Another month and another drinks...in a pub showing the football...that's really really really busy!

Loud

I'm going to do my best to get a quiet pub next month, or get a loudspeaker, or learn to project my voice better! Anywho, most of you said you heard me and I can't ask for more than that! It was another great month of running, good deeding and of course the majority of GoodGym office staff apparently just cheering - if you're not going to do any work guys you need to do it less publicly!

All the stats can be found here

We had a spectacular turn out of THIRTY people last night which was fantastic given the random downpours and the fact that some people were at a Hackney Half training session!

Massive thank you

Thank you to everyone that came along - really great to see lots of new faces amongst the regulars, kudos to GG Southwark who had three runners along although Jo failed spectacularly to arrive despite some bravado on twitter earlier!

Races

The big news looking ahead was the many races that are coming up, we'd love everyone to get involved so join if you can and share if you know others that might be interested:

• April 9th - parkrun tour continues in Bushy Park where it parkrun first started
• April 17th - #GGxBuda - Running Madness in Budapest
• May 8th - Run Hackney - We are Club of the year! Run or Marshall but definitely Party

International Pun of the Month

We had a massive 31 votes this month, a wide and varied shortlist but there was only one clear winner, with 14 votes:

Lavender thyme of our lives from GG Brent!

Thanks to everyone who voted, we'll be back next month for more!

Keep doing good, spreading the GG word and being amazing!

A "drinks" report will hopefully be a regular thing (if only so you can read what you didn't hear me say), please feel free to feedback to me on anything to do with the socials or if there is something you want to see or hear about that is missing at the moment - these are for you so let me know and I'll see what I can do!

Til next month - May 12th as I shan't make you party 3 days before Hackney!

Pritesh

P.S. Somebody left the beautiful umbrella pictured (sorry about the orientation) - I have it safely so just let me know and I'll get it back to you!

On a chilly evening 28 wonderful GoodGymers met in Camden to tackle two tasks head on!

The news last night was that there are new members of the Camden TaskForce, (Polly, Meredith, Jess, Chris and Frances will be joining Pritesh - woop woop. Also we are racing the Regents Park 10k and Hackney Half Marathon - come and join us!

First Task - Homeless Shelter - written by Pritesh:

On an annoyingly cold night 10 prompt arrivers (including first time runners Laura, Gabriel and Will) set off for our penultimate visit to the American International Church, with myself and Becky leading and back-marking the group we made swift progress to the church and there met Stephanie who doled out our instructions.

Methodical approach

A slightly easier night with only 11 beds needed, we went for the methodical approach this week doing duvets and pillows first before laying out the mattresses and applying our best ‘hospital corners’ to the sheets and then getting the beds evenly spaced out before we could survey our work and fit in a quick group snap.

We then made our way to Granary Square and got ourselves involved in some exercises.

Second Task - Skip Garden - written by Polly and Paul:

Our second task of the evening was to Skip Garden, a project which aims to connect people to each other and the natural world by creating hands-on and reflective opportunities. Today we were tasked with turning the compost machine to keep the garden green and fed. We split into two teams of 8, one led by Lucia and the other led by Polly. The latter wrote the following task report:

Kept warm with a duvet, the mechanical composter likes to be fed a mix of "browns and greens" (wood chip pellets and garden waste). It had only been fed greens recently and had got a bit bunged up.

Browns and Greens

Chief Gnome, Paul, tasked us with turning a big handle on its side which activates a big cork screw, mulch​ing up all the ingredients inside. A bucket at its bottom collect​ed the compost cocktail. This cocktail is then fed back into the​ ​machine with pellets. This must be repeated until it poops out nice brown compost. Lovely.

Liz afterwards said pushing that lever around for the compost machine was like flying around like a hamster!

While Team Polly got to work Paul led the rest of the group to a local square and benches to do some conditioning exercises and intervals. Firstly we started off with some step exercises to strengthen our glutes and legs, then we did an interval session to build fitness and then we did triceps dips and squats for further conditioning.

Then the teams switched and repeated the above. With the arrival of the Task One team we were all collected together for the first time, said goodbye to Paul from Skip Garden and headed to the canal for either a 3 or 5km run.

Next week there'll be two tasks again, it will be the last time we are going to the homeless shelter for the winter season and another group will be off to Camden Foodbank, Simon the Islington Trainer will be leading.

See you in two weeks - enjoy!

PB out.

The prospect of Camberwell Grove's delightful incline wasn't enough to put off GG Southwark this week. Especially knowing that we were visiting the lady who put the jelly babies in our tagline (the worst kept secret of our borough).

For the first time in weeks, we got to run outside in the dry and ironically, had an indoor task. It was pretty nice to not have to wear waterproofs though. We welcomed Deepak and Chiara along for the first time and had a few regulars to show them the ropes. After a 2.7km run including incline / decline, we were welcomed to the Camberwell Salvation Army Community Centre Church by Janet. Instead of sorting out baby clothes, we were presented with bowls of dettol, cloths, tea towels and lots and lots of toys. They have children's playgroups 3 times a week and the toys don't get a wipe down. So we got to work. Not only were the toys cleaned and dried (and reminisced over - was the green train in Thomas the Tank Engine Percy or Henry?) but they were also sorted into the correct boxes. Please note that kitchen goods and play food are two different categories!

In the last 6 minutes, there was a countdown style rush to see how many vehicles we could wipe down. See photos for an impressive car park of fisher price gangster wheels! As we finished up, in the spirit of Easter, Janet presented us with mini eggs to get us ready for the hills home.

Despite the worry that some people might be sick due to aforementioned mini eggs, we played the chain to make the hill a bit easier. Jogging in single file, the last runner has to sprint or side run up to the front of the group (thank you Simon for that one). Almost to general disappointment, no one was sick and we made it back in time for a quick stretch and a reminder of all of the opportunities for a social drink in the next weeks. tomorrow and next week. In case you were wondering.

Tonight's long run was nailed by our intrepid runners. 8kms out and back almost to Elephant & Castle felt like a lovely achievement in all in the mid-week blur.

This time, we met Rob, the volunteer co-ordinator for Cool Tan Arts which is a charity for arts and mental health. He told us a little bit about the work they do, showed us some amazing art and then led us to their store cupboard. We vomited audio visual equipment all over their hall, emptied out archive boxes and used a lift reminiscent of a horror movie to dispose of floppy discs and broken musical instruments. It always seems like we'll not finish the task and then somehow we pull it off. With a minute to spare and time to eat some of the fruit which Rob had cut up for us. The discussion then turned to the best colour jelly baby and nearly got ugly (It's green, clearly) and then we got our legs and minds prepped to people dodge our way back to Peckham. A few of the more competitive attendees had sprint races on the quiet streets and our first-timer, Andy, clearly has some extra energy and pace to burn. We've put him up for the Man Vs Horse Race and he likes a challenge.

As ever, we finished our run with a stretch and discussion over which pub is the best pub to have our first GG Southwark social. Front runners are The Rye or the Victoria Inn. Suggestions please for Wednesday 16th March after the run!

See you next week for some outdoor fun at Lettsom Gardens. We'll be shovelling & digging some holes after a much shorter run. Hill sprints at the end, optional!