Wet

Despite the rain - and even more rain - 22 GoodGymmers appeared on Highbury Fields last night ready to get fit by doing good. Among us were quite a few newcomers: Adam, Helen, Heather, Terri, Sarah and Annie. Annie's been travelling all over the place as part of a challenge to complete 52 challenges in 52 weeks and decided to pay us a visit last night with a couple of pals. Check out exerk

Following a warm welcome and a round of applause to Danica for completing her 50th good deed with GoodGym last week, we headed off through the football-loving crowds to Barnsbury Community Centre to get started with our task for the evening. There is a project underway at the centre to transform the area round the back into a community garden. It's been designed by various disciplines of students from UCL and we're one of several volunteer groups who's helping to get it going.

Weedy

The plan tonight had been to do some painting, but the poor weather scuppered our plans, so instead we had a good old tidy up and did a spot of shearing, a bit of soil sifting and a lot of weeding. Oh, and a tiny bit of Stickle Brick removal. Remember Stickle Bricks?

Greedy

We worked pretty hard for 35 minutes, but of course stopped for a biscuit break. This evening's were provided by GoodGym hero Sarah, who had spent the day baking a GoodGym-themed batch. See pics for example. They were definitely delicious. And nobody's complaining about this bring your homemade biscuit trend that's overtaken us.

Speedy

A run back to the fields as a group and we finished up the evening with a time trial. Emirates was busy with football or something (thanks Patrick for the warning) so we decided to attack course B on Highbury Fields. The only problem was that we couldn't quite remember the route for course B, so we ended up inadvertently creating a course C. Oh well, the more the merrier.

It was wet and dark , but nobody hung around and Aidan was first over the line in 1:49, closely followed by Patrick L in 1:51. A 2:01 for Xavier, 2:02 for Adam and Annie was first lady home in 2:02. Other times available on request.

Our debate topic for the evening was DRUGS. Should drugs cheats in athletics be banned for life?

How was Islington divided? Well, a few of us reckoned a life ban was the only solution, and it should be made very clear that this would be the case as a deterrent. There was also the suggestion of fining people (hit them where it hurts). Others felt that you should receive a life ban after being caught a second time (having served a more lenient sentence on the first occasion). Nobody thought that they should get away with a warning, but there was the suggestion of a special league for drug-fuelled athletes. Isn't that just the 100 metres?

Well done all. See you next week when we should be back at ze centre for Bank Holiday Monday madness.

Simon

16 runners ran to paint and weed a community centre.

On a lightly cloudy and humid evening 16 goodgymers met outside Highbury Pool. Goodgym was assembled and we were ready to do good in Islington. Our ancestral leader Simon was on holiday so the wonderful Ivo was leading in his orange New Balance Prototype top.

"joy"

To everyone's joy we did some core exercises while doing our name & number count, this is a great way of preparing your body for a run as it gets your heart rate up!

Our task this week was at Caxton House Community Centre in north Islington. We had a steady 3.5km run up to there, generally sticking as a group. The entire run was on a slight incline but we knew this would bode us well on our return.

" swift arrival"

With our swift arrival at Caxton House the wonderful volunteers informed us they needed 6 newly planted beds painted and then general weeding done. We split into a teams and got to work. Over the 30 minutes we had all the beds were beautifully painted and the back garden had been cleared with weeds. Well done guys!

"always have biscuits"

Goodgym Islington has gone to Caxton House several times now, so much so the great volunteers always have biscuits and cold water available for us. This helped fuel our return journey - thanks guys!

On our return Ivo gave us options of 3 running paces: 30 minutes & over 5km pace 25-30 minutes 5km sub 25 minute 5km pace

"staggered"

We had a staggered start of 4 minutes between each group, with the idea for everyone to finish at Highbury Pool at the same time. Group 3 caught up with group 2 around 2/3 of the way back and then we all arrived back within a minute of each other - great timing skills Ivo!

We all did a vital stretch session led by Ivo, talked about the approaching Race the Train event and other races to get involved in, before saying our goodbyes.

Another smashing GoodGym task done - excellent work everyone!

A few first timers this evening. Welcome to Alan and Anna. Alan's a keen distance runner and has "persuaded" Anna to train for a half marathon. Let's hope GoodGym can help them get a few miles in the legs. We also welcomed Helen and Caitlin who did a great job on their first outing. And lovely to see Hackney-ite Flynn doing a bit of tourism.

There were two tasks tonight. Not only did we have to deliver a ton of promotional material for Caxton House's Hillrise Summer Festival, we also had to go and tidy up an adventure playground

Since the Caxton House job involved quite a bit of distance, hardcore runners Patrick, Aidan, Ryan and Caitlin were recruited for the 7k round trip. Rucksacks on, they stormed off into the sunset and set about dodging dogs, climbing steep steps and practising their delivery action.

The rest of us headed over to Lumpy Hill, one of 12 adventure playgrounds in Islington providing a wonderful service for kids in the area. We also delivered a few spare leaflets to houses a bit further south en route.

There was a mild panic when we arrived at the adventure playground and it seemed to be locked up. We shouted, rang the bell and rattled the gates all to no response, until Steve did a bit of surveying and discovered there were two playgrounds on the same stretch of road.

Once on the proper site, we were shown in by Kerry and Jenna. There were quite a few jobs to do: Alan and Anna set about some "brooming" (that's Irish for "sweeping") to remove any nasty stones from the front of the garden while others donned gloves and spread out around the garden to rid it of nasty stinging nettles (ask Flynn about how stingy they were) and litter. Most of us made friends with ants. Some of us were still feeling ants later on in the evening. Some of you can probably feel ants crawling up your legs now? Can you? Are you itchy? Do you need to scratch? What about yawning? Anybody feel like a nice big yawn? YAAWWWNN! Sarah pointed out it wasn't just ants we had to worry about - we also had a few antipodeans in our midst (they also crawl up your legs sometimes). Ozzie vs. Kiwi debate coming up in a few weeks, we reckon.

With a nice big area swept clear we spread out a large sheet of tarpaulin and a group of us placed a gigantic inflatable pool on top. It was swiftly filled with air (via pump, Steve was relieved he didn't have to blow) and we started filling it with water while giving it the odd yank to remove creases. It was quite a large pool so it should be full in about seven weeks.

With the site looking much clearer it was time to head off and do some relays on the fields. But wait a minute, why would you go and do relays when you've got an adventure playground to mess about in? OK, sod the relays. We swang and climbed and slid down slides, threw frisbees and kicked footballs, and some of us screamed.

We finished the evening with a tennis ball game. We paired up: one member was responsible for dropping the ball and the other for running and catching it before it bounced twice. A great way of improving reaction time and speed and a great workout.

Biscuits were HOMEMADE this week. And were supplied by Anna. So tasty! Who's making next week's?

The debate for the evening was supplied by Bridget: "Should people boycott air shows?" (there's been suggestions that they should because they're dangerous). For the first time in Islington Debate history we all agreed and said that no, people should not boycott them.

Big round of applause to Patrick for 17 good deeds last month

Well done Sarah for 50th good deed. Looks like Ros's 50th is imminent.

And remember drinks on Thursday

Planter painting next week

Simon