Coffee morning means new recruits...

It was the first Wednesday of the month, which means GG effectively gate-crashes the popular Healthy Minds coffee morning in Barnes House, in a bid to head out to the day's task with some new recruits.

Established GoodGym/Healthy Mind-ers Paul, Tom and Neil were in attendance making the recruitment of first timers Kenny and David that little bit easier.

Litter-picking galore

And so a good sized crew of 8 of us in the end headed out, marching the short route just around the corner, expertly led by Neil, to Castlehaven's Des Res area where task owner Nichola had carefully laid out bundles of litter-picking kit for our mission today. We distributed litter-pickers, gloves and buckets before heading to our favourite mural for some mobility exercises ("Warm up your lats, folks, we need to warm up your lats, and hip flexors for litter-picking."). And the pun requests started... (today's pun, btw, is brought to you courtesy of Tom, although Kenny deserves a very big shout-out for her brilliant suggestions en route back to Barnes House).

We then divided into two teams to take the two main sections of the park. Tom, David, Paul and I headed in one direction, while (other) Tom, Kenny, Cynthia and Neil took the other section of the park. Between the two teams, a lot of rubbish was collected - the teams blitzed both park areas and had full buckets come 1pm. Impressive.

Full-on fitness

And so we met next to the sports pitch for today's serious fitness session. First up, was our favourite greyhound-and-hare game. Neil and Cynthia started us off, with a 45-second start, power-walking a lap of the park. After a set of jumping jacks, the rest of the team set out and tried to catch them up. But alas, Neil and Cynthia were too fast even for speedy pacer Paul, and they returned to our race start with their leaders title in tact, before we all gathered to cheer in the runner-up walkers.

Then it was mine and David's turn which was truly a battle of the wills, ("I'm walking at my own pace, I won't be speeded up by anyone" vs pushy PT: "I'll see about that."). But we retained our leader title. And then we gathered in a circle to play "Name a body part you want to work." Kenny kicked us off nicely with hamstrings (single leg deadlifts if you don't mind - go, team); Tom continued with a request for a delts exercise (impressive), and Cynthia completed the requests with 'something for the back'. What a collaboration. We were un-stoppable today.

Before we knew it, it was 1.30 and we headed back to Barnes House, feeling like our lower body in particular had been put through its paces, but with our spirits high.

Thank you all, for another wonderful Wednesday lunchtime. And don't forget, we do it all again next week...

GoodGym and Healthy Minds will next meet at midday at Mind in Camden on Wednesday 8th May. The session runs from 12-1.30pm. Details can be found here).

4 runners headed out to Castlehaven’s Horticulture Hub today to join Nichola and the team get some new seedlings settled.

A new route…

It was a glorious Spring day when Cynthia, Neil and I left Camden Road for the haven around the corner that is Castlehaven. I was just about to take us via our usual route, a rather congested, not-so-scenic route, when Neil drew our attention to the fact there was a better way. And better it was. Neil expertly led us via locks and blossom-filled streets to Castelhaven’s horticultural hub.

S’all about the seedlings

Here, we were joined by fellow Healthy Minds member Paul, and expertly guided by task owner Nichola on how to separate dill from strawberry seeds (yes, as fiddly as it sounds), plant Inch Plant cuttings and re-pot baby aloes, all under the watchful eye of brilliant Castlehaven volunteer, Aras.

After finishing the original planting tasks early (well, it is a GoodGym event, what did you expect?), Cynthia and Neil headed outside for more re-potting, garden-watering and finished with a soil swan song-and-a-half – re-potting a vibrant verbena.

Paul, and I, on Team Aloe, completed our task in time too – Paul was expertly on quality control (“What’s wrong with that one?” “Not enough soil. I need to re-do.” “Humph.”) and most importantly, he headed up Project Pun (Me: What can we do with aloe? Paul: Hello, I Love You. Me: What, there’s a song called that? Paul: Er, yes, by, like, The DOORS?”. Paul proceeded to play said song, and the penny dropped - “Oh yeah, that.”). Paul proved to be a most tolerant team mate.

Getting our Spring sweat on

We then headed back to the Castlehaven Park and found a small, secluded spot surrounded by four trees (an ‘auspicious looking spot’, according to Paul). The team were ready for my fitness moves. After some hip mobility drills, they breezed onto static lunges, performed some tree push ups, led by Neil (“Look at Neil’s form, everyone, and copy – his back is flat.") before finishing with some plyometric squats, and two forms of oblique exercises. A waist-whittling session indeed. We then went our separate ways in the sunshine, pleased to have accomplished so much in the hub, and enjoyed such an industrious lunch hour.

GoodGym and Healthy Minds will next meet at Mind in Camden on Wednesday 1st May. The session runs from 12-1.30pm. Details can be found here.