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.

21 incredible people joined me in Camden to run 8km and help at Antrim Allotments!

As GG HQ work hard to find you the right replacement for Paul, little old me will be looking after you and trying to bring some balance to the force over the next few weeks.

The king is dead, long live the... interim king

It was a week of new things with me in charge, meeting Helen the new chair at Antrim and the following runners joining GG for the first time: a big GGC welcome to Anna and Paul!

After confusing everyone by turning right out of the Crick we did the usual briefing, warmed up and went through the news:

• Congrats to all that took part in the penultimate GG Big Six race of the year at Bath Two Tunnels. Don't forget the final race is in September in Edinburgh. Details here!

• GG is turning TEN! Come to the party at City Hall and tell us what GG means to you here!

• Finally get the 5th September in the diary, it's the date of the next GG social. Also get the 8th November saved as I hear its going to be a special social!

On to the night at hand, with one task tonight we ran in a big group with Louise middle-marking and Abi and Rosie back marking (thanks!). Its a decent route to Antrim but hills are unavoidable! We worked hard and everyone put loads of effort in. Once we arrived at Antrim we met Helen the new chair of the allotments and she showed everyone the tasks! The allotments were looking particularly lush but there were still patches that needed work. The order of play today was mainly weeding and clearing with a healthy dose of digging too!

We had a strong 20 mins of hard work sadly the insects were hard at work too and sadly not many escaped with out bites. Must remember that citronella spray next time! Before we knew it the time had passed and so we returned our tools, said goodbye and posed for a group photo!

We took a different route home and split into a Rosie group and an Other group. The other group took a more leisurely pace but also conquered Primrose Hill (sorry Abi) whilst the Rosie group hurried home at pace.

After a stretch outside the Crick we siad our goodbyes and headed home, as ever a trusty, or should that be thirsty group headed for 'impromptu' drinks at the Somers Town Coffeehouse.

Thanks and see you all next week - task is being confirmed but you can sign up here!

Pritesh

57 GoodGymers ran 6km to help Kentish Town City Farm, broke the Camden Attendance Record and I said farewell to you wonderful people!

On my first Wednesday living in London back in May 2014 I enjoyed GoodGym Camden, I found a welcoming community of runners who were like minded people. I was honoured to become your trainer in January 2016, something that's always been more than a job to me. It's a passion; to bring people together, learn about our bodies, help the communities we live/work in and then go to the pub afterwards. You guys are the best!

Thank you so much for last night, the amazing group of you that came in the rain to say goodbye (and hug the goats) and for such wonderful presents.

Okay back to the normal report... welcome along to the newbies Lisa and Xanthy - lovely to have you along!

In the news this week:

1. A huge well done to GG sisters Kat Kelly and Liz Pang for hitting 100 good deeds, I am privileged to call them my friends and proud of what they've achieved at GoodGym Camden over the last 3+ years.
2. Go along to CREOS Community Mission in Islington this Sunday - it's a great one that ends with a free picnic!
3. So I have two races planned that I'd love for you to be apart of - Rother Valley Running Festival (near Sheffield) on 16th November. Also we'll be going to Kiev in May 2020 for the next #GGxEuro Trip! More details about both coming soon.

Corrr blimey there was so many of you! Such a big group, in fact such a big group that we broke the Camden Group Run Attendance Record and were just a few people short of breaking the GG World Record. Next time.

For the run up there we formed two groups of 25-30 people, with brilliant Run Leaders and Taskforce Peeps leading, middlemarking (cheers Steve) and backmarking each one - thanks to Abi, Kat, Chris, Aidan, Patrick, Steve C, Frances, Rosie and James for all there help leading groups through the wet streets of Camden. Meanwhile Mr Lee and I formed good-cycle again and helped direct at various points along the 3k route.

Ciao now Bown cow

Upon our arrival at Kentish Town City Farm Mel told us the brilliant news about the mean old trustee board had been removed, new guys had come in place and £100,000 being donated by a very kind donor. The farm has been saved, a hollywood ending! Then she set us to work with four tasks:

• Three people collected up debris in the goat area
• Twenty-Five people removed old decking from around the pond, and then chain ganged it all the way down to the bin at the bottom of the farm.
• Fifteen people shovelled muck, bagging it up and re-piled it
• Finally thirteen people racked and evened out the ground up at the Arena

The farm was full of activity for 30 minutes, we got so much done and Mel was really pleased! Thanks for working so hard in the rain, muck and more. Next it was GOAT TIME - we hugged them, said hey to little Rosie and fed them - all the fun! After a special group photo we headed back to base for stretches and then onto to pizza + beer! Thanks for Kat, Rosie etc for organising that!

Bown-ding into the future

What a special evening to end a special time for me personally at GoodGym ( both Camden and Islington). As I said last night I started without a beard and not really knowing what was up, the community that is GoodGym has enabled me to grow into who I am today. Thank you so much for the fantastic presents, the messages, the individual farewells and for just being you. You guys are my family, I love you and I'm going to miss you so much!

See you at a GoodGym Event sometime soon!

PB over and out for the final time.

42 GoodGymers ran 5k to help Rose Bowl Community Centre with gardening and lots of heavy lifting!

I love you guys and will thoroughly miss being your Trainer, it's been a fantastic two years of good-ing, fun times and biscuit eating! Thank you so much for the farewell run, pizza and beer. I really appreciate you all coming to a PB Islington record run #PB4PB - plus of course thanks for the presents - so very nice of you awwwwww

Welcome along to newbies Amy, Kate and Gilbert - lovely to have you along!

One bit of news - go along to help CREOS this Sunday for our monthly Community Mission.

About last night

After a rather long intro we warmed up and then split into two groups for the run to the Rose Bowl Community Centre, one led by James and the other by Graham! Meanwhile the good-cycle gang (Steve Lee & I) cycled to the task. Upon our arrival Dawn and Ceri were the most prepared ever, they both thrive off large groups of people so they loved us! They tasked us with the following:

• Clearing the ivy, leaves and debris from the court/play area
• Lifting various items out of the container - bikes, metal poles, DJ decks and more. These were then sorted for either keeping or throwing.
• Clearing as much bamboo, leaves and weeds as possible near the back gate
• Cutting back the ivy along the back wall - a very satisfying job!

Over 40 minutes the garden of the community centre was buzzing with activity, various shouting and everyone being careful to not stand on tools. We even found some wings which we attached to Graham and then he presided to fly away back to Alexandra Palace....

Whatever you say Dawn, whatever you say

Overall we collected up three huge sacks and ten bin bags of garden waste, made everything look beautiful and sorted out a huge container full of stuff! Awesome! After putting all the tools away we took a group picture and then headed back to the Emirates for my final time trial with you guys and biscuits galore.

Once again thank you so much for being an awesome community of runners, GoodGym has always been more than a job to me. I'll miss you guys!

Make sure you come along to support Simon Fiztmaurice (New GG Islington Trainer) from next week, you'll be off to help Mildmay Community Centre - sign up here.

PB out for the last time.