34 GoodGymers hit the ground running in Camden last night as the final of the Christmas Tree Run loomed large.

We tried an slightly-earlier-than-normal intro speech so we could set the American International Church team off to avoid a crossover. From the good feedback we got from it, I'm going to keep doing this until our runs to C4WS finish at the end of next month.

N.B. If you can, try and get to us at St Pancras & Somers Town Living Centre for a 6:55 start (not the normal 7pm) for the next 6 weeks, it would be really appreciated. This is to minimise the crossover with the homeless shelter users and us. I'll keep reminding you about it in the GoodGym Camden weekly email on Mondays, just in case.

Tonight was also a special night for me as I - finally - hit 50 Good Deeds! Dear runner, you'll be pleased to know that I have - with all the haste of a thousand winds - ordered my black t-shirt and will be wearing it at least once before going back to the Trainer Red t-shirt. Thanks Abi for the shout-out and Liz for baking two of the most delicious cakes I've had in a long time. That chocolate one just melted in my mouth. Delicious. Go and give her a cheer if you had a slice.

C4WS Report (written by Beth)

10 of us ran 3km to help the American International Church with their winter homeless shelter. We made up 10 beds very quickly and then had a chat with Jonathan, the Minister. He said that they have had over 30 guests so far this season, the majority of whom have since gone on to more permanent living arrangements - a real testimony to the dedication of the team’s holistic approach to caring for the local homeless population.

Jonathan invited GoodGym to their Volunteer Appreciation Supper on 6th May - it would be great to have some representatives from GoodGym there, so do put the date in your diary and go along. We'll pass on more info closer to the time.

Christmas Tree Run (Part 2)

Tonight was the final outing of the Second-Annual Camden Christmas Tree Run and boy did we get some miles in! Collecting 23 trees this late in January was a great effort and well done all who took part.

Without further ado, the results you've all been waiting for:

WINNERS! Team Breaking and Entreeing - 8!

Team Cirque de Pine - 6 (with a whopping 9.23km run!)

Treem Tree - 6 (2.5km)

Team Januar-Tree - 4

Team Weren't We-Supposed-To-Be-Running-The-Short-Route?! - 4

It was lovely to see a mix of old and new-ish Camden runners running together in last night's teams. I was out on a Sadiq Bike (they change name with each new Mayor, right?!) checking in on a few teams as the competition was going and seeing you all sprint around, plan your attacks and lug trees to the various collection points all in the spirit of GoodGym was brill. Keep coming back - you're what makes good GoodGym so well... great!

Next time

COMMUNITY MISSIONS, AHOY! As the January Challenge approaches week three, we're cracking on with missions. Fancy volunteering at the Ally Pally Parkrun this Saturday 8:30-10? A few of us are heading up there and you're more than welcome to come along. Community missions are a good way to get a feel for what GoodGym's about without the numbers we usually get on Wednesdays, especially so if you're really busy in the weekdays as a lot of us are.

Sally's leading another community mission down in SE15 with Plastic Free Peckham from 2-4pm on Sunday. If you're feeling extra good, why not try both?

It's also the first Crouch End Open Space (CREOS) community mission of 2020 this Sunday 11-1pm. There was also talk of an after-task picnic, potentially with some cider in the sunshine. They're a lovely bunch up there and I'm sure they'd love to see even more people come along.

NEXT WEEK Normal Christmas-tree-less service resumes next Wednesday as we run back to C4WS (homeless shelter). A bigger group of us are running to Cecil Sharp House for the first time in 2020 for some weeding, clearing and tidying up of their garden spaces. Come one, come all.

Have a great week (and don't forget to get those Strava profiles linked to add your miles to the Camden January Challenge)!

Ben

JANUARY CHALLENGE SHOUT-OUT: It's January, it's cold, it's always dark and everyone's broke. Luckily GoodGym Camden's here with lots of ways you can do good and get fit (and win this Challenge for Camden!), all you need to do is make sure your Strava is linked up to your GG account and get those miles logged in. It's a friendly competition between GoodGyms around the UK, but the key word there is competition and we must win! Camden's now #5 of all GoodGyms in all the land, but it's only the 9th and we've got a lot of January left. Sign up to the January Challenge here. (Well done if you've already signed up and linked Strava!)

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A whopping 35 GoodGymers shook off the running cobwebs and rang in the New Year with a run out in Camden on Wednesday night.

We welcomed two new folks to the herd - shout out to Niccole and Lauren. I hope Camden is what you'd hoped for (and then some) and I'm looking forward to seeing you out with us again soon.

How about Christmas Tree Run (Take 2)? Same time, same place next week - sign up now!

Tonight was the second Annual GoodGym Camden Christmas Tree Run as well as our regular bed-making at the American International Church.

A small but mighty group of 9 - led by the brilliant Louise - ran down to Jonathan and the team at the American International Church on Tottenham Court Road for our first (official, non-community mission) bed-making of the New Year. 8 beds were made for those who needed them and, as the heavens opened and the rain bucketed down, a slightly longer run was on the cards for the return leg back to the Living Centre.

As the beds were being made, 5 packs of runners had fanned out across Camden Town in competition for the Cardamom Cup (but mostly just for the bragging rights of being the winning team) in the...

Second-Annual Camden Christmas Tree Run!

For the second year running, Camden runners went head-to-head in a competition to harvest as many abandoned Christmas trees from the streets around their chosen collection point as they possibly could. The time they had? 70 minutes. 5 teams. 25 runners. And the victors? Returning to the Living Centre at 20:28, just 2 minutes away from disqualification, was TEAM TREE-MENDUS with a whopping 14 trees collected and thrown over a fence (into the collection point).

The final scores were as follows:

Team Tree-Mendus - 14 (8.79km)

Team Tree-Angle - 11

Team Five-and-a-Wreath - 5 (8km)

Team Pines 4 Pints - 4

Team Ho (ho ho) - 4

Commiserations to the other teams, but don't worry - you've got another chance to win next week! With a hat tip to sportsmanship, Team Tree-Mendus unanimously decided to give Team Tree-Angle the revered Cardomom Bun baked by yours truly this morning, to enjoy at the pub. Rumour is that there might be more baked goods for next week's competition.

Next time

COMMUNITY MISSIONS GALORE: In true Red January spirit, Liz has been organising community missions for us Camdeners to get stuck into; Plogging - lunchtime litter picks - this Friday (anyone can join in, regardless of location), Volunteering with the Canal and River Trust this Saturday and, next week, Volunteering at the Ally Pally Parkrun!.

NEXT WEEK'S RUN: We'll be back with the Christmas Tree Run (Take Two) and some of us will be going back to the American International Church. Come along!

Happy running (and missioning) until then.

Thanks go to Liz for the excellent punnage.

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!

21 Goodgymers ran 4-5k to help Holloway School prepare the roofgarden for horticultural activities

Welcome to the newbies - Savannah, Caz and Chloe - great to have you along!!

In the news:

1. Well done to everyone who raced this weekend - lots of Goodgymers at Rutland Races, Berlin Marathon, Brighton Triathlon and Dart 10k Swim - amazing!
2. Dave Guest from GoodGym Bristol became the 3rd person to reach 500 Good Deeds over the weekend - wow! Read about it here :)
3. There is now a new committee for the GG Raceteam with Frances as the Chair and Pritesh the Secretary. Join the raceteam here.

After warming up we headed through the backstreets to Holloway Road, where we encountered tons of red traffic lights, which meant squats and star jumps while we waited!

Back to School!

Arriving at Holloway School we met Jonathan - we ran through the school halls (naughty) and made it up the stairs to the roofgarden. Jonathan explained that our task for the evening was to clear, weed and prepare an area so the kids can get involved in lots of horniculture activities. Splitting into teams we got were tasked with the following:

• Weeding around the apple trees where the chicken coop is going to go
• Digging up bushes with the roots intact, these were then taken down to be replanted in the playground.
• Removing any weeds and laying five bags of manure to feed the garden

Around 12 bushes were taken down to the playground in bags, a job that involved lots of stairs climbing! After 30 minutes we finished the tasks at hand with some sweeping and then a group photo under Aspire, Achieve, Success sign.

On the way home we went back the long way and did a fartlek around the Emirates!

Sign up here for next week, we'll be helping Single Homeless Project and Thornhill Square Gardens.

PB out