13 GoodGymers ran some super speedy relays and worked on their running form in a tip top Fitness 4 All session.

Starting the evening with a dynamic warm up to get the specific running muscles activated and loosening up the working joints. We then honed our running form working on body position, cadence and knee drive running up the Highbury Mountain!

Once our form was on point we swiched to continous relays where in teams of 3 we worked through the gears starting off in Gear 2 (10k pace) for 4 minutes, then to Gear 3 (5k pace) for 4 minutes, cranking it up to Gear 4 (1 mile pace)for a scortching 4 minutes of action before warming down back at Gear 2 for a final 4 minutes.

Great to see the huge effort put in by everyone, changes of pace between the gears and loving the hand stinging high fives!!

Hope to see you all next week! Sign up here

HAPPY MONDAYS All round when a dozen Goodgymers ran 5k, to Kilburn Grange Park for a dose of gardening and an even bigger dose of upper body strength work.

(and yes this is a musical, Happy Mondays band themed run report, in case you get confused LOL)

Despite feeling a little under the weather myself, there were no PILL SPILLS AND BELLY ACHES that could keep me away from my beautiful GG Brent. To kick off the night, I was delighted to see, as well as the familiars, lots of new faces at base camp too! Tanya, Jarshee, Dharmistha and Shanta four lovely ladies ready to push down pavements and give back some goodness to their local community.

Back with our new friends - Kilburn Grange Park, to finish the gardening we started last week, after a warm and fun fuelled housekeeping we set off into the night. With Dan at the helm and me leading from the back, we set off on the first leg of the journey down to the high road, minding not to STEP ON the many cracked pavements and tree roots springing up attempting to hinder our fast pace.

In no time at all we had arrived and BOBS YOUR UNCLE were greeted by the gorgeous AJ with all the tools needed to get cracking straight away YAY

With the last of the SUNSHINE and plenty of LOVE we got to work digging, pulling weeds and raking up the dead leaves to reveal beautiful new soil ready for new planting.

About half way through, there was a HALLELUJA Moment, when AJ brought out 2 trays of deliciously prepared watermelon for the team!!! Amazing!! Stepping away from our Manchester themed music night for one moment of madness it was WHAM BAM THANK YOU MAM When I accompanied the moment with a dose of Club Tropicana on the spotify mix.... (Clairey-Bells request!!)

So joyful our volunteering must have seemed from the outside, that we were suddenly surrounded by a gaggle of local kids questioning and quizzing what we were up to and then.... oh wait - No they were just here for the melon!!!! Of course.

With tummys full and the final countdown upon us we rushed to fill the last of the refuse sacks before said our goodbyes and hot footing it over to the playground for some more fitness fun!! No monkeying around as I guided the team into a series of hanging body holds and pull-ups on the bars and a team challenge of perfect technique press-ups on the grass.

Can we accept the Elle Energy challenge for this week I proclaimed.... 7 press ups every single day until next Monday??? YES WE CAN!!

After the upper-body annihilation, the lower body was back in business, as our legs did the work carrying us back the last 1.5miles back to base camp - The Queensbury. Hills were the last challenge of the night and with hips high and knees driving upwards, the team demo'd perfect skills to battle the last tree roots home and make it back in time for stretches bang on 8.30pm!! WOOP WOOP.

A night of fun fuelled, fruity goodness and fitness fury in the second week of the summer, that's another week rocked in Brent.

Until next time 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE

DO GOOD. FEEL GOOD. INSPIRE

A grand welcome to first timers Caroline, Caesar and Jason this evening. Double cheers for doing their first good deeds on such a wet evening

So, despite the drizzle, there was good to do in Islington. And as is often the case we spread ourselves across the borough with double deeding.

Caroline "Faster" Townsend led a group of ten over to a brand new task: Single Homeless Project, a charity that supports homeless and vulnerable people in London. Caroline explains what went down:

A really wet one tonight. 10 of us ran to a fantastic new task at the Single Homeless Project . We did an extra lap around Highbury Fields as well so we were proper warmed up when we arrived. At the task we split into groups and did a lot of gardening. We did a nice run back via Clissold Park on the way back. We continued to get wet but we found it refreshing... its been so hot recently. We discussed the debate and a few preferred red grapes and others preferred green.

Caroline

The other crew whizzed up to Caxton House Community Centre. Our job was to sand down some new benches in the front garden for painting. We worked our way down from brush, to coarse sandpaper, to less-coarse sandpaper, to fine sandpaper - being very sure to go with the grain, not against the grain - and left them ready for a nice coat of paint next week (rain, rain, stay away). We also did some weeding in the garden. There definitely isn't a lack of weeds around. To pat ourselves on the back we munched away on one of Steve L's Oreos brought all the way back from Portland. Delicious.

With a good thirty minutes in the bag we sped off via Emirates for a few "slope reps" (they're like hill reps, but they don't sound as hard), before blasting up a couple of real hills and getting back to the pool.

Time to vote. What's the best type of grape: green or red? Red won, which means that Steve C was on the losing debate side once again. Are they rigged? Find out next week

Another great night of doing good and getting fit. Well done all,
Simon

P.S. *Tip o' the GoodGym cap to Richard F for pun report title

P.P.S Don't forget there are drinks on Thursday.

Two tasks on this lovely summer evening in Islington.

One group popped up to Whittington Park. Aidan describes:

We arrived at Whittington Park after our longer run down Holloway Road. Our fortnightly task awaited us with Martin ready with bin bags and gloves.

The majority of us tackled the 1 o'clock club's garden as we need to keep up our good work of maintaining a weed and nettle free garden for the kids who use the club.

There was also the task of de-weeding the entrance of the main building, keeping it looking great for everyone!

After working hard for twenty minutes what better way to treat ourselves than with some circuits. Everyone got a chance to pick an exercise for everyone else to do whilst they went on a short lap of the field. Although some of the ladies did get a bit lost along the way! We had all the classics; press ups, sit-ups, planking and two types of squatting for good measure. All before rejoining Holloway Road for our run back.

Aidan

The other group travelled to Barnsbury Community Centre. We've spent a lot of time over the last year helping create a wonderful garden in the disused space behind the centre and we're now just putting the finishing touches to the project for their grand launch on 25th August.

First job was to get gloves out the storage cabinet. Simple, right? Nope. A combination of stupid rain and then stupid heat meant the combination lock for the cabinet had seized up completely. Despite the best efforts of Caroline, Patrick and a pair of pliers it remained stuck. Not to worry: we'd just have to be extra careful.

We spent 25 minutes carrying old pallets and broken bits of wood round to the estate's waste disposal site, having a thoroughly good weed and watering plants. Nice work.

Following the task we played "Dice of Doom" with Simon's new giant foam dice: everybody had a chance to throw the dice and determine the activity that had to be performed for 15 seconds. There were alternate squat thrusts, running high knees, start jumps (LOTS of start jumps), sprints, dreaded burpees (boo) and the elusive jogging on the spot. We then played a game that Caroline made up. Nobody was quite sure what it was.

Back at the pool we had a free stretch, a biscuit and voted on the proper way to eat scones: jam then cream, cream then jam, or Claire's suggestion, butter, jam then cream (which is apparently the traditional Cornish way of doing things)? Jam then cream won by quite a large margin. Some people were disgusted at this - especially Steve - but the people have spoken.

If anybody wants to make scones for next week maybe we could put it to the test.

xxx,
Simon