30 GoodGymmers and two tasks this evening.

Woodchips On The Old Block

Ten gallant goodgymers ran the 3.5 kilometers up to Girdlestone Gardening Club to continue our gardening tasks but arrived to find our host, Jan, stuck in the mulch in her wheelchair totally unable to move!

Like superheroes in a cheap American comic book from the 1940s we set to work freeing the damsel in distress and saving the day, or at least her evening. Heroics completed our real work for the evening began, weeding, tidying and most importantly the reduction of the level of the wood-chips to stop the wheelchair sticking problem reoccurring.

Job done, we raced down Archway road to arrive back at the baths exactly on time for a good stretch and a well deserved biscuit. Unfortunately the biscuit giver (name supplied on request) showed none of the loyalty expected from his heroic team and gave the entire other group their biscuits first. This was a blot on an otherwise excellent but standard Monday evening in Islington. Up, up and away.

Steve

The rest of us were over to Barnsbury Community Centre for a mix of jobs:

Sofa So Good

A few of us had to construct a sofa. The group grabbed the box with all the parts in and found the cushions easily enough, but couldn't find anything else. After much searching around and failed phonecalls they finally discovered the missing parts stashed away within the cushions themselves!

As a bonus a display stand was also made. Amazing what you find in a sofa these days.

Living In A Box

Alex also found something else in the box

Tile And Error

Another team had the job of laying white floor tiles out in reception. It took a little while to figure out exactly where the tiles had to go, but they did a terrific job.

Paint The Toilets Red

Caroline and Vicki put a second coat of GoodGym red paint on the cubicle doors in the ladies. Much less clearing up this week thanks to throwing the brushes away afterwards. It's looking very red in there.

Vinyl Messi

First timers to GoodGym Bella, Xun and Bryony were joined by Lizzie and had the easiest job of all: sticking a large sheet of yellow vinyl to the reception desk. OK, I lied, it was the most fidgety job ever. But they persevered and broke the back of it.

The Vinyl Countdown

While the vinyl team - now with a few additions - struggled for the last five minutes, the rest of us went into the main hall and did a circle of circuits: we stood in a ring and took turns to pick an exercise, alternating "easy" and hard ones. Burpees, plank, lunges, sit ups and squat jumps were just a few of the delights on offer this evening.

Nicely worked-out we grabbed the vinylers and headed back to the pool in two groups where the Girdlestone gang were waiting for us.

The Grass Is Always Greener

While munching biccies we voted on the best running surface: grass, running track, road, mud or woodchip. Grass won it, so everybody has to go out for a nice run on some cool wet grass this week.

Patrick is leading the group next week. Be there
Simon

For goodness sake, the Fantastic Four ran Four Miles, for a night of an evening of Fitness, Fun and frollocks.

Giving the awesome folks of Moishe House a taste of the goodgym life, I met an excited Zac who had coordinated the shindig at the Moishe House abode. Already prepped to serve the keen runners he'd laid out an array of treats for after the run including healthy snacks and h2o, good lad!!!!

Joining us on this sunny and quite muggy eve, were Nick a half marathon King and Nadine the back flipping amazing gymnast. Without wasting any time at all, the team set off on the first leg from Brondesbury park to our destination - Kilburn Grange Park for a blast of flower bed tending in the summer sun.

Chats and good cheer carried us along and with one brief scare after Zac informed us about his naked running..... Oh no wait he meant running with no digi watch eeekkkkkk

We arrived on site with plenty of time and after a quick equipment grab set to work on the rose gardens. It really was a physical task, with taking, hoeing and hoping we were digging up weeds not flowers.... Yikes. After 30mins of back breaking work, nadine demonstrated her back breaking skills in a different way, with a back flipping somersault display!!!! Impressive.

A couple of hills and some technical work to boot, the team huffed and puffed their way back to base, managing to finish in time with stretches and muchos claps for the awesome achievements of the night.

A wonderful evening filled with good cheer, good deeds and a very good gym.

Til next time

24 GoodGymers ran between 3-7km to help Thornhill Community Garden and Caxton House:

Report written by Caroline and Aidan.

Caroline - Operation Twig:

11 Goodgymers went to Thornhill Square and helped out Anna to remove massive ELDER (weed) trees. We managed to remove quite a lot in a short amount of time, release a good amount of stress and got to use some quite cool tools. Doing it in the dark adds to the challenge! After the task we did some gradual intervals around the square before heading back to base.

Tonight's debate was if you had a two course dinner what would you prefer out of starter, main and dessert? All combinations were mentioned depending on whether people prefer savoury or sweet. Also having a cheese board option could be a deciding factor as well.

Paul forgot the biscuits again. However, Aiden and Caroline brought the same type of biscuits for both of the groups without having spoken to each other first about first. It's like they can read each other minds... or simply get the same thing on offer from the co-op. They were caramel chocolate digestives. They didn't go down as well as the double chocolate digestives.

Aidan - Operation Speed Gardening:

13 of us set off to Caxton House led by Patrick with his musical lantern blasting the tunes.

Enjoying the music and the slightly up-hill run we made it there in great time but sadly the lovely people at Caxton weren't expecting us this week. Luckily after a few phone calls Rose, who lives close by, was able to come and meet us with tools in hand and got us set on task.

Two tasks were set, one group tackled one of the mighty bushes with secateurs whilst another worked at de-weeding the flowerbeds.

The time flew by and after a clean up we celebrated with a biscuit and a group photo. Everyone enjoyed the run back a bit more as it was all downhill. Lucky us!

Meeting up with the other group we stretched out and called it a day. The thoughtful Caroline had spare biscuits for us (little did she know we had already had some) and by sheer coincidence she had bought the exact same delicious caramel digestives...spooky.

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)