15 GoodGymers ran 5km and painted & gardened for Caxton House!

Thanks for coming along last night guys, it was a lovely Spring evening of GOOD fun! Welcome along to Davita, Maxim and Josephine plus Justin who joined us from GG Newham - thanks for coming guys :)

In the news this week:

1. Well done to Steve Coman who ran Manchester Marathon last Sunday in 3.56 - amazing work!
2. This Sunday is the London Marathon and GoodGym has various cheering squads out and about - have a look here.

After a quick warm up in the sunshine we headed north for 2.5km to help Caxton House, this fantastic community centre offers a number of education, fitness and arts projects; and provide a key link between like-minded organisations and the local community.

This has been a regular task for GoodGym Islington for three years, they love us and we love them. Upon our arrival at the task we found out this week we were sanding and painting the outdoor benches (to Steve's disappoint) - you see the thing is Steve is a painter & decorator and doesn't think we have enough time at GG to do a good enough job. Well as ever we did what we could in the time. First off we sanded the benches to create little scratches, then Ben laid down the plastic sheets, Alex taped up the edges and Steve (with a wiping team) dusted off the benches.

Painting Squad!

Now it was paint time, armed with brushes and little pots of duck-egg blue paint everyone did a great job giving the benches a few coats of paint. This area is well used throughout the summer months so this is a perfect time to do it!

As people finished painting their benches we took on the following garden tasks:

• Digging up weeds, thristles and bamboo at the front
• Clearing an area of weeds and sticky blue plants
• Trimming back ivy and dead branches

Once we'd put all the weeds and debris in the bin, and headed round the corner for x3 hill sprints focusing on arm drive.

Alix led a lovely monthly trip to the pub for some Thai food & a pint - join us next time :)

Sign up here for next week when you are off to Waterside Adventure Playground and led by Lucy (GG Southwark Trainer)

PB out.

20 GoodGymers ran 5-7km to help St Lukes & Ramsey Flowers N1 with some SPRING gardening!

Thanks to everyone who came last night, SPRING had SPRUNG and halle-frikin-lujah! Running in light evenings is probably one of my favourite things, made all the better by running with you guys.

In the news this week:

1. IMPORTANTLY we are meeting at the Arc Centre next Monday (2nd April), on 9th April and 23rd April. Don't come to Arsenal, we won't be there then. We will be meeting at the Arsenal Hub on 16th April and 30th April though.
2. Well done to everyone who ran, raced and got a PB at the Colchester Half Marathon on Sunday! Kike got a 15 minute PB, Graham smashed it with 1.22 and James ran well on no breakfast (everyone please eat before running/racing)
3. Come along on Wednesday to GG Camden when we will be doing the Biggest Task of the Year Part Two at the Southbank Centre - lifting the turf for the roof garden up all those stairs!

St Lukes Report by Aidan:

8 of us set off to St Luke’s. Well... 7 runners and 1 cyclist. Even injury doesn’t stop Steve C doing good!

We briefly entertained the idea of forming a race, Beat the Bike, but then realised we would certainly lose. So we headed off down Liverpool Road in search of a good deed. After navigating our way around the busy Angel area we arrived at St Luke’s and of course Steve had beaten us, it was an easy win for him, but at least he was happy.

Beat the Bike

St Luke’s Community Centre have been transforming their car park into a food garden for the community to use, we’ve been helping them with the heavy lifting since the start and it has truly transformed over that time.

Tonight we had two planters to move, one to empty and a nice mountain of compost bags to move into the shed. Both planters were hefty tasks, but with the combined strength of 8 GoodGymers nothing could stop us!

All covered in mud, with smiles on our faces, we enjoyed some of Steve’s Scottish shortbread (love a bit of alliteration). Some of us were good and washed up before snacking the lovely biscuits, the rest of us were too peckish and went for a lovely mouthful of biscuit with a side of compost. Yum.

To finish us off Graham led back via Upper St for a change of scenery. Beautiful. Good deed done.

Ramsey Flowers N1 by PB:

12 of us headed east to help the amazing Ramsey Flowers N1, we went via Highbury Fields and Balls Pond Road - arriving earlier than planned. While waiting for Natasha to arrive we played the demonstration game doing tons of conditioning, including - squats, backward lunges, star jumps, mountain climbers, planks and MORE.

We met Natasha from Ramsey Flowers N1 who told us that the Ramsey walk and nature reserve is now looked after by volunteers and used for local events. Any help that we provide is massively appreciated as many of the volunteers are older residents and cannot do as much of the heavy lifting.

Spring Flowers

Collecting up the tools (some brand new!) we split into the following tasks:

• Roisin, Kike, Nina and Roz swept the pathways - collecting up any dead leaves, twigs and debris
• Steve and Chris litter picked and spread compost around newly planted flowers
• Meg, Claire and Alison cut and trimmed back some bushes and ivy that was coming on the pathways
• James and Constance cleared an area for planting

As each group finished their tasks we focused on clearing an area of ivy and roots, then planting some flowers and composting it so it grows!

Heading home we stretched and distributed the party bags Paola had kindly given us from Ramsey Flowers N1 :)

Next week we are meeting at the Arc Centre and painting the Arc Centre - sign up here.

PB out.

4 GoodGymers zipped up, down and planked around Green Park for an hour of Fitness 4 All action.

Starting the session with the last of the Spring daylight was an exciting change!!

Using the facilities to our advantage we took the fear out of hills bringing some power and speed to the party!!

Starting with a dynamic warm up getting our knees bending and arms driving before we hit the first of our 120 metre easy paced Hill reps.

Focusing on knee drive and body position we honed our ideal form as we glided up the slope.

Switching gears we then increased our cadence with some drills and used our free speed to fly down the hill holding our form and nerve as we relaxed and enjoyed the down hill ride.

The our legs rolling we worked on our power and coordination with some drills before putting it all together with some speedy 100 metres bursts then dominate fast hill reps!!

Just enough time to throw in some core conditioning before we headed off with a seriously impressive session under our belts!!

Next week is the last in the months Block in Green Park, be great if you could join us for some more running fun!!

Smooth Running

Joel

24 GGers ran 5km to help Sunnyside Community Gardens shift compost piles and lay a pathway

Welcome to newbies - Constance, Ella and Ewan - lovely to have you along!

In the news this week:

1. A massive well done to James Gilbert who hit 100 good deeds last night. That's over 200 hours of volunteering in Islington, London and beyond. He's run with GoodGym for 2 years, enjoyed many a group run and contributed to our expansion of missions helping older isolated people. He also got a Parkrun PB on Saturday - well done James! WOOP!
2. Another huge well done to Graham Atkins who hit 200 good deeds last night. You don't get a new t-shirt for this milestone but congrats all the same. Keep running those hills, getting a little lost and wearing shorts in winter. #PB4GA
3. Our monthly social will be next Monday - we'll be going to the Coronet Wetherspoons on Holloway Road.

It was forecast to be a wet March evening but that didn't stop GoodGym Islington from doing some fantastic work for our community. This week we were off to help Sunnyside Community Gardens which is run entirely by volunteers, other than the manager Anna. It's a great space nestled in northern Islington, below Crouch End and Hornsey.

Hills + compost = biscuits

On the way up we split into three groups based on speed (sorry I got a bit lost in the park guys). It's a gentle 2.5km up hill to the north of the borough. While I talked to Anna about the task and collected the keys everyone did some lovely hill sprints, organised by Graham 'Yellow Hat' Atkins. Nice one!

The task for the evening was as follows:

• Turning over two piles of compost - turning over is critical to fluff up the organic material. In any case, turning odorous or matted compost heaps exposes more surface area so that air and heat can move again through the pile.
• Path laying - a team of 6 peeps used logs, trunks and more to lay two beautiful pathways - one wider, another narrower. This will help reduce trip hazards and it looks REAL NICE!

With 30 minutes of good work and some biscuit distribution we were ready for a group picture and to head back to base for some stretching and more biscuits - made by James!

Biscuits Round 2

Well done all for another evening of good doing in the wonderful area of Islington, sign up next week when we will be helping Caxton House.

PB out.