23 of us GoodGymers turned up for a night of do-gooding and running on another rain-free October night. We do run come rain or shine, but who doesn't prefer running in the dry, let's be honest!

After our introduction and our welcoming FOUR new runners (wooooooooooo!) to the Camden ranks with some big cheers and claps - welcome Leanne, Poppy, Abbi and Lucy - we stretched and got ready for the run! I hope you all enjoyed yourselves tonight and will be back at Group Runs and Community Missions with us very soon.

We had a split task tonight, with one team running to the Cecil Sharp House and another back to the SPCA to finish off what we started a fortnight ago. I led the first team to Cecil Sharp and Louise and John took the second half to the SPCA.

Team Cecil Sharp

After a quick 2km run up the road, we arrived at Cecil Sharp House. Susannah told us a little about the centre and some more of what we were helping with tonight, as a violin lesson and choir rehearsal were going on in the background. They'd just gotten some great news today that they'd won Camden's Best Business Garden and she was doubly grateful for the work we do for them. Well done for the continued weeding, clearing and raking efforts over the months - it's all paid off! We were set about clearing the gardens of the leaves, sweeping up the paths and sorting out their bin - extra big shout-out to CJ and Abi for going above and beyond with their task. If I could award double good deed points, I would. Tidying away 9 big bags of leaves and litter, we'd made the gardens neat, tidy and leafless once more and after a group photo on the steps, we said goodbye to Susannah and ran back to the Life Centre to regroup.

Team SPCA

Louise and John's team ran over to the Saint Pancras Community Association to carry on with the task we weren't able to finish last time; sorting and bagging up the rest of the garden waste pile that had been stacking up over the summer. After speedy teamwork and FIFTEEN bags later - excellent work everyone - the job was well and truly finished off. It was time to say goodbye, run back and meet up with the other team.

Thanks again - as we say most weeks now - to Hanry for being the official Camden Headtorch Champion. You're a hero and I'm sure we'll be calling on your help in the coming months.

Next week and other news

NEXT WEEK! We are going to be running to the Ashdown Crescent Sheltered Housing project to give them a hand with keeping their gardens in check. There may well be a fitness session next week, so we'll make sure you keep warm!

A COMMUNITY TASK! Abi never stops good deeding (she really doesn't) and will be back at the Story Garden on Thursday 10th from 5-7pm if you'd like to help them out in one of the polytunnels - a sort of indoor-task if you squint at it for long enough - you can click right here and come on down!

LET'S GET SOCIAAAAAAL! It's almost time for a good old GoodGym social! There's already 29 friendly GoodGymers signed up to the social on Thursday 10th October, so why don't you too? It's going to be at the Islington Town House from 6:30pm - come one come all. It's also a potentially final chance to celebrate International Pun of the Month, as Pritesh is stepping down from this wonderous role. Get in touch with him if you'd like to find out how you can take up the mantle and carry on this hilarious GG tradition.

That's all for now, but I hope to see you all on next week's run.

Happy running,

Ben

29 of us GoodGym runners assembled at the Life Centre on Wednesday night for what was to be my first run as your new GoodGym Camden Trainer without stabilisers - thanks for all your help and support Pritesh!

We welcomed two new runners to the ever expanding posse that is Camden - hey Olivia and Rebecca, we hope to see you on another one soon.

Tonight was also special for another reason for someone else; Abi! Our run tonight was her 200th good deed(!) and with everyone else clapped and cheered, Sally duly presented her with the beautiful GG Camden crimson cape with 200 sewn on in big silver numbers. 200 good deeds is such a brilliant milestone and I hope you'll all pile in on Abi's page and give her some good cheer and congratulations; that's 200 times you could've otherwise said no or not bothered to get stuck in, and it's a wonderful achievement. Whether you're new or old to GoodGym, keep doing what you're doing and the good deeds will soon add up.

Tonight's task was Alara Wholefoods, just up the road and over the canal.

After listening to Alex from Alara about what we needed to do, we split up into Team Mulch, Team Wheelbarrow, Team Weeding, Team Harvest and got to it in the best GoodGym production line you could possibly dream of. With two wheelbarrows and spades, mulch was dug out, loaded onto the wheelbarrows and sprinted round the corner to the nearby orchard. Here another team was in place to scrape around the trees and load up the mulch - 2 loads per tree. Elsewhere Team Weeding were doing an excellent job of tidying up a path and some of rubber tire planters. Down the road and through the trees, Team Harvest were getting on with plucking as many apples from the trees (with Alex's permission!) and clearing a bean field.

We mulched, we weeded, we cleared, we stripped bean poles and we harvested some apples. Special shoutout to Hanry for providing the lion's share of the headtorches for tonight's task - we would have been ruined without them!

How much fun did we all have? Toooooo mullllchh fun!

By 8pm (perfect timing!), we'd managed to mulch an orchard, picked a lot of apples from the trees, stripped the bean poles back and done a lot of good weeding and sweeping and it was time to run on. As a special treat, Alex had some boxes of granola ready for us. There wasn't enough to go around, so he invited us into the granola warehouse (actual heaven for some of us) to pick up some more. A few group photos later, we waved goodbye to Alex and motored on.

Down along the canal, with our headtorches beaming and granola rattling, we hit Granary Square for a few laps before jogging back with our granola boxes as our maracas, for a cool down stretch. Some of us headed on to the pub for a celebratory drink and a piece of John's homemade vegan brownies - it was his birthday on Tuesday (and they tasted delicious by the way, John!) - and others headed home.

If you enjoyed yourself last night, why not sign up to our next run?

And don't forget we've got a Community Mission coming up on Thursday 3rd October at Story Garden - you can sign up here

10 amazing Good Gym runners joined me on an Autumnal evening to run 7km to deliver leaflets for our friends at Abbey Community Centre.

We started the evening by giving a big GG welcome to Bianca, who joined us for her first GG run.

Ready, restart, News bulletin.... 350 GG runners from 36 different areas participated in community missions on Super Saturday as part of the 10 year anniversary PARTY celebrations.

Don't worry if you missed the party on Saturday, there is an opportunity to take part in another community mission tomorrow evening in Kilburn.

Ready, restart, GO! We promptly started running to Abbey Community Centre. When we arrived we were given leaflets to deliver to advertise a RESTART PARTY on Saturday, where trained volunteers will fix all of your small electrical items!

Ready, restart, GO! We split into 2 teams and we were reset to run again to deliver the leaflets to local residents.

Once the teams were joined again, wait for it, restart, you've guessed it, we ran again, all the way home to the Queensbury, ready for the party to start!

Thanks for joining me team! Hope to see you again next week, if not before (maybe tomorrow)!!