A slippy stray to this mission, literally! As we climbed a slippy bank in one of the orchards to get some tools and barrows. This would be our first task, shovelling some wood-chip to put down on said slippery path.

With that complete we complete we could more safely more around and on to the next task of bringing in more wood-chip to much around newly plant orchard trees including a goji berry tree.

While that was going on a whole two bin bags of litter was collected from across the yard and entrance.

But the end of the mission the whole pile of wood chip had been moved!

Things are a little more tidy, safe and presentable for this Fridays Wassail Party!

This week GoodGym Camden's regular Wednesday run was to local favourite Alara Wholefoods, an organic cereal factory and permaculture garden tucked away on Camley Street behind King's Cross and St Pancras. Who'd have thought there'd be vines growing so close to two of London's busiest stations?! But there are, and our task for the night was to MULCH them.

Paul, Steve, Graham and Rosie met outside local community hub The St Pancras and Somers Town Living Centre (closed to the public, but still open online) and after a lively warm-up, distanced themselves in a pandemic-appropriate manner for the 7-minute jog up the road to the factory where they were joined by Sally and Katie. Alex, who founded Alara, is used to welcoming GoodGymmers and he had all the necessary tools neatly laid out in rows ready for us to get on with the task. After a quick explanation and safety briefing, we set to work! Steve and Sally tackled an enormous pile of compost-woodchip mix, shovelling it into buckets and loading them into wheelbarrows. Katie and Paul took the barrows round the side of the factory to the vines, handing them over to Graham and Alex who raked the mulch over the roots (sampling a few of the grapes in the process). Rosie bossed everyone around and took photos that were either blurry or much too dark.

An hour or so later the mulch heap was half the size it was at the beginning and everyone's backs and arms were feeling nicely exercised. Sally and Katie took their leave and the remaining four ran back the way they had come, stopping for a final stretch and a chat before heading their separate ways.

Camden's second week back went well last night with another 5 Camdeners joining Trainer Ben in the damp drizzle.

This was Alara take 2 and after a quick warmup, we headed off - with Steve on bike! - over to the other side of the canal. With only 5 runners and me, all socially distanced and safe, we took a gentle but steady pace over to Alara, running past John and Jacqui's house along the route with Jacqui leaning out the window and clapping as we went past!

Tonight's task was to clear the grasses that had been sprung up under the trees in the orchard and spreading some mulch over the newly scraped areas. No tool was used by any more than one person and everyone had gloves on. The new normal, for the time being at least.

We stayed for a solid 45 minutes and got a lot done in that time. Steve deserves a special shout-out for his near conquering of the fallen tree from last week, that involved a lot of hacksawing to cut through it so Alex could open up the space in front of the warehouse! Go and give him a double cheer for his efforts!

It's definitely a different energy to the group when there's only 6 of us, but while it's not the same 25-30 Camdeners mucking in, you get to catch up and chat with people much more which was lovely. After our work was over, Alex came out with the age old treat of a box of Alara's finest each to say thanks for our efforts. We then headed down to Granary Square for a socially distanced drink and catch up.

It was lovely.

You were missed!

IMPORTANT: While we're limited to 6 people, I ask that you don't turn up on the night if you haven't signed up in advance, as you won't be allowed to run with us. Check the website for our next community mission/group run!

So, tonight was the first sort of group-run-but-really-more-of-a-community-mission-with-running-involved Camden's had since lockdown!

It was good and weird to be back at the same time but everyone enjoyed the old routine of meeting up outside the Living Centre for 6:45 (they're still shut so we had to be outside) and running together. With only 5 runners and me, all socially distanced and safe, we headed off to Alara to meet up with Alex.

Our task tonight was to clear a tree that had fallen down overnight, cutting it up into sections and sorting the wood into mulchable piles and usable piles between us. No tool was used by any more than one person and everyone had gloves on. The new normal, for the time being at least.

We stayed for a good 45 minutes and got a lot done in that time. Have a look at the before and after photos above. After our work was over, Alex came out with the age old treat of a box of Alara's finest each to say thanks for our efforts. We then headed down to Granary Square for a socially distanced drink and catch up.

It was lovely.

You were missed!

IMPORTANT: While we're limited to 6 people, I ask that you don't turn up on the night if you haven't signed up in advance, as you won't be allowed to run with us. Check the website for our next community mission/group run!

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

Well, that was something else wasn't it?!

42

Yup 41 of you amazingly wonderful people popped down to Camden on a freezing November evening to run around 5km and help out two wonderful organisations! Give yourself a round of applause!

So where to begin on this wondrous night - well everyone piled into the St Pancras and Somers Town Living Centre and after a far too long intro we split into two groups and so the night began!

The intro:

• We were joined by the lovely Hannah from Red January - she was down to experience a goodgym run first hand and to tell us about the upcoming partnership between RJ and GG. You can read all about Red January here, but Hannah, the founder, told us all about how she wanted to get people to beat the blues in January by using exercise - sounds perfect for us!
• Christmas is coming! Sign up to the Camden pizza party by the 27th Nov here, that's on the 11th December after the run and don't forget to warm up to that by going to the GG-wide xmas party on the 6th December, details here
• Did i say there were 42 of us!? Well a whopping SEVEN of that number were at GoodGym for the first time - a huge GGC welcome to: Alex, Maryam, Layli, Harriet, Laura, Eileen and of course Hannah from Red Jan!
• Finally shout out to Debbie who was indulging in a bit of GG tourism coming all the way from GG Newcastle!

Right, on to the night itself:

• Chris took a total of 16 people to the American International Church to make beds for those needing shelter last night. Whilst we're not pleased with the number it was rather serendipitous that 16 beds needed to be made! Well done to all of you including our walking group of Liz, Rosie and Frances!

• The remainder headed with me to Alara to do various mulch and leaf related tasks. We split into groups and had three teams working to collect leaves at the front of the space and collecting it all into a big pile. Another two teams collecting leaves at the back and transferring those leaves to the compost heap (while avoiding falling into the pond!) and finally we had one team working to wheelbarrow mulch to various parts of the back area. Everyone worked hard and kept themselves warm and before we knew it our time had passed! As ever Alex kindly rewarded everyone with a box of granola and with many thank yous in the air we headed to Granary Square to meet the other team.

G- RUN - ary Square:

• After taking everyone on a sighting run (it is right, right, right and right again) we split everyone into pairs and did a meet and retreat event. It was described with such spectacular levels of poor planning and organisation that it could only work impossibly well and after some initial troubles everyone lined up and shot off in opposite directions and before we knew it everyone was back and warm! Amazing stuff!

With that done it was time for some group photos with Hannah for Red January promotion and then we headed back to base. Once there we bumped into Ivo G, GG's Founder and Top Dog who had sadly missed the entire evening's fun - sad times! He joined us for the stretches and then the evening was done.

It was great to be back and so wonderful to see so many new and old faces - keep on coming and keep Camden great!

Cheers,
Pritesh

p.s. huge shout to Liz for the awesome Stereophonics pun!
p.p.s. apologies my photos are SO bad!