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

26 of us GoodGymers came out to run on another Wednesday night in Camden.

We had one lovely newbie tonight - Jodie - it was great to have you with us. Looking forward to seeing you on another run with us soon next week's link is here if you fancy! Tonight was also a milestone for Meredith and Hayley, as tonight's run marked their 100th good deeds! Well done both of you, and what an achievement. Here's to the next 100.

After our part crowdsourced intro - thank you CJ, Frances and Meredith for firing off the ways you can get fit and do good with GoodGym - we stretched and then headed off on our task just over 3 kilometers away to the Ashdown Court Sheltered Housing in Kentish Town.

After what seemed to be some of the longest waits until the green man flashed at crossings - or was it just me?! - we finally arrived in Kentish Town, met Cathi and got stuck in. There was lots to do:

• Clearing out, sweeping and reorganising the tool shed

• Sweeping and de-leafing the terrace and paths

• Bulb-planting in the garden

• Moss-scraping the patio stones

• Moving some furniture from upstairs

Beth and Frances even helped tidy up one of the residents' balconies (see photos!).

With the bulbs planted, the paths swept and the moss scraped, our job was done. We had a quick team photo and said goodbye to Cathi before running another 3km back towards the Living Centre. After nearly 7km (!), we made sure to stretch out properly when we got back to base. From there it was on to the pub for some - there was an amazing cake baked by Hayley to celebrate 100 good deeds - and others headed homewards.

Next week and other news

COMMUNITY MISSION: Some of us will be heading back to Story Garden on Thursday evening to carry on our work there from 5pm. Sign up here if you want to help out!

NEXT WEEK: Join us on Wednesday for the an October run up to Kentish Town City Farm to help Mel and the team put up their marquees for the annual Apple Day celebrations! It's going to be a big one, so come along - and bring friends - as there'll be lots to do.

SOCIAL: Oh it's a biggie - the last social to be organised by Pritesh - and an unofficial GoodGym 10 year party, coming up on the 8th November. The record attendance to beat is 83, I think we can smash that! Put your name down here if you're coming along.

Have a great week and see you next time.

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

22 intrepid runners braved the surprisingly mild evening to take on our two tasks on Wednesday night. The first, just around the corner from our meeting point, was shifting and sorting wood with some litter-picking at the Story Garden, led by the wonderful Louise. The second - slightly further afield - was ripping out some flowerbeds and tidying up garden waste at Saint Pancras Community Assocation, led by myself and Pritesh.

We had not one, not two, but THREE new runners joining us tonight, Elisabetta, Meghan and Bettina it was great to have you with us! Hope you enjoyed yourselves and I'm looking forward to see you on another run with us all soon.

After the introduction and our warm-up stretches, we split up and headed out to our tasks, hoping that it wouldn't rain. It seems that a winning combination of Abi's self-confessed good luck charms and Steve's weather optimism that it wouldn't chuck it down was really all we needed for a rainfree run, so thank you both!

As with many GoodGym runs, several of us pondered 'What really is a weed?" as we were getting through our tasks, but we managed to fill 10 bags up over the 30 minutes we had to get it done. There's more to do so I'm sure we'll be back very soon. Over at the Story Garden, the sorting and stacking of wood went brilliantly. Hats off to all!

Once we'd finished off our tasks for the night, we headed on to Granary Square - with the Story Garden team joining us along the way. Here, we played a game of Rock, Paper and Scissors (fitness edition), with sprints for the winners and planks for the 'losers'; everyone is a winner when it comes to fitness! After a quick two laps of the square later - increasing our speed on every section, we headed back, cooled down and a few of us went on to the pub.

Looking forward to seeing you all next week for what will be my first (eek!) run without the brilliant Pritesh leading us on. You'll be greatly missed, but will always be welcome back whenever you'd like!

Have a great week and see you next time.

Happy running,

Ben

We had four new people this week - welcome Katie, Oliver, Caroline and Chris!

We returned to a classic GoodGym Camden task last night, with 29 of us rocking up to Kings Cross Orchard/Alara – a few more than Alex had expected!

However, he managed to find jobs for most of us to do – ranging from mulching the trees, shovelling the mulch, wheelbarrowing, litter picking and weeding. We also got to see the range of plants growing, from chillies to chinese pears! With so many of us, we made quick work of it and it wasn’t long before it was time to down tools and pick up a box of cereal.

Then we hot-footed it to Granary Square, where we all ran between 1 and 3 laps – the aim was to do it as a progression run, where you run each lap a bit faster than the last, but some us decided to take it at our own pace.

Then it was time to run home and have a nice stretch!

If you need more of an orchard fix, you can find details of the Camley Road Harvest Festival on 13 September here: https://www.facebook.com/events/579450629228576/

We also have a community mission to help Camden Highline on 19 September - details at https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/help-camden-highline-tidy-up-camden-gardens