A whopping 45 Goodgymers gathered in Islington this Monday

A mass of goodgymers flocked to Highbury Pool this Monday, ready to get involved. We welcomed several first timers to GoodGym, why not go and give them a cheer and say welcome to Imogen, Caroline, Sarah, Laura, Susann, Wendy, Claire, another Imogen, Alice, Victoria and Emma.

Congratulations were in order for Patrick on his Berlin Marathon time as well as everyone who went to Cardiff Half Marathon on Sunday. Well done to everyone!

Farming fun at Freightliners

This week's task was with the wonderful people at Freightliners Farm. No one loves a visit to the farm more than GoodGym, even if it does mean shovelling some manure. As it is a short run plenty of people took on the challenge of a longer run with Graham leading the way with some laps of Highbury Fields. The rest of us were too eager to see the animals and headed straight for the farm.

Graham describes the longer run:

A group of hardy GoodGymers set off to up the pace and distance with a few extra laps of Highbury Fields before starting.

Following a few warm up drills (featuring high knees, tail flicks, walking lunges, and sprints, and my best attempt at something resembling an army drill), we headed off to get the extra distance in.

Brilliantly, everyone did at least an extra two laps and upped their workout with an extra 2k - nice! Given the number of people who did extra laps in total, I reckon we did at least 50 laps of Highbury Fields collectively. That's about 10 parkruns, and longer than marathon distance - excellent job team!

With the extra laps under our belts, we ran over to the farm where remarkably we didn't get lost. Well except for that one-bit-where-we-ran-5m-past-a-turn-but-that-totally-doesn't-count. Which as any Islington regulars will tell you - a pretty big success given my navigation skills! A pre-task running session success.

We may have had a big group, but there was no shortage of work to be done and by golly did we tackle it. With wellies and gloves at the ready the first group got stuck in shovelling a mountain of manure into sacks. Working in pairs they tackled the task with gusto. Great job! By the time everyone from the longer run joined there was plenty more work to be done. There were groups:

• Shovelling manure

• Shovelling compost

• Transporting 60 bags of manure (and then taking another 20 bags)

• Sanding a table

• Sweeping the courtyard

• Cleaning the paths

• Weeding the paths

• breathe

Phew, amazing work! And of course a special shout out to the Torchbearers, which has become a bit of a regular task now that Winter is coming, without them we can't see a thing!

It wouldn't be a trip to the farm without meeting the animals so before leaving there was plenty of time to say hello. Once we were all cleaned up we set off back in three groups for a quick run back.

Only in Islington...

Going with the farm theme, the debate this week was "What is the best farm animal?" Going for a very democratic voting system of shouting your answer goat was definitely heard the loudest.

Keeping the farm theme alive, biscuits of the week were a childhood favourite Animals and a random find of Zoo biscuits. Both going down very well post run.

What next?

• This month's drinks are on Thursday 6th at the Islington Townhouse in Angel. Local to us so come along! More info here.

• If you're too committed to the running to be drinking then why not try a Fitness 4 All training session in Camden, also on Thursday. More info here.

• If I haven't tempted you by either of these then we will see you next week!

Awesome effort everyone!

Aidan