With Shaun off getting married and living it up, Simon's covering Camden for the next three weeks. There have been strict instructions from Pritesh to not start bringing biscuits along :(:(:(

A warm welcome to new GoodGymmers Claire, Georgie and Alvaro this evening. We hope you enjoyed your first outing as much as we enjoyed having you.

Alex, who visits a coach regularly, turned up with a box of chocolates and flowers. What was going on? Well, it was his coach's birthday and he had come up with the wonderful idea of him and a few GoodGymmers paying her a surprise visit. Alex's account is as follows:

I’ve been reflecting on our mission to see my coach last night and I’ve come to the conclusion it might be the single best thing I’ve ever done for another human being. Let me explain. The mission was a unique one – five grizzled Goodgym runners (myself, Sophie, Pritesh, Becky and Chris) ran about 4km up to Belsize Park to provide an extra special visit to my coach to go and say Happy Birthday. Every year she has a party but things hadn’t worked out this year, so we decided to bring the party to her. Armed with flowers, a card and some posh chocolates, we ran with controlled gusto up Haverstock Hill to deliver some birthday wishes.

When we got there, my coach’s face lit up with joy! After a lifetime of acting she’s used to being surrounded by young dramatic types (Goodgym-ers fit that bill) and the party was soon in full flow with chatter, laughter, champagne and crisps. We’re a classy bunch. Pritesh was particularly fascinated by the local University of the Third Age programme and I’m sure will be back for a few courses….

It all went far too quickly as we had to head back to Somers Town to meet the rest of the crew, but we left with my coach’s laughter ringing in our ears. As we wished her a final happy birthday, she declared “well thanks to you lot, it is a happy birthday now”.

Mission well and truly accomplished.

Alex

The rest of us headed over to Alara Wholefoods, where Alex (a different Alex) had a list of jobs for us to do around the grounds. Picking rotten tomatoes to dump on a fire, plucking grapes and boxing them up, weeding the north and south orchards, shovelling compost from the path into a heap and weeding around the YACON (not Yakult)

What's a Yacon? Well, best look one up. It looks a bit like a sweet potato and is famous for its syrup. And we all got to try Yacon syrup first hand because Alex kindly gave every single person a box of Yacon Granola to take home (plus a few extra for the coach visitors).

We packed our tools up and plodded off to Granary Square for the monthly Camden time trial. Time was a little short so we decided to all set off as one group rather than in waves. Simon and Beth shouted times and recorded results. First over the line was Ben in 2:40, closely followed by Axel (2:45) and Paul (2:49). All other times available on request.

We ran back to the centre (ok, we admit, we walked a bit, but time trials are tough), boxes of granola rattling, and had a nice stretch goodnight. Stretch of the week was offered by Eefje and named "The Frog". Good luck finding out what that is with a Google search. You'll have to come along next week and see for yourself.

Simon

Special thanks to "The Monkey" for pun 8:(|)