With Paul away, run leading duties fell to me this week, and unfortunately it didn’t quite all go to plan. After a gentle run to Castlehaven community centre, we were due to be collecting leaves and weeding. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find out contact with the keys so we couldn’t access the tools and bags!

Katherine kept the group busy with some fitness – including some yoga and a plank-off – while I ran around trying to locate the keys. Unfortunately, after a little while we had to accept it just wasn’t our night – so we decided to make the most of the opportunity for a steady run on the canal. We split into two groups, with a slightly longer group led by Steven Coman, and we went for a nice run before ending up back at base for a stretch.

Thanks for coming everyone, Paul will be back next week, and fingers crossed it’ll all go smoothly!

21 GoodGymers ran between 3-8km to help St Mary's & leaflet for Queens Crescent Community Association & KTCF

Thanks for coming along on another hot summer evening. It's always one of my favourite times of the week doing good with you guys :)

In the news this week:

1. A MASSIVE WELL DONE to Pritesh who hit 300 Good Deeds last night, and was gifted with a cape and sword to run around Camden with - THIS IS CAMDEN!!!!
2. Track Thursday - Kat is organising weekly track sessions on Thursday evenings at Regents Park Dirt Track. Meet for 6.30pm - contact me if you want more details
3. July's Monthly Social will be next Thursday in Wandsworth - more details coming soon.

Task One - Leafletting for QCCA & KTCF:

Chris and Pritesh led a team of 10 to leaflet for the Queens Crescent Community Association's Summer Party on the 21st July (there is a mission to help them setup - sign up here) and Kentish Town City Farm's community projects, which include many summer events for older isolated people in the area.

600 leaflets!

With over 600 leaflets to distribute the group did a brilliant job of covering 8km and coming home empty handed! Nice!

Task Two - Compost Run for St Mary's

To continue on from last week our first task was to collect ten bags of compost from the Eco Compost Plot at Alara. Unfortunately we were not able to access shovels so the team became inventive with using bin bags as gloves, using plastic containers to shovel it into their bags and well using Rosie's pair of gloves.

Our next task was to the run the rather warm compost through the streets of Camden (and a churchyard) to St Mary's Flats. This 1km trip was hard work with the warm weather and warm load but we got it done. I wonder what people thought those 10 runners in red t-shirts running with black bin bags were carrying.....

Jon from St Mary's Flats was very grateful for us bringing so much with us. We split into teams getting the following tasks done:

1. Using the compost we'd brought with us a team of 5 re-potted lots of plants and then positioned them around the communal garden areas.
2. Hanry and Thomas cut down a dead tree and carried the soil from the large plot for our next tasks
3. Kat and Liz emptied an old tree plot where the ground was rotten, used the healthy soil from the tree plot to refill it.
4. We then used the remainder of our soil and compost to lay over a residents gardens, areas that are in need of the richness
5. Finally we weeded a garden for a resident - filling two bags of the stuff

Sadly a baby bird had fallen from it's nest over the last week so Hanry and Liz buried it in our re-soiled plot. RIP.

Wow - lots done! Good work guys, Jon was very pleased with our efforts. We finished the evening with x4 strides to activate our muscles nice!

Sign up here for next week when we have the classic combo of Abbey and Cecil Sharp.

PB out.

22 Goodgymers ran 3-6km to leaflet for SPCA, look after Kings Cross Orchard and compost mule to St Mary's

Welcome along to newbie - Sarah great to have you along.

In the news this week:

The week is finally here, it's the GoodGym Olympics - woop woop! Come along to cheer if you aren't taking part and get involved in the National 1km Competition.

This week we had three small tasks to spread amongst the group while Frances and Freya did a great local mission.

Task One - Leafleting for SPCA

Katherine and a team of four leafletted for the St Pancras Community Association's Summer Fair which is happening this weekend. They scoured the streets for houses and accessible flats to drop these colourful gems off to.

After 15 mins of leafleting they joined us at Task Two!

Task Two - Kings Cross Orchard

The main group was tasked this week with looking after the Kings Cross Orchard that Alex from Alara cares for. The task went as follows:

1. Pull off the plastic from the cardboard
2. Weed and clear the area around the apple trees
3. Lay down the 'unplastic' cardboard
4. Cover with compost and spread

The team worked hard looking after the 12 trees on the Northern Orchard before tackling weeding the Southern (Bookers) Orchard.

Task Three - St Mary's

Alara, as well as looking after the Orchard, looks after a compost pile that can be used around the borough by community groups and NGO's.

Pritesh led a team of 5 to run black bags and rucksacks full of compost down to St Mary's, a group of flats in Somers Town which we've helped a lot over the years. It was a 1km each way meaning the group squished in two shuttles, including spreading the good stuff (compost) in the community gardens.

Once we were finished with Task 2 and the group from Task 3 headed off for their second trip, the main group did some extra Task 1 leafletting in the SPCA area - does that make sense? Sure!

Sign up next week here when we have three tasks!

PB out

30 GoodGymers and a dog named Bunty ran between 5-6km, made beds for the homeless and helped garden for a sheltered housing association

Welcome along to the newbies this week: Amanda, Amelia, Nancy and AraKang! Thanks for coming along :)

In the news this week:

1. Tom Benson is organising a 5km and 10km time trial this Sunday in Regents Park at 10.30, get along it's gonna be good! More information here.
2. Also as GG Camden we are organising to do Regents Park 10km together on April 2nd, watch out for updates.
3. The first GG Social is next Thursday at the Joker of Penton Street in Angel, sign up here
4. Lastly the amazing Polly Skeats-Beswick got her wings today (100 good deeds), she has been running with us for two years and has a coach she has been seeing since June!

After the news, headcount and an active warm up we split into two groups, one helping C4WS and the other going to the sheltered housing.

PB Sheltered Housing report:

16 of us headed North running 2.6km to Kentish Town, the air was cold but the GoodGymers were spritely!

We arrived and met the wonderful Cathi who explained that the block of flats at Ashdown Crescent has over 40 people over the age of 65 living there, she helps look after them and the garden we worked on is used by them.

Barking!

Our tasks for this evening were as follows:

• Steve led a team of sweepers to clean up the garden, paths and general space.
• A team of six planted flowers and plants in a flower bed.
• Polly, Chris and Jess shifted mulch over the plants and bed.
• Kat led on planting in another section of the garden.
• A team of four, including Mi put together a bird feeder

Everyone did brilliantly and we finished everything in great time to help this fantastic project!

We ran 2.8km back home and stopped off to do four Strides. These are good to do at the end of a run because they stimulate fast-twitch fibres, running faster increases the range of motion and they're a great opportunity to practice good form. Read an article on Strides here.

Frances' report here:

Frances and Pritesh led 14 runners to the American International Church to help set up beds for the homeless shelter again. The good news was that there were fewer beds than last week as some of the shelter users had found some more permanent accommodation! We added a bit of a twist to the task by also helping to shift some chairs to the hallway, but we still finished in super quick time.

Good news!

The task completed, we headed to Russell Square for a fitness session. A relay seems like it should be a relatively simple thing to arrange, but it turns out a three-point continuous relay with only three teams means that some people are going to have to run some extra turns – SURPRISE! Hopefully it kept you all warm!

We followed this up with a slightly longer route home than normal, via Gray's Inn Road, and made it back with plenty of time for a thorough stretch!

Thanks for leading Pritesh & Frances and thanks for coming everyone. Sign up to next week here, we will be helping Abbey Community Centre and continuing to help C4WS at the homeless shelter.

PB out.

Three of us were keen to do a nice long run over to The Bridgelink Centre in Isleworth this evening. Joining regulars Simon and Andy was Matthew from Wandsworth doing a spot of tourism and in the mood for getting a few miles in the legs.

We worked our way through the streets, chatting about running, and counting down the kilometres, occasionally mentioning that none of us knew where we were or had been in this area before.

And finally we made it. We went in the centre to find Kevin, the caretaker, who we'd been told had lots of jobs for us. Except.... he didn't :( Nope, apparently there was a bit of raking to do earlier on, but somebody had already done it.

Any window cleaning? Sweeping? Tidying up? Nope, 'fraid not. Any leaflets we could drop off on the way back? Nope, 'fraid not.

So, we had a tour of the centre, a glass of water and then headed back.

This time our attention turned to food, which is unsurprisingly quite a common topic for runners on longer runs. And what are our favourite post-run foods? Porridge and Peanut Butter for Matthew, Peanut Butter and Jam on Toast for Simon and Jacket Potato with Tuna and Sweetcorn for Andy.

Why not all three?

We are doing a shorter run of 2.5k to Ealing Road Baptist Church next week where there will definitely be a task and there's loads for us to do, and where Roger (former chef) has promised to cook us up some takeaway food. The last batch was delicious.

So, get down, get fit and get fed.

See you there,
Simon

22 GoodGymers ran between 4-7km, gardened for Sheltered Housing, worked the Skip Garden compost machine and litter picked!

Triple tasking, love it! Welcome to newcomer Caroline, it's great to have you along and awesome to meet you!

In the news this week:

• We said farewell to Lucia Gobbi, Coach Runner Rep and awesome GGer, who is off to Italy to learn how to be a Roman for 4 months. See you soon LG!
• Tonight is GG Monthly Drinks down in Brixton, there'll be International Pun of the Month, Heroes and Pritesh standing on a chair! Sign up here and see you there!

Right triple tasking means triple reporting, first up Litter Picking by PB:

After an active warm up with the entire group we split in three directions to do good and get fit in the wonderful Camden. Litter picking, as ever is important and helps keep our local parks and community areas cleaner and more welcoming. Seven of us headed over to the local Somers Town Park to do just that, getting into pairs we spread across the park and picked all the rubbish.

Beer bottles!

After 15 minutes of picking up bottles, cigarettes, cans, wrappers and more. With a surprise final weigh in Liv and Arnulfo were the winners. We then ran over to Skip Garden to meet the other group.

Skip Garden Run Report by Lucia Gobbi

Seven of us were greeted at the skip garden by the lovely Paul and given three jobs to do. One group quickly got to raking the gravel as gaps had started to appear and it needed some 'tlc'. The rest of us worked our arms at the compost machine. We turned and also sieved the compost coming out, it was warm and VERY fragrant! Mmmmmm....

Did it smell LG?

With the two task groups combined we headed to Granary Square to do a fitness session. It went something like this:

1. Socket to Pocket Technique session
2. Progression Running around the square
3. Drill & tag game - mountain climbers, squats and an amazing looking at the moon pose!
4. Monthly Time Trial!

Time Trial results:

3.14 - Sarah H 3.16 - Anthony 3.18 - Lucia 3.22 - Arnulfo 3.31 - Laura 3.39 - Damaris 3.53 - Becky 3.56 - Caroline 3.58 - Freya 4.10 - Sarah R

Sheltered Housing Run Report by Pritesh:

Eight of us headed up to Kentish Town, it really wasn't a night for running with it being very humid and hot. We had a two mile journey and were ably led by Chris. We arrived at Ashdown Crescent Sheltered Housing and there met Cathi, the Sheltered Housing Manager. She outlined the task, we had some leaf collecting, digging and pruning to do! We all split in to our groups and worked solidly for 30 minutes! The garden looked great and it was a really nice task. Before we left we were treated to some refreshments (shock horror - biscuits in C and learned all about the Sheltered Housing scheme which helps adults 65 and over who need some assistance but can still live on their own. It was really good to learn about who we were helping and we hope to come back and help out more! With that we headed back to base for a good stretch down!

Sign up for next week here.

PB out.

On a gorgeous golden evening, twelve pacey Peckhamites pushed through Rye Lane to get to the Surrey Docks Farm, for some sh*t shovelling, apple picking, leaf lopping, pig feeding fun. A total of almost 12km were run (yes, 12!) and we all left happy, safe in the knowledge that no animals were harmed in the making of this run report.

A very big thank you to Beth, for tonight's Old MacGoodGymtastic pun

As regular Southwark trainer Jo was away this evening, I popped over from Lewisham to have some fun with some stalwart regulars and some eager first-timers - hello and hi-five to all of you ( I won't name names here because I kind of lost track of who was new and who wasn't, sorry!). Thank you to Beth, who was the key-holder tonight and let us all in, so we could enjoy the smell of coffee and leave our belongings safely during our run. Once we had all assembled, it was time to run through a few introductions, go through the evening ahead and chat about coach running and missions (and maybe mention a little relay race this weekend, that is set to rival the Olympic Games themselves!).

Before long, we were ready to warm ourselves up before what would be a pretty long run. Some name-checking (and double-checking, using not a ball, but a 'thingie', fashioned out of a handy buff, GoodGym trainers are resourceful folk you know). We checked our form with a few drills (walking high-knees, fast high-knees and so on, you know the kind of thing, made to give you super strong cores, light landing and that all important powerful sprint finish).

Lead the way!

As this is not my usual area, but I do sometimes dip in and out of here on my bike or long runs, I am sort of familiar with the area, to a point. Thankfully I had Michael to reinforce my belief in my carefully learned directions and we took the lead together towards Surrey Docks Farm. Well, I say 'together', he is FAST! 'Come back!' I shouted, 'Slow down!', 'Steady!'. With Beth kindly offering to back-mark, we knew that nobody would be left behind, but made sure we regrouped every so often and kept a regular head-count going to ensure nobody ended up going the wrong way down the Old Kent Road, urgh!

You know you're approaching the farm because you can smell it before you see it. I say this in the nicest possible way: after last night's rain and due to the pruning and weeding that was going on, the air was fresh and country-like, right here, in the heart of our city. We were greeted by Gemma, who had already set out our tools, wheelbarrows and various containers. She quickly directed people to tasks: lopping back the stray branches overhanging the fence to the orchard, crouching down amongst the trees, picking up fallen apples, some of which would be used to make chutney (mmmm) and some would be fed to the pigs (more of that later). Alongside the orchard was a pile of sacks...containing well-rotted manure, sh*it basically. This didn't deter an intrepid few, who got stuck straight in, re-bagging, tying and relocating the sacks, using a combination of wheelbarrows and sheer might.

So little time!

Sadly, as our run was quite a long one, we had a quite short amount of time at the task; we would love to have stayed longer, but had to get back. Some last minute shifting, shovelling and grabbing was done. This anxious trainer did the rounds, counting down, promising an opportunity to meet the piglets and reminding the volunteers that we still had to get back to our start point. Combining a number of final activities, we wheeled greenery to the compost heap and carried crates of less-than-perfect apples to the pig pens. The pigs!

Last time GGSouthwark visited, Esther, the sow, was about to give birth. Since then she has had fourteen piglets! After we had admired the rasta sheep, given a nod to the donkeys and stroked the resident cat, we got busy chucking the apples at the pigs (this is allowed, they love it). Out they wandered, one by beautiful one. Tiny ones, pink ones, spotty ones, bigger ones and proud mum Esther, popping out to see what the commotion was about, giving a tired snort whilst snuffling a few apples to herself. What a wonderful treat to finish off a rewarding task.

It was such a shame to hurry people along, but we definitely did have to get going. I really hope people go along one weekend and spend some time enjoying the farm, there's so much to see (a personal favourite is the snoring goat...and the cafe, obviously).

Ee-ay-ee-ay-oh!

At this point there was the option to catch the train back or make it an 11k run. All but one ran both there and back (one challenged knee taking the overground option). A couple of people peeled off en route, heading homewards, but the rest of us kept up what was a pretty speedy pace, this time choosing a more scenic route along the old canal path, over the busy and polluted main roads. All sorts of chatter could be heard on this leg, sculpture, ultra running, half-marathon aspirations, but our conversation was suddenly interrupted by one of our party legging it after the ice cream van, which pulled over. Seriously, if this was nearer our start point we would all have been up there, stocking up on 99s and bubblegum ice lollies! (Whams, do they still sell Wham Bars? we wondered...).

We continued our run, ice cream fantasies pushed to the back of our minds, dodging in between the pedestrians on the still busy main stretch of Peckam, to our start point and a whole load of stretching. Thank you Southwark for having me, it was a real pleasure running with you!

Adele x

10 runners on the second hottest day of the year ran 3.5km and moved about a lot of cupboards.

On another hot and steamy Wednesday, we met in the Roastery

not an ideal meeting place in the heat of our two day summer

We had a first timer, hi Leah and a a first Southwark timer, hi Matt. Little did they know that innocent conversations about perfecting burpees and pushing ourselves a bit harder would lead to such sweaty consequences. More of that later...

We ran the mile to Copleston Centre including the hill and survived despite the suns best effort. Catherine met us there and still managed to sort us water and the tasks out despite lots of people turning up for a meeting.

Due to a bit of building damage, they're having a refurb and needed some cabinets moved around as well as 2 big cupboards emptied in order to be filled with the contents of another cupboard that they otherwise wouldn't have access to during the refurb. Clear?

Anyway, the sweaty superstars set to work and made light work of heavy filing cabinets and, once again, showed how organised they all are when arranging items.

We were finished in no time. As a warm up to the planned time trial, we headed down to the Rye. There were lots of people sunbathing, laughing and chilling out.

Looks of envy went around the group...

But no, first up, in teams of 3, was the bear crawl relay. One person bear crawls out and back whilst the other two plank. Then person two goes and then the double planker, person number three goes. A race of core, determination and long limbs.

Next up was a wheelbarrow race. With a team of three I hear you say? We tag teamed it. Each team got to choose if one person wanted to be the wheelbarrow for both runs or if there would be runners swapping. It got complicated, but it got sorted and we got started.

Epic work. A little more jumping (burpees) and core work left and we were ready for the time trial. No mean feat after all of that exercise and in the heat.

Superb effort from all. And we rewarded ourselves with cold drinks from the Rye pub to boot.

Until next time lovely GG Southwark people.