A small group of Goodgym Haringey runners met tonight for one of our longest runs to date: across the borough to Campsbourne Community Garden for a total of 8 km. Shout out to Lindy for her longest ever run! Head on over and give her a cheer.

Given the distance of the run, we did a brief but very warming warm up (jog in a circle, if Sarah calls "one" jump in the air, if "two" touch the ground, if "three" change direction) and we set off, at a brisk but conversational pace. Our route took us along the New River Path for a taste of dark trail - luckily most of us had head torches! We arrived right on time, according to task owner Clare.

The garden is in a former coal yard and consists of a load of square raised beds - raised high enough for wheelchair access if required. People form all over the world have plots in the garden and a variety of international plants are grown there. Clare set Lindy and Carolyn to work weeding half of one bed, while Niamh and Liam got sweeping accumulated debris. There was also compost to be spread and weeds growing between cracks to be sorted out. Niamh kept befriending worms while she weeded - a sign of healthy soil at the site! We spent half an hour at the task before saying goodbye to Clare and heading for home.

Upon learning this was Lindy's furthest ever run, chat turned to setting goals. Niamh needs to sign up for a triathlon (any recommendations?), Carolyn wants to get back to full fitness following a running injury and Sarah wants to qualify for London marathon. She recalled running her first marathon after getting a reminder email about a goal she set on the Goodgym site. You can set goals by clicking on your profile picture at the top right corner of the screen - go ahead and give it a go!

Liam and then Niamh peeled off on the way back when we ran past their homes. Carolyn, Sarah and Lindy combined a fitness session into the rest of the run back with a fartlek in the last kilometer. Using lampposts and corners as landmarks, we alternated speeding up and slowing down for a bit of speedplay (that's what "fartlek" means in Swedish, in case you thought we were being rude!).

We got back just in time for stretches and a round of Haringey High Fives.

Five lovely GoodGym-ers joined me to run 8km and help the wonderful Campsbourne Food Garden!

So as my two week tenure of GoodGym Haringey came to an end we went from a short 2km run to a long 8km tonight. Our destination, Campsbourne Food Garden, is a car park that has been transformed in to a wonderful food growing garden.

With everyone gathered at the fitness centre and with routes compared we were ready to go. With the warm up delegated last week i was keen to show these guys that I knew what I was doing and we went through a short but sharp warm up that consisted of high knees, heel flicks, lunges, star jumps and my old fave the spotty dog! With that and a slightly comedic intro done we were off on our way

Follow Dave!

With Dave knowing the route well I let him lead the group and I filtered my way up and down. It was a long run but with no troubles. Dave embraced exercises at the lights giving us some top quality squats and a plank too. Nurjehan was all about the running and with no auto-pause on her Strava she was keen to keep her average speed up which meant running in circles at the lights and taking random extended runs while we waited - quite the sight!

Bird whisperers

On the way we took a little run by the New River where we met a family of swans - we got a little snap with them but were careful not to disturb them. They were probably wondering why we were running when floating gracefully down the river is so much of a nicer option!

With that we were at Campsbourne. With twenty minutes of task time at our hands Clare got us all on jobs and we steamed ahead:

• Dave on general weeding and tidying
• Abi and Nerjuhan on sweeping the yard
• Cath and Julie on lavender trimming
• Me... being a nuisance

We worked hard for more like 25 minutes, cleared up, said our goodbyes to Clare and Tina - got the obligatory group shot and we were ready to go again.

More wildlife

We retraced our steps heading back but still managed to encounter some more wildlife, this time a lovely heron and as we went past Turnpike Lane a fully goodgym kitted Al Smith! Al (or Lex, he prefers Lex) had been racing to join us tonight but due to his extreme work ethic (he'd been in the pub) he hadn't made it. In any case whilst I can't register him as he didn't actually do the task an honourable mention is needed. Well done mate!

So with Julie having headed home along the way, we were back up to six with Al and the run home was steady and filled with no further surprises. We had a good stretch when we got back to base and then we all headed our own separate ways.

Thanks for a lovely two weeks GG Haringey and hope to see you again soon - keep up the good work!

Cheers,
Pritesh

This week 5 fantastic GoodGym-ers ran 8km to sweep, weed and carry leaves and compost at the Campsbourne Food Growing Garden.

The epic distance may have scared most people away, but not this lot. These guys are brave and true and managed to run the lot, hills and all! Particular props to Latoya, who had been practicing the longer runs to make sure she could make it. She made easy work of it in the end! Go give her a cheer!

Cathy was my trusty back-marker tonight, with Oisin and Julie kept me company up front.

Their prize for being ahead was a few run-backs up and downs some of the bigger hills. With a few burpees and squats thrown in all around on the way there.

We made it to the growing garden in about 30 minutes, and Clare and the gang were excited as ever to see us, greeting us with some chilled water and a variety of tasks.

With only 20 minutes to get everything done, the team got to work. There was bed watering, floor sweeping, compost shifting and weed pulling to be done.

Despite the small group and the tiny time window, we managed to get LOADS done, even having time for another team photo. I do love when I get to be in the photos. Thanks, Clare! It doesn't happen very often!

We soon said our goodbyes and headed back to base. Julie was going to run straight home, but she was having too much fun and decided to run most of the way back with us after all; even though home was closer to Turnpike Lane! Always appreciated!

On the way home we were discussing how our numbers have dwindled over the summer and what we can do about it. It's a team effort really, so we're all going to tell our friends. And bring biscuits. Oisin says he can bake some sort of delicious vegan thing and Latoya is going to rope her sister into baking for us.

What's better than baked goods?

Baked good after running and doing good with awesome good-doers in Haringey.

I'll be in Cornwall next week, so Damian will be covering - take good care of him! We've got a wonderful task helping a local LGBT project with some flyering. They've got loads of cool things for us to do over the next eight months, so hopefully this is the beginning of a beautiful new relationship.

This is part of my mission to make GG Haringey the most queer-friendly of all the GGs in all the land. If you know of other LGBT charities nearby we could be helping, please do let me know!

See you all when I get back!

This week 4 wonderful GoodGym-ers chose weeding over sportsball, to run 8km to help out on a brand new task.

Much of the Haringey crew stayed away, I can only imagine to watch the football.

After a quick intro and warm up, focusing on warming up the ITB and getting some bounce in them ankles, we started our long run to the Campsbourne garden.

Kiki actually has her own patch at the Food Growing Garden, inspiring her to come back and join us for her second run!

Julie is officially the latest member of the Task Force! Welcome her to the team!

We had a nice 4km run to the gardens, including a little trip along the New River. Dave was our trusty back-marker, but we were all basically together the whole time.

After half an hour of running, we made it to the garden and met the local residents in charge. Clare very helpfully provided us with some water and then told us our tasks.

Kiki was on watering duty, Dave was on compost shifting and Julie was pulling weeds. With such a long route, comes quite a short work time. This meant we only had 20 minutes to get as much done as we could.

I got stuck in with weeding in between photo-taking and task-managing.

There's a couple of videos in my stories on instagram from the night, if you're interested in seeing what tonight's fitness challenge looked like.

The run home took about 10 minutes less than the run there, which leads me to believe it must have been downhill - or that I forgot to turn my watch off when we got there right away. Maybe we were just speedier, though.

We made it back, decided on probably having Ethiopian food after the run next week to celebrate our birthday, and had a little stretch. Please sign up to our birthday run here and tell all your friends!

We are turning THREE and it would be so great to have as many people along as possible!

It's a real short run, so perfect for any newbies; and we'll be on the Green, so we can play games for the fitness sesh segment. Sign up here. You know you want to.