5 Goodgymmers joined Area Activator Simon for our slightly drizzly Monday evening group run session yesterday evening (Alex and Paul ran over, and Benedict and Zoe arrived on bikes). Great to have Benedict back after a few months away in Mexico! We performed a warm-up together on the Emirates Stadium slopes (involving dips, lunges, springs and twists), and run together towards the Hilldrop Estate, Camden Road.

Plogging

Plogging is a combination of jogging with picking up litter (merging the Swedish verbs plocka upp (pick up) and jogga (jog) gives the new Swedish verb plogga, from which the word plogging derives).[1] It started as an organized activity in Sweden around 2016 and spread to other countries in 2018, following increased concern about plastic pollution. As a workout, it provides variation in body movements by adding bending, squatting and stretching to the main action of running, hiking, or walking.

"Plogging Wikipedia entry"

Our task this evening was one that AA Simon had planned for quite a while- a guerrilla litter pick on the roadside between the Camden and Islington boroughs. This particular spot, located near Hilldrop House outreach, the former Holloway Road prison site and The Cat and Mouse Library (named after the "Cat and Mouse Act to prevent force feeding of hunger strike protesters within the suffragette movement), has become a windblock for litter and refuse from the connecting neighborhoods. A lot of the roadside is lined with hedgerows as well, habitats for the wildlife around North London.

Luckily, we had some excellent folding litter pickers, sturdy gloves and refuse bags to hand and committed to 35 minutes of picking along the roadside. 6 large bags were collected within a short time, and we were so happy to take a lot of this debris from the streets!

Upon our return to the Emirates Stadium, we hosted our monthly Arsenal Stadium Time Trial, a personal challenge to run around the 700m loop of the stadium concourse as fast as possible. The rain had stopped just early enough to make the conditions perfect for speedy running. Excellent work everyone!

On Monday evening, Area Activator Simon was joined by a top crew of Goodgym runners from all across the London boroughs (including Matthew who had just run all the way from Wandsworth as part of his half marathon training- great job!) for our slightly quirky group run with Slow Ways.

The Slow Ways virtual mapping database is an interactive guide for safe pedestrianised walking across the entirety of the UK (started during the 2020 pandemic). Other mapping programs prioritise quick point-to-point journeys, avoiding note-worthy routes within your local community. Anyone can suggest a walking route or verify a course for others, and the whole project only works with the help of fellow walkers, runners and cyclists.

After dropping off our bags at The Arsenal Community hub on Benwell Road, we ran together towards Angel Station to start our Slow Ways survey as a group. Our plan is to run the "Angel to Dalston" route together during the hours of darkness (approx 2 miles in total), and to check on any important information that we can feed back to the website. As we began our run, we jogged together down to Colebrooke Gardens (just near the entrance to the east side of Regent's Canal), while following a GPX file on OS Maps.

Next stop was to wiggle down some lovely quiet residential streets down towards the Packington Estate (and past one of our favourite task locations- The ARC Centre, still serving coffee at 7.30pm!). This was about half way through our journey, and all is going well (Toffee the dog was still trotting along with no sign of stopping!). Our next diversion lead us to The Regent's Canal tow path, over to De Beauvoir - a section that lacked wheelchair access and proved to be quite dark at this time in the evening- important things to note for our route verification exercise!

We ran parallel to a busy Kingsland Road, following the quieter residential streets instead (and passing a very tame fox, who was not bothered by our presence in the slightest) up to our final location- the intersection between Dalston Junction and Dalston Kingsland stations. Slow Ways completed!

Emily and Louise took the opportunity to hop on a tube back home at this point, while the rest of our crew continued our run back the Emirates Stadium via Mildmay Grove, Canonbury, Highbury Fields and down Whistler Street and Drayton Park. After a solid 10km of total running, we celebrated with a chat and a few refreshments at The Highbury Library. Wonderful running everyone!

View our Slow Ways Review for Angel - Dalston Route 2 (AngDal2) here:

https://beta.slowways.org/Route/Angdal/9131

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NEWS

Penn Road Gardens volunteer open morning

Sunday 26th February - 10am

Our friends at Penn Road Gardens will be hosting their monthly open gardening session on Sunday morning. Plenty of composting, mulch making and bulb planting planned. A great way to spent a Sunday morning, along with coffee provided by the neighbours!

Sign up here:

https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/penn-road-gardens-open-morning-february-de0ec236-9f26-463d-b954-d7863a30faad

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Track Attack Time Trial- Victoria Park

Sunday 26th February- 11am

Our monthly social time trial event returns for our February edition- back to Victoria Park Track.

Area Activator Simon will be hosting a friendly and non-competitive 1 mile and 5km time trial on the former Victoria Park Harriers cinder track, accessible for all park users. Great fun!

Always followed by coffee and light breakfast over at The Hub Café.

Sign up here: https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/track-attack-february-2023-victoria-park

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Goodgym Islington Group Run and Social!

Monday 27th February - 6.45pm

Next Monday evening, we will be running over to Thornhill Square Gardens to help the lovely resident gardeners which preparing one of the largest community green spaces in Islington for spring planting.

Sign up here: https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/group-run-thornhill-square-garden-food-for-flowers

And afterwards, we will jog together to the lovely Tofu Vegan on Upper Street for some delicious Chinese cuisine and refreshments!

Sign up here:

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/february-social-tofu-vegan-upper-street

Area Activator Simon was met with 5 Goodgym Islington runners at the Arsenal Community Hub last night. Many of our crew had been busy participating in community missions throughout the weekend (over in Highbury Fields and Penn Road Gardens), so it was awesome to see them again for our run to Thornhill Square Gardens.

After a short warm-up on the slopes on Benwell Road, we ran the 1.4 mile route along McKenzie Road and down towards Calendonian Road and Barnsbury, meeting task owner Anna McKane and cycling Goodgymmer Caitlin at the entrance of Thornhill Square Gardens. We had plenty to crack on with! Our first group (Louise, Kim and Zoe) were tasked with creating a nice fencing around the first flower beds of the park. This involved cutting multiple 2 foot posts from sturdy branches found around the park using a hand saw, and hammering the posts into the soft soil. We even had time to weave some long flexible reeds and sticks through the posts. Zoe also helped with trimming down a collection of over grown bushes in the centre of the park.

Caitlin, Claire and Alison assisted with some lifting and shifting of the collected green waste and future compostable mulch from one side of the park to the other. Caitlin also helped with some wheelbarrowing of wood chip, and successfully dried out a pervasive puddle located around the entrance of the tool shed.

It was so satisfying to see how many tasks we were able to complete in a short amount of time. Congratulations folks- many hands make light work! Upon our return run (and cycle) back to Benwell Road, we then made our way to the amazing Mesi's Kitchen on Holloway Road to celebrate our final group run session of the January Challenge. At the time of writing, we will have completed 89 good deeds between our full Goodgym Islington crew over the course of January 2023- very well done everyone!

It was a joy to meet up with our crew of Goodgymmers last night at the Arsenal Community Hub (including new starter Zoe- welcome) on a thankfully slightly warmer evening than last week! Almost all of the ice on the surrounding pavements has melted away, leaving us with clear and safe running routes!

After a short warm-up on the Emirates slopes (leg swings and extensions, mixed with some dynamic aerobic exercises to generate some body heat!), we ran together down George's Street off Holloway Road, past the Ringcross Community Centre and over to Market Road. Upon our arrival, we met with Miriam, a familiar face for all Caledonian Park projects, from junior parkrun to pond building, and helped with driving a few wheel barrows over to the famous Cally Clocktower.

Our task for the evening was to assist with moving at least some of an 18 tonne pile of gravel and eco-friendly grit over to the woodland paths on the south-west side of the park. The overall objective is to create a fully accessible path for park users through a gorgeous nature trail (frequented by finches, starlings, tits and cheeky squirrels). Half of our team assisted with the main transportation of the grit using barrows and shovels, keeping a line of 5 wheel barrows in action throughout the session, while 3 of our runners took it in turns to rake down the piles of grit to create a smooth surface for park users.

Within 45 minutes, we had successfully covered about 1/5 of the entire nature path between us, which is really remarkable! Such a satisfying job, and it will be wonderful to see how things progress over the next few weeks.

If you are also curious, we will return in 2 weeks time!

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/group-run-cally-clocktower-park-gravel-path-building-part-2

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NEWS

January Starter Session: Highbury Fields Junior parkrun and Penn Road Gardens

Sunday 29th January, starting in Highbury Fields at 8.40am.

Area Activator Simon will be leading a group run between two tasks on Sunday morning. The first task would be for Highbury Fields junior parkrun, a free weekly times event for youngsters aged 4-14 years old to run independently on a safe 2km course. Our assistance for course marshalling, barcode scanning, funnel managing, time keeping or tail walking is truly appreciated.

https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/january-group-run-starter-session-highbury-fields-junior-parkrun

After the parkrun, (and possibly some coffee on Holloway Road), we will run about 1.5 miles over to Penn Road Gardens, a lovely community plot just near Caledonian Road. Our plan is to help the resident gardens with their projects.

Sign up here:

https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/penn-road-gardens-open-morning-january-97bec309-d5d3-40ae-9539-c161ed2c4b05

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Thornhill Square Fertiliser Throwing Fun

Next Monday, we will be visiting the lovely Anna McKane and the resident gardeners of Thornhill Square, helping to prepare the flower beds for Spring time planting.

Sign up here:

https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/group-run-thornhill-square-garden-fertiliser-throwing-fun

Followed by our special January Challenge social at Mesi's Kitchen!

After our group run, we will travel together to a lovely Ethiopian cuisine restaurant on Holloway Road to enjoy delicious warm stews served in injeri bread. Come and join us!

Sign up here:

https://www.goodgym.org/v3/sessions/january-challenge-social-mesi-s-kitchen-holloway-road