12 GoodGym-ers ran 5k to help C4WS Camden make beds for the homeless or 16 ran 10k to help in the Abbey Community Centre garden!

With regular trainer Paul still in Kenya getting even faster at running, it was Frances’ turn to take the helm at GoodGym Camden this week. We had 28 runners, including Enrica, Heather and Amy who all came along for the first time!

Frances led a group to the American Church in London, helping with our regular task of making the beds for the homeless shelter they provide. We got it done in record time – less than 10 minutes! As it would take around an hour for the staff to do it themselves, they really appreciated the help as always.

Record times!

With the task done, we headed to Granary Square for a fitness session. This week we split into two halves for a group fartlek session, each heading around the square in a different direction. Fartlek is Swedish for speed play, and basically means playing around with different paces – like an interval session but more fun. The twist was that each person in the group got a chance to pick the pace and how long the group did that pace for. Would you give your fellow runners a sprint, or a nice relaxing recovery pace? Both groups did a great job, covering three laps of Granary Square and mixing up the speeds nicely.

Then we headed back to base for a nice stretch and awaited Pritesh’s group, who had been on a 10k run to Abbey Community Centre for some gardening.

Abbey Community Centre

Pritesh and his merry band of 15 GoodGymers went 'long' this week and headed over to Abbey Community Centre in the heart of Kilburn. It was a lovely night for a run and despite the hard slog the view that greeted the runners at the top of Primrose Hill was certainly worth it. The challenge with the trip to Abbey is maximising time, the time it takes to run meant only twenty minutes were available to do the task. Laura from the community centre explained to everyone what Abbey does and then showed us the work that needed to be done in the garden. We split in to two groups, one group taking on the pesky weeds between the paving stones and the other turning over a flower bed so that the community centre members could get some planting done in the next week. Everyone worked super hard and Laura was extremely grateful and impressed with how much we got done. With that we said our goodbyes and then headed back to base before a good stretch after that long run. Great running and tasking everyone and thank you to Rosie who led the run back!

Lovely to see you all, hope to see you back again soon, you can sign up for next week here, Pritesh will be leading in the last week before PB is back!

Don’t forget the next time trial in Regent’s Park on 26th March – in a bit of a twist, it’ll be a handicap race this time!

20 runners ran 4km and helped both Alara and Skip Garden

It was a rainy humid day but we ignored the weather and got on with doing good! In the news this week we said well done to the Great Bristol 10km crew and discussed the amazing Night of the PB's this Saturday - come along it's going to be awesome and FAST!

We welcomed three new people to GoodGym Camden; Callum, Sophia and Jessica - lovely to have you on board!

This week we had two of our regular tasks, Alara and Skip Garden, both with really tangible good to be done and a short run each way.

Skip Garden run report written by PB:

After an active warm up we said goodbye to Team Alara and the 12 of us did a fun game involving jogging, high-fiving and sprinting back in a square in pairs. Once our heart rate was raised we headed off to Skip Garden, past Granary Square and the Dishoom queue. We met Gwen from Global Generation and she explained our task for the evening; lay two tons of pebbles over the garden in preparation for summer events, including the chef's wedding on Saturday!

TWO TONS!

We shifted some wooden flooring and tables out of the way and then split into three teams: shovellers, movers and rakers. After around seven minutes work the team coordination and hard work was in full swing, however we had a turn of event... RAIN! It poured but we don't stop for anything, we laughed and powered on. I am pretty sure I heard Liz say "This is exactly what I want to do right now!". Also we found out Frances' waterproof coat isn't very waterproof, news to me!

Waterproof? What's that?

Back to the task; we worked our way from the garden entrance, passed the kitchen and to the skip laying the pebbles. Nice work everyone!

Alara run report written by Steve Lee:

While one team headed to the Skip Garden, another group made their way to the Suma urban orchard. It’s a delightful space unexpectedly nestled amongst warehouses including, very importantly, the one that makes their muesli, which the team gratefully received some freebies of at the end of the task. Speaking of which, there was a big ol’ hole to dig to create a new pond, and some weeds to clear to help the plants thrive. Steve C introduced the less experienced among us to a mattock masterclass.

Mattock Masterclass!

Separated by a mile or so, the two groups were united in seeking cover from a deluge before heading with soggy shoes but sunny dispositions to regroup at Granary Square for some time trials as the sun made a welcome comeback.

Time Trial:

Once collected back as a group we practiced our arm technique with SOCKET TO POCKET before heading to the starting line. The 850 metre time trial around Granary Square is a great way to test our speed each month and this month was no difference with Will coming in at 3:04, Bryon at 3:08 and Chris at 3.15. If you'd like to know your time just contact me and it'll be provided.

After catching our breath back we headed back to Somers Town Community Centre for a stretch and post-rain chat.

Next week we are off to Free Space Gallery to build garden beds, sign up here.

PB