. Find out more here.

GOODGYM CAMDEN PIZZA PARTY: As it's nearly Christmas, we're all going to get together after next week's run and eat pizza at Happy Face in Granary Square. We're a big group, so the restaurant is asking for a £5 deposit per head. Give me your choice of pizza and find out how to send me your fiver here.

NEXT WEEK: We're going to be bed-making at C4WS and Christmas-decorating at SPCA on next week's group run. Get your name down here for what will be our second to last run of the year!.

Phew. And breathe.

That's all for this week folks, see you next time.

Happy running,