HAPPY MONDAYS All round when a dozen Goodgymers ran 5k, to Kilburn Grange Park for a dose of gardening and an even bigger dose of upper body strength work.

(and yes this is a musical, Happy Mondays band themed run report, in case you get confused LOL)

Despite feeling a little under the weather myself, there were no PILL SPILLS AND BELLY ACHES that could keep me away from my beautiful GG Brent. To kick off the night, I was delighted to see, as well as the familiars, lots of new faces at base camp too! Tanya, Jarshee, Dharmistha and Shanta four lovely ladies ready to push down pavements and give back some goodness to their local community.

Back with our new friends - Kilburn Grange Park, to finish the gardening we started last week, after a warm and fun fuelled housekeeping we set off into the night. With Dan at the helm and me leading from the back, we set off on the first leg of the journey down to the high road, minding not to STEP ON the many cracked pavements and tree roots springing up attempting to hinder our fast pace.

In no time at all we had arrived and BOBS YOUR UNCLE were greeted by the gorgeous AJ with all the tools needed to get cracking straight away YAY

With the last of the SUNSHINE and plenty of LOVE we got to work digging, pulling weeds and raking up the dead leaves to reveal beautiful new soil ready for new planting.

About half way through, there was a HALLELUJA Moment, when AJ brought out 2 trays of deliciously prepared watermelon for the team!!! Amazing!! Stepping away from our Manchester themed music night for one moment of madness it was WHAM BAM THANK YOU MAM When I accompanied the moment with a dose of Club Tropicana on the spotify mix.... (Clairey-Bells request!!)

So joyful our volunteering must have seemed from the outside, that we were suddenly surrounded by a gaggle of local kids questioning and quizzing what we were up to and then.... oh wait - No they were just here for the melon!!!! Of course.

With tummys full and the final countdown upon us we rushed to fill the last of the refuse sacks before said our goodbyes and hot footing it over to the playground for some more fitness fun!! No monkeying around as I guided the team into a series of hanging body holds and pull-ups on the bars and a team challenge of perfect technique press-ups on the grass.

Can we accept the Elle Energy challenge for this week I proclaimed.... 7 press ups every single day until next Monday??? YES WE CAN!!

After the upper-body annihilation, the lower body was back in business, as our legs did the work carrying us back the last 1.5miles back to base camp - The Queensbury. Hills were the last challenge of the night and with hips high and knees driving upwards, the team demo'd perfect skills to battle the last tree roots home and make it back in time for stretches bang on 8.30pm!! WOOP WOOP.

A night of fun fuelled, fruity goodness and fitness fury in the second week of the summer, that's another week rocked in Brent.

Until next time 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE

DO GOOD. FEEL GOOD. INSPIRE

The bunny did.

Caroline - having just watched the apparently dreadful film "Hop" - decided a good Easter-themed debate would be "Bunny vs chick: Which is better for a symbol of Easter?" The poor chick only managed a few sympathy votes. And one vote for "I don't care" from Steve.

Sixteen of us ( a record for bank holiday) delighted in it being light and took a trip to Thornhill Square Garden. Among us were first timers Laura, Alex and Stefanie. Welcome! We were also joined by Tower Hamlets 100 Hero Bryon who was desperate for a task.

Two groups travelled to the park. Patrick and Aidan led some on a longer journey while Simon and Ama took a more direct route.

Arriving a little early we decided to do a few stride outs while practising visualisations: first we pretended we were running on [Ostrich] egg shells, then hot plates and finally we pretended we were teenagers and had to run across a set of creaky floorboard to stop our mate lighting a fag at the window without waking up sleeping parents downstairs (a favourite of Farah's, I believe)

The task for the evening was to rid the park of elder roots. We tooled up with secateurs, loppers, saws, a spade, a fork and even an axe and set to work digging them up and then chopping them into little bits. We made great progress and Steve earned the new title of "Axe Man".

Speaking of Steve, he was back from California and once all our tools were gathered up he treated us all to mini Hershey bars. Much appreciated.

Darkness had descended and following on from Simon's "running on egg shell" drills and Steve's American treats what better a time for Patrick to keep the team busy with a grown-up version of US children's game Duck, Duck, Goose?

What's in the grown-up version? No sitting ducks! In a nutshell (or eggshell?), a circle of GoodGymmers jog on the spot while the one nominated as "fox" hunts for a goose egg as a tasty treat. The fox stalks round the circle, calling people "duck" along the way (the ducks do a squat) until picking a "goose" who bolts round the circle in the opposite direction.

The race is then on to get back to the goose's nest; if the goose is beaten home then the goose becomes the new fox. Then repeat!

In the meantime Simon had been laying out fifty cones all around the square. Under five of these cones were Creme Eggs so the race was on. All were found within a few minutes, although there were a few sceptical seekers who suspected the whole thing might have been a big wind up. Never!

A trot back in two groups. With it being Easter, we broke our tradition of having biscuits and opted instead for hot cross buns. Well, some hot cross buns from the shop and a slightly burnt homemade hot cross loaf from Simon.

Get fat and do good!

See you next week when we're off to Sunnyside Community Garden

Simon & Patrick

It's Twitter's 10th anniversary, and what better way to celebrate than by constructing a run report from tweets?

So, we had both a task and a mission tonight.

Danica, Aidan and Debbie were the missioners.

Danica (@DanicaPriest) tweeted:

We ran 6k to change 90yo Constance's curtains on a @GGIsling mission. Constance cracked up at @ajpadfield 's joke & Buster the cat was cute

Aidan (@ajpadfield) added:

Enjoyed a longer run with these two Lovely to meet @DanicaPriest coach, a very chatty and funny woman. (photo of Aidan, Debbie and Danica attached)

The rest of us, including first timers Helen and Andrew, and first timers to Islington Mo/Mohammed/Mush and Steve headed up to West London Mission - who provide a hostel and counselling services - to help clear up their back garden.

As Kike (@kagunbiade) explains:

short and sweet this week. We managed to get loads of garden clearing done inc destroying some nasty trailing brambles.

Patrick (@patrickluonguk) describes how Simon found a bone and wasn't sure what to do with it: (photo of Simon looking surprised at bone attached)

The bone of contention! Does a bone count as litter or compost? Where did it end up @SimonLoughran?

Post run we hit the fields for a combination of exercises and a continuous relay.

Graham (@guywholikesmuse) says:

Sprints into lunges was total #mondaynightmadness - great burst of energy to finish off the session

Alex (@alxndrleon) summarised the evening in a poem:

this week - just half a mile, raking dirt in piles, relay time trials and all round smiles :)

And Steve (@steveleedesign) did the whole evening with emojis (which doesn't display very well here. See photos for the full set):

⏰🏃🏽🏃🏽🏃🏽🌌🌒🔦🔦🔦🍃🍃🌿🌳🌿🍃🍪🍪🍪🍃🌿🌿📸✌️😬🌳🌲🏃🏽🚼🚶🏾🏃🏽💪🏼🏃🏽🚼🏃🏽🚶🏻🔄🔄🔄🔥😳😮👍👊💯

Simon (@simonloughran) wasn't happy with the outcome of the social media debate and expressed his rage via a tweet:

We discuss the important questions at @ggisling and Facebook beat Twitter in the big debate last night #wrongoutcome

Biscuit of the week was announced pre-run by @ggisling itself:

Get down! (with a photo attached of three bags of new Digestive Nibbles)

So, there you have it. A big thanks to WLM and Anita for hosting us. We hope to be back soon and make a real project of it.

See you next week for a trip to Thornhill Square and some Hot (or cold) Cross Buns

Simon

A massive thirty three of us gathered for a brand new task this week: a trip to Sunnyside Community garden up in Archway. Sunnyside is a community-led garden that is open to all, but specialises in therapeutic horticulture for people with physical and mental disabilities.

As well as ten newcomers Samah, John, Dami, Mariam, Chris, Toby, Fedja, David, Jade and Emma we had tourists Kevin from Hackney (soon to be Bristol) and John and Jackie from Camden and a few journalists included in the mix as well!

After a round of applause for Graham for completing 50 good deeds and another for Patrick for completing 150, we travelled up in three separate groups. Simon and Graham led the speedsters, with Patrick and Aidan taking a medium-paced group and John and Ama looking after the philosophers.

Up at the centre we were greeted by Yvonne and Alan, who were delighted to see so many keen faces and tooled us up ready for the evening's work.

We got stuck in for a good half hour. One group tackled shrubbery around the side of the centre with choppers, loppers, secateurs, scissors and all manner of cutting tools with a couple of the team being led back and forth with wheelbarrows by the enthusiastic Alan.

Round the corner muscle-bound volunteers were ripping rotten logs out the ground with their bare hands (and a mattock) while a third group tackled some very stubborn roots.

All this while Mariam & Dami and Chris carried out their interviews. We’ll post links when the video and article are out. Looks like they got some great material from us all.

The really amazing thing was we managed all this without stopping for a biscuit. This is unheard of in Islington (Simon is obviously a bit rusty after being away for a while and had left them back at the pool). Oh well, a good reason to run back quickly.

And it was FOUR groups for the run back. The original fast, medium and philosophers, plus a special “press” group led by Graham after we realised that having people carry back lots of recording equipment with the fast group might be a bit of a struggle.

The fast group worked extra hard with secret surges, the “lunge, skip, run” game (what could that involve?), stair running, hill running and a little obstacle running. Chris was desperate for some core work to offset the aerobic insaneness. Next week, Chris (and everybody will now know who to moan at when our abs are shot to shreds).

Back at the pool just a little bit later than planned we multi-tasked by holding stretches while receiving biscuits: a true test of balance, agility, coordination and greed.

Finally a vote on the evening’s hot topic of debate. Mice: vermin or cute adorable little critters. Definitely a few votes for vermin and a few stories of cats bringing them in in various states of mutilation, but the majority thought they were delightful creatures and just wanted to give them a mouse-sized cuddle. Next week: Are cats complete psychopaths?

A great first task at Sunnyside. We’re heading back there in a few weeks, but in the meantime we have another brand new task next week. We’re visiting West London Mission for some more gardening joy.

Great to be back. See you next week,

Simon

P.S. Should have a few more photos later on.