On Monday evening 20 brave Islington Good Gym-ers gathered in the cold to jog and do good. Oh, and because it's Islington, eat biscuits. In fact that was the subject of the days run debate. What biscuits should we have? Results later.

Paul warmed everyone up with some high knees, lunges and other associated exercises, and we were off! A faster group led by Patrick and Graham shot off sprinting around the park, before heading to our destination. Whilst Paul, Caroline and myself took a slower group, I say slower........in fact, it was like a herd of wildebeest charging across a busy Upper St, past the tube stop and to the relative quiet of the streets behind. I'm pleased to report that no pedestrians were trampled.

Wildebeest

Disappointed by the lack of trampling, as we neared our destination of Barnsbury Community Centre, Caroline dramatically threw herself on the floor mid-jog, in the hope she would get trampled. What a team player.

With both teams having arrived, we set about our task. Well, first we had to interrupt some sort of religious ceremony by all quietly charging through the middle of a room, like tip-toeing wildebeest, so as not to ruin the nice gospel singing going on around us.

'Dunk'

Like the previous week, half the group were banging stakes into the floor, and half shifting mud. Graham took the brave task of holding the stakes as people whacked them with hammers. You could see him physically vibrate every time a hammer went 'Dunk' on top of a stake.

The mud shifters stood around for a bit pondering where to put the mud, as all the bags were full. Then someone had a brainwave of clambering on top of the mud bags and stomping like they were making wine. it worked a treat and the mud shifting could commence.

Caroline nipped off to get biscuits, and despite the debate results being chocolate hobnobs or tim tams, came back with double chocolate. To be fair, who can resist double chocolate? One Good Gym-er had 5 biscuits!!

Double chocolate!

After the task we gathered for a nice group photo, and then set off back in to Highbury & Islington. On the run back Anna displayed her evasive skills, in panic jumping over a big black dog, only to find it was a bin liner (easily confused).

With everyone back Paul led the group through a few stretches, and then we departed, content with a good evenings work.

(Run Report by John Chyriwsky)

On a clear crisp Islington evening 27 wrapped up GoodGymers ran 6.75k to Claxton House to rip up and breakdown playground flooring, weed flower beds, raise some flower beds with compost and cut back the hedges.

So as normal I was late leaving my house so had to run hard to make my normal train, I got off at Waterloo as normal then things got weird!! Running over Blackfriars Bridge, passing Smithfield market and then Angel where was I going? What day was it?? Had I made a mistake? 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

No No No I hadn't I was on my way to the magnetic GoodGym Islington 😋😋 to help look after the ship along with the every energetic supremely supportive Task Force😎😎 while Simon had a well earned day off.

Great to see such a vibrant and welcoming GoodGym community, GoodGym Vetrans marshalling and encouraging GoodGym newcomers at every turn. And the Newbies getting stuck right into their fitness and doing Good journeys. 👏🏼👏🏾👏🏽

After a much needed warm up to raise our pulses, mobilise our joints and activate those key muscle groups we split into three select units to take to the streets and power our way up the Islington mountain 🏔🏔🏔 for the 3.3k run to Claxton House. 21 short minutes later we had all arrived and we're all gloving up to tackle the tasks ahead. The flower beds were being raised at a fantastic pace in preparation for some Spring planting 🌼🌷🌾🌹. While DJ Pat was pumping out the tunes 🎼🎤🎧📀📀 his glow in the dark decks for the privileged weeding and pruning crew at the front of the building! And the most I quote "Annoyingly Satisfying" task of the evening was under way with the old playground flooring being scratched, cut, jabbed, yanked then finally to much hooping and hollaring ripped up and broken down 💪🏾💪🏻💪🏼.

35 minutes went in a brink of an eye! All the flooring up up and pilled up, the flower beds were prepared for planting, the bushes had been cut back and the weeds had been removed 👏🏾👏🏼👏🏿👏🏻. We said our Goodbyes and split up into our running units for a handicap race back to base with the Philosophical runners leading us off followed by the medium sexy group a couple of minutes later then the speedies soon after them. The final 2 groups had the privilege of running around the greatest football stadium in the world to increase the level of difficulty in te dash to the finish. A super strong 3.3k run back aided with a bit of helpful gravity enabled a blistering sprint finish from the Philosophers to take the 🏁🏁🏁 closely followed by the rest of the team after a scorching lap of the Emirates Stadium.

Some beautifully executed cool down stretches finished off a great evening of fun on a run.

Don't forget to sign up for next weeks task here

Thank you all for looking after me, and hope to see you all at a Hackney GoodGym run on a Tuesday evening very very soon.

Until next time

Smooth Running

Joel