JANUARY CHALLENGE SHOUT-OUT: It's January, it's cold, it's always dark and everyone's broke. Luckily GoodGym Camden's here with lots of ways you can do good and get fit (and win this Challenge for Camden!), all you need to do is make sure your Strava is linked up to your GG account and get those miles logged in. It's a friendly competition between GoodGyms around the UK, but the key word there is competition and we must win! Camden's now #5 of all GoodGyms in all the land, but it's only the 9th and we've got a lot of January left. Sign up to the January Challenge here. (Well done if you've already signed up and linked Strava!)

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A whopping 35 GoodGymers shook off the running cobwebs and rang in the New Year with a run out in Camden on Wednesday night.

We welcomed two new folks to the herd - shout out to Niccole and Lauren. I hope Camden is what you'd hoped for (and then some) and I'm looking forward to seeing you out with us again soon.

How about Christmas Tree Run (Take 2)? Same time, same place next week - sign up now!

Tonight was the second Annual GoodGym Camden Christmas Tree Run as well as our regular bed-making at the American International Church.

A small but mighty group of 9 - led by the brilliant Louise - ran down to Jonathan and the team at the American International Church on Tottenham Court Road for our first (official, non-community mission) bed-making of the New Year. 8 beds were made for those who needed them and, as the heavens opened and the rain bucketed down, a slightly longer run was on the cards for the return leg back to the Living Centre.

As the beds were being made, 5 packs of runners had fanned out across Camden Town in competition for the Cardamom Cup (but mostly just for the bragging rights of being the winning team) in the...

Second-Annual Camden Christmas Tree Run!

For the second year running, Camden runners went head-to-head in a competition to harvest as many abandoned Christmas trees from the streets around their chosen collection point as they possibly could. The time they had? 70 minutes. 5 teams. 25 runners. And the victors? Returning to the Living Centre at 20:28, just 2 minutes away from disqualification, was TEAM TREE-MENDUS with a whopping 14 trees collected and thrown over a fence (into the collection point).

The final scores were as follows:

Team Tree-Mendus - 14 (8.79km)

Team Tree-Angle - 11

Team Five-and-a-Wreath - 5 (8km)

Team Pines 4 Pints - 4

Team Ho (ho ho) - 4

Commiserations to the other teams, but don't worry - you've got another chance to win next week! With a hat tip to sportsmanship, Team Tree-Mendus unanimously decided to give Team Tree-Angle the revered Cardomom Bun baked by yours truly this morning, to enjoy at the pub. Rumour is that there might be more baked goods for next week's competition.

Next time

COMMUNITY MISSIONS GALORE: In true Red January spirit, Liz has been organising community missions for us Camdeners to get stuck into; Plogging - lunchtime litter picks - this Friday (anyone can join in, regardless of location), Volunteering with the Canal and River Trust this Saturday and, next week, Volunteering at the Ally Pally Parkrun!.

NEXT WEEK'S RUN: We'll be back with the Christmas Tree Run (Take Two) and some of us will be going back to the American International Church. Come along!

Happy running (and missioning) until then.

Thanks go to Liz for the excellent punnage.

GOODGYM CAMDEN PIZZA PARTY: As it's nearly Christmas, we're all going to get together after next week's run and eat pizza at Happy Face in Granary Square. We're a big group - there's 28 of you signed up to come - so the restaurant is asking for a £5 deposit per head. If you've signed up online, please give me your choice of pizza and find out how to send me your fiver here.

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28 GoodGymers came out in the freezing cold tonight to run with Camden on Wednesday night and what a night it was.

We had THREE newbies join the herd tonight - welcome Emily, Jen and Isabelle (thanks for singing our praises, Poppy)! I hope you thought GoodGym was even better than you expected it'd be and we look forward to having you back with us soon.

Here's next week's run in case you want to sign up right now - we'll be bed-making and Christmas-decorating and then... PIZZA EATING.

Before we got warmed up, there were not one but TWO huge announcements to be made:

• Steve Coman has just reached his 400th Good Deed! That's massive, Steve, and you should be really proud of what you've achieved. That's 400 times you could otherwise have been doing something else but instead you chose to come along and do good for the community, big congrats for that!
• Liz also achieved the previously un-achievable; she's only gone and managed to do 250 Good Deeds in a year (and counting!). With 365 days in a year, Liz has shown some serious, serious commitment to GoodGym all across London, from community missions, to group runs and missions - often completing several in a day. All our hats are doffed to both of ye!

As with all our winter tasks, we split the group. One group ran with Louise up to Cecil Sharp House and another smaller group ran with me to C4WS to make some beds.

Cecil Sharp House Louise took 16 runners up to the Home of Folk. Susannah wasn't there, but had instead transformed into Clark and David who told the group what needed doing. Splitting the 16 up in a Ronseal approach, there was Team Front, Team Path, Team Back Garden and Team Car Park - who said GoodGym wasn't glamorous! While being serenaded by a choir concert happening at the same time the teams got on with sweeping and leafing. EIGHT BAGS of leaves were filled up in no time at all, and soon it was time to head back to base.

C4WS After a short run down to C4WS, 12 of us got stuck into into bed-making for the Jonathan and the American International Church team. There were 5 beds to be made in the women's room and 12 beds in the mens. Unfortunately, there was a bit of confusion about missing sheets, duvet covers, duvets and pillows which meant we overran a bit (the group collectively breathed a sigh of relief that there would be one less lap of Granary Square!). Jonathan had to run out to Primark while the folks were having their dinner at the shelter for the last 7 duvet covers, but promised us that next week it would be back to the slick operation it otherwise always is!

After a run on to Granary Square, the group did a lap, had a quick photo with the Christmas trees (not the neon one, but the nicer ones) and then a slow jog back to the Living Centre for a stretch and a cool down.

As it was Liz's 250th Good Deed in just a year (she's done even more than that, don't worry!) - I baked a lemon drizzle cake and Beth made her a really lovely bracelet with the GoodGym colours which we ate and admired (in that order) at the pub later on.

COMING UP

COMMUNITY MISSION: David from Russell Square Gardens has asked for our help once more this coming Saturday to bulb-plant and leaf-clear. Four of us were there last week and it would be great to see some more friendly faces - it kicks off at 11am and you can sign up right here.

GOODGYM CHRISTMAS PARTY: GoodGym are getting festive this Friday at Stephen's House in Finchley Central from 7pm. It's £5 entry and fancy dress is very very welcome. Find out more here.

GOODGYM CAMDEN PIZZA PARTY: As it's nearly Christmas, we're all going to get together after next week's run and eat pizza at Happy Face in Granary Square. We're a big group, so the restaurant is asking for a £5 deposit per head. Give me your choice of pizza and find out how to send me your fiver here.

NEXT WEEK: We're going to be bed-making at C4WS and Christmas-decorating at SPCA on next week's group run. Get your name down here for what will be our second to last run of the year!.

Phew. And breathe.

That's all for this week folks, see you next time.

Happy running,

LET’S EAT PIZZA! So, GoodGym Camden are going to eat pizza at Happy Face on the 11th December after our run. TODAY IS THE FINAL DAY TO SIGN UP, so please get your name down if you want to come!

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37 (!!!) brave and intrepid GoodGymers made it out to GoodGym Camden on a drizzly Wednesday night for another two-task night. We welcomed a shiny new person to the Camden herd - hello Hanna, I hope you enjoyed yourselves tonight.

Next week's run will be to C4WS again as well as back to Cecil Sharp House - sign up here if you want to get ahead of the game!

After a quick intro, we stretched and split up into two groups - C4WS (the Homeless Shelter) was led by our trusty light provider Hanry, the Scope group by me.

Arriving at Scope just before 7:30, we stormed the shop, met Helen and her incredibly organised list of activities for us to get stuck into before we split into teams:

• Team Jewellery
• Team Shoes
• Team Rag or Bag
• Team Shirley
• And finally, what can only be described as Team Fancy Dress.

A monster task - and one that we’ll definitely have to come back to - was to sort and price jewellery for the shop. No special marks for correctly identifying that this was Team Jewellery’s domain!

Also down on the shop floor there was some dusting, cleaning and organising of a shoe rack to be done, efficiently tackled by Team Shoes.

In the back we had Team Rag og Bag running a tight ship, leading the sort through of donations into bags that the shop will keep and sell and one they’ll recycle. Like a little production line of elves, they worked away right until the final minute we were there.

Upstairs were both Team Shirley (the brilliant husband and wife team of John and Jackie and Team Fancy Dress. Team Shirley were in charge with cleaning the upstairs bannisters, kitchen and floors which they did magnificently if I say so myself.

Finally, Team Fancy Dress! De-facto led by Rosie in a jumpsuit/Oompa Loompa dual-purpose item, there was steaming, sorting through, pricing and tagging clothes to go out onto the shop floor. See the photos for some particularly sharp Christmas suits, great wigs and strong Christmas jumpers!

Just gone 8pm, we waved goodbye to Helen and headed back to the Living Centre to meet back up with Hanry’s homeless shelter team for a final stretch and cool down.

Over at C4WS, the team did a fantastic job of making up 16 male beds and 4 female beds for the homeless users of the church. Jonathan was very impressed with what you achieved, so well done everyone! After the task was done there, it was a run over to Granary Square for some laps and fitness before heading back and regrouping.

We had a particularly good turnout at the pub after the run tonight. Everyone is welcome and it’s a great way to carry on chatting to GoodGym folks over a drink. Abi is the de-facto pub leader, and I know she’d love to see you there if you fancy coming along next time.

COMMUNITY MISSION ALERT: David from Russell Square Garden got in touch to say how impressed he was with our work a few weeks ago in the bulb-planting and fence-post-putting-up and asked if we might be able to come and [clear some leaves this Saturday 2:30-4:30.] Please do come along and help out - Liz is bringing cake!

NEXT WEEK: We’re going to be running back to the Home of Folk (Cecil Sharp) and C4WS again next week for some more leaf-clearing and bed-making. Would be great to see you there and you should definitely sign up now!

LET’S EAT PIZZA: So GoodGym Camden are going to eat pizza at Happy Face on the 11th December after our run. TODAY IS THE FINAL DAY TO SIGN UP, so please get your name down if you want to come.

Happy running,

Ben

20 GoodGymers made it out on a cool November evening to do good in Camden on Wednesday night.

We had one newbie - woooooooo, welcome Bhakti!! (I hope to see you on a lot more runs with us over the next few winter months) - and after a quick intro and warmup we split up for this evening's tasks.

As always, if you want to sign up to next week's run already (you wonderful person, you!), here's how.

Our tasks

With me leading the C4WS Homeless Shelter and Louise with the SPCA group, we headed off in opposite directions and on to our tasks.

Louise and the SCPA team were leafleting tonight for a special event they had coming up soon. 75 leaflets were gone in a FLASH. Meanwhile, across town, wed arrived at the American Church to help set up the homeless shelter's beds for their first night running this winter. We were met by Jonathan and the team who told us a bit more about the shelter and what else they do for the local homeless community.

Tonight we made up 6 beds for rough sleepers. They have a typical capacity of 19/20 beds, but as it was their first night they didn't want to go all out just yet. I'm sure our task there will get bigger as the winter nights draw in even more. I don't know about you, but I feel that a task like this is even more meaningful than most other tasks we do as the GoodGym Camden group; making beds for the homeless is such a lifeline and I'm sure that - even though you might feel differently - our little task has such a big impact.

Over at the SPCA, after some initial confusion about where the leaflets are - we even got a slightly gratuitous mention that it was GoodGym who delivered the flyers - the team went on their merry way. Blitzing through their 75 in seemingly so many seconds, both groups headed to the fast favourite of Granary Square for a mini fitness session and time trial.

After 3 laps (or as many as folks could manage - it was quite a long run tonight when you combine all the different runs!) of the Square, while some of us were stretching and doing circuits, we all regrouped and jogged back to base.

Several stretches and more announcements later (more below!) we were all ready to go home or to the pub, and that's exactly what happened next.

Next time

COMMUNITY MISSION GALORE! We've got not one but two community missions for you to get your teeth stuck into this week. 1. Tomorrow (Thursday), Abi and the Story Garden team will be heading over to Skip Garden (aka Story Garden's old home) from 5pm-7pm to help out. More information and the signup link for task is here. 2. We've also got another great community mission coming up on Saturday morning at the Russell Square Gardens - you'll be helping to plant some flowerbeds for David and the team. The task will be from 10am-12pm but if you can only stay for an hour or so it doesn't matter, I'm sure the team would be very glad to see you whatever the weather. They're aiming to plant 10,000 flowerbulbs over the course of the day, and there are 15 of you lovely runners signed up so far - click here to put your name down for Saturday.

LET'S GET SOCIAL! I've banged on about it enough, I'm sure, but this is the last gasp; there's a huge GoodGym 10 year anniversary (a little late, I know) party happening in Southbank this coming Friday night. At Bar Topolski from around 6:30, all the information you could possibly need is right here. Pritesh is going for an all-time GoodGym record attendance for this one, so I'm sure you'll be cheered into the bar on Friday even if you can only stay for a single shot or drink. It would be lovely to see you.

NEXT WEEK: We'll be splitting the task from now until the end of February; we're heading back to the wonderful people at the C4WS Homeless Shelter. We're going to be making the 10-15 beds they have for local homeless people to get a good, warm night's sleep and it could not be more of a worthy cause. It's currently a fistfight between Scope Charity Shop and Cecil Sharp House for the other task, but I'll know for sure by around Sunday/Monday - so look out for the Weekly Fitness Email arriving into your inboxes on Monday. SIGN UP TO NEXT WEEK'S RUN HERE!

That's all from me.

Until next time,

Ben

P.S. Yes, we are continuing with Week 2 of LOTR puns. I don't know how long this will continue, but stay tuned.