It was a ladies GoodGym Group run this week and our bravery paid off. Despite the rain and wind that lasted right up until we set off from Arsenal, it was calm and dry while we ran to meet Fran at Highbury Quadrant to shift earth. They're setting up a new community garden around the corner and needed help wheelbarrowing new earth from where it was dropped off around the corner into their new wooden planters. Some of the locals came out to help and we made a sizable dent in two of the big bags.

We also had a Dolly, but Dolly was a small dog, not a hand truck. Still, she barked at our wheelbarrows and tried (unsuccessfully) to stop a fox weeing on our bags of earth, so Dolly gets full points for trying.

And if, like me, you found Fran's hedgehog information really interesting, but can't remember any of it now, here's: What to do if you find a hedgehog out during the day from the British Hedgehog Preservation Society.

Remember there are two group missions this week; The Garden Classroom on Wednesday morning and Guide Running with Achilles International on Thursday evening.

29 GoodGymers braced the drizzle with GoodGym Camden on Wednesday night's run up to the Kentish Town City Farm.

Turning up at the Living Centre to locked doors and nobody at Reception, we decamped to the main Crick Institute reception for our intro. We had a load of new runners with us tonight, as well as a group of tourists from GoodGym Tower Hamlets. Welcome Andy, May, and Khaliun! You certainly picked a good night to join us, and I hope you enjoyed yourselves.

We'll be running back to the Kentish Town City Farm next week for the marquee takedown by the way - get your name down for some goat petting and manure-bag moving!

After a rapid fire intro and warmup we got going - so the question was asked of the new runners to find out what actuallyis the difference between a community mission and a mission? Do you know? Answers at the bottom of this report please!

Our task

Arriving to the sweet smell of wafting manure, we met Mel from the City Farm who told us all about the task:

• Assembling and erecting the two marquees ahead of their annual Apple Day on Sunday.

We split into two teams and got stuck in, using wheelbarrows, people power and our headtorches - thanks again this week Hanry - we marched up to the field to get them built.

Teams seem to be becoming a regular thing in these reports, and this week was no different; Marquee Team A were pitted against Marquee Team B in the battle of the marquees.

Which poles went where proved to be a challenge for both teams, but with the best GoodGym minds at work both marquees were up in 15 minutes flat, with Team B being the far and away winners. With both marquees up, it was time to gather the manure bags to tie to the bottom of the poles to make sure they didn't fly away in a gust of wind.

With our task completed - and 24 bags of poo tied (pendulously some might add) - we assembled for a team photo and after an extra 5 minutes petting the goats and checking on the piggies we said goodbye to Mel and sprinted back to the Living Centre for a cool down and - for some of us - a trip to the pub.

Next time

COMMUNITY MISSIONS GALORE: As mentioned on the run, there's not one but TWO community missions to get stuck in with this week. Thursday (24th) will be another trip to Story Garden. Turn up from 5pm and help do some good with Abi. For those of you who can't do weekdays, Mel and the team would love to see you up at the Kentish Town City Farm on the Apple Day itself this coming Sunday from 11am-4pm. Liz is organising this one - head here to sign up. Don't worry if you can't do the whole time, just comment on the signup page which hours you can do.

NEXT WEEK: So next time, we'll be running back up to the Kentish Town City Farm for Apple Day Part 2 (The Takedown!) to take down the marquees we put up last night. It's yet another opportunity to pet the goats and see the oinking pigs, so there really is no excuse good enough not to attend.

Happy Running!

Ben

29 of us GoodGym runners assembled at the Life Centre on Wednesday night for what was to be my first run as your new GoodGym Camden Trainer without stabilisers - thanks for all your help and support Pritesh!

We welcomed two new runners to the ever expanding posse that is Camden - hey Olivia and Rebecca, we hope to see you on another one soon.

Tonight was also special for another reason for someone else; Abi! Our run tonight was her 200th good deed(!) and with everyone else clapped and cheered, Sally duly presented her with the beautiful GG Camden crimson cape with 200 sewn on in big silver numbers. 200 good deeds is such a brilliant milestone and I hope you'll all pile in on Abi's page and give her some good cheer and congratulations; that's 200 times you could've otherwise said no or not bothered to get stuck in, and it's a wonderful achievement. Whether you're new or old to GoodGym, keep doing what you're doing and the good deeds will soon add up.

Tonight's task was Alara Wholefoods, just up the road and over the canal.

After listening to Alex from Alara about what we needed to do, we split up into Team Mulch, Team Wheelbarrow, Team Weeding, Team Harvest and got to it in the best GoodGym production line you could possibly dream of. With two wheelbarrows and spades, mulch was dug out, loaded onto the wheelbarrows and sprinted round the corner to the nearby orchard. Here another team was in place to scrape around the trees and load up the mulch - 2 loads per tree. Elsewhere Team Weeding were doing an excellent job of tidying up a path and some of rubber tire planters. Down the road and through the trees, Team Harvest were getting on with plucking as many apples from the trees (with Alex's permission!) and clearing a bean field.

We mulched, we weeded, we cleared, we stripped bean poles and we harvested some apples. Special shoutout to Hanry for providing the lion's share of the headtorches for tonight's task - we would have been ruined without them!

How much fun did we all have? Toooooo mullllchh fun!

By 8pm (perfect timing!), we'd managed to mulch an orchard, picked a lot of apples from the trees, stripped the bean poles back and done a lot of good weeding and sweeping and it was time to run on. As a special treat, Alex had some boxes of granola ready for us. There wasn't enough to go around, so he invited us into the granola warehouse (actual heaven for some of us) to pick up some more. A few group photos later, we waved goodbye to Alex and motored on.

Down along the canal, with our headtorches beaming and granola rattling, we hit Granary Square for a few laps before jogging back with our granola boxes as our maracas, for a cool down stretch. Some of us headed on to the pub for a celebratory drink and a piece of John's homemade vegan brownies - it was his birthday on Tuesday (and they tasted delicious by the way, John!) - and others headed home.

If you enjoyed yourself last night, why not sign up to our next run?

And don't forget we've got a Community Mission coming up on Thursday 3rd October at Story Garden - you can sign up here