20 GoodGymers ran 4-6km and helped WPCA advertise their upcoming Ceilidh Fundraiser

Welcome along to newbie Hannah - lovely you along! We all arrived with smiling faces after the Blue Monday storm to do some good and get fit.

In the news this week:

1. Well done to everyone who took part in Cross-Country at the weekend down in Wormwood Scrubs - lots fun! One more fixture left on 10th February in Trent Park - sign up here
2. I am leading a long run for GG Members this Sunday if you'd like to come - 10-12km and 16km options. More details here

Onto to the evenings good doing - we had our task at Scope Charity Shop canceled last minute so we were all off to help Whittington Park Community Association; a centre point in the local community for activities, services and more. On our 2km run there we took to the back streets as much as possible to avoid Holloway Road, when we got split at the lights the lead group did squats, balancing and star jumps - nice!

Ceilidh time!

Upon meeting Gary at WPCA he explained our task was to put up 10 posters around the park, streets and outside the School to advertise the community centres upcoming Ceilidh on 3rd February - with quick string work we scattered across the area in pairs and got the job done sharpish!

On the way home we split into two groups, one led by Kike going via Caxton House and the other heading straight back with me. Fitness session time - once at the Emirates my group got some conditioning in:

• Circuits - press up, mountain climbers x4, jump up & squat - as many you can do for 60 seconds
• Planks - front, side, side - 20 seconds per side
• Circuits repeat focusing on the missing squat

Next it was time for our monthly time trial, it's 660 metres (approx.) around the Emirates, everyone did brilliantly and were welcomed home by some Jaffa Cakes from Nina - thanks!

We have a new task next week helping Origin Housing with some gardening - sign up here.

PB out

23 GoodGymers ran between 5-8km to do THREE tasks for GG Islington's THIRD birthday!

Wow, awesome, fantastic, yes, thanks, great and cool. SO yeah THREE years of GG Islington with you lovely bunch, we've done 1000's of hours of volunteering and ran 10,000's of km's between us - helping over 40 charities and non-profits in the mighty borough of Islington. Thank you for being apart of it!

There was news, lots of it:

1. On Thursday there is the first GG Monthly Drinks of the year at the Beehive in Tottenham, hosted by GG Harringey - go along!
2. On Saturday there is the GG Islington Starter Session helping Comption Square Gardens (NEW TASK) - bring your friends!
3. Importantly it was our birthday and we were gonna celebrate at the pub post-good.

Onto to the evening, after introductions full of info and beans we warmed up and then split into three groups going our separate ways across Islington. PLUS welcome along to Laura the New Tower Hamlets Trainer whose first GG it was last night - coooool!

Group #1 to Caxton House (5km) led by PB

With a gentle incline all the way up to Archway to go to Caxton House we met Rose, part of the mother-daughter dream team who manage the community centre. She explained three tasks for us to get on with:

1. Team Bush - Beth, Ellie and Steph trimmed back a previously chicken shaped bush and then weeded & collected leaves in the area.
2. Team Bamboo - Alex, Hollie and Rosa searched, founded and dug up those pesky bamboo roots all over the front garden.
3. Team Ivy Shed Thing - Kat, Caroline and Lucy cut up lots of ivy, roots and other bad stuff where a concrete shed had fallen through.

Gliding Glutes!

After custard creams and a group picture (JAZZ HANDS) we headed south home. With 10 minutes to spare Laura took some awesome squat and glute based conditioning outside the Emirates.

Group #2 Christmas Tree Collection (6-7km) led by Aidan & Graham 'Shorts' Atkins:

A fine team of James, Ben, Richard, Meg, Aidan and Graham headed to the Highbury Fields area to continue the amazing work of collecting up Christmas Tree's from the streets for recycling.

Over 80 minutes the team covered a distance of 7km (approx.) and collected a HUGE 42 tree's - that's 7 tree's per runner with each tree spotted on average every 2 mins. Stats. Have them.

Well done guys, recycling is great and it ain't XMAS anymore...

Group #3 Leafletting for Green Gym (6-7km) led by Alix & Kike:

With Alix (new taskforce member woop) and Kike (GG Vet) in charge I had every confidence of this going smoothly. I wasn't wrong! The group delivered an amazing 300 leaflets for Green Gym, whose aim is to exercise and keep fit by doing gardening work for their local community.

Leaf it Steve 'Old Balance' Lee

Covering streets, blocks of flats and more the team of 6 spread the word about Green Gym in super quick time!

Woah that's a lot of good and fitness and everything - well done all. We celebrated our 3rd birthday around the corner in the pub with an abundance of veggie burgers, beers and treats (baked by Patrick Luong).

Cheers all, see you Saturday and next Monday.

PB out.