On Monday night 17 runners headed down to Stepney City Farm from the Town Hall Hotel. A nice mix of first with GoodGym runners, first time Tower Hamlets runners and familiar faces made the 2km run down to the farm where we met Simon and a collection of goats, pigs and ducks.

We split into two teams, one to start on the huge pile of compost that had built up since our last visit, the other to empty a pond. With loads to do we stayed on site for early 50 minutes, slightly curtailing our run home, but with the satisfied knowledge of a task well done.

We then split into 3 groups to head back to base with the help of Bryon, Andrew and Alison via different routes, at different paces.

Until next time!

Big cheers and welcome hugs for our first timers: Mira, Louise, Lizzy and Alex.

Hot news this evening: we have our very own set of gloves. This means we don't have to always rely on tasks to provide finger protection and can run around doing even more good. Glovely!

There was sooo much good to do this evening spread across three tasks and three locations: Freightliners Farm, Whittington Park Community Association and Barnsbury Community Centre.

FREIGHTLINERS

Steve led the group over to Freightliners Farm. Here's his account:

10 goodgym runners set off the 1K to Freightliners Farm, smack in the middle of Islington, to perform our usual function. This week it was all about clearing and recycling. We started by filling a skip with discarded soil and extra large and heavy lumps of concrete. Dangerous work but we soon polished it off. After that we recycled masses of pre-used timber into either 110 or 120 centimeter lengths using measuring tools, marker pens and handsaws, whilst another group got to grips with an unruly hedge and whipped it into shape. As ever, competition reared its ugly head and we were soon having timed saw-cut races. Sawing technique improved massively over the hour and upper body strength was increased. We finished by feeding the goats and going ahhh quite a lot! Just another Monday down on the farm.

Steve

WHITTINGTON

Navigator-extraordinaire Graham was leader of the WPCA bunch who were lucky enough to take the brand new gloves. Here's his description of the evening:

On a muggy Monday night, nine GoodGymers went for a 7k run to weed and tidy the garden at Whittington park.

Following a route there almost entirely straight along Holloway road, there was no way we could lost, right? Well, sort of. After taking a 'creative' route down Hornsey road, we added on an extra 0.5k or so - always an adventure!

Still managing to arrive at the task just about on time, we then met Adrian who let us in to tidy up pesky weeds at the park's 1 o'clock club.

Weeds were removed, chats were had, and our brand new gloves were thoroughly tested out. We also discussed possibly the most contentious question at GoodGym - what counts as a weed? Following 25 minutes of solid work, we managed to fill several bags full of weeds - good work team!

Successfully managing to run back the way we should have run initially, we threw in a good intervals session round Emirates and a couple of hill sprints to finish the evening off in style. More good, more running - standard Monday night!

Graham

BARNSBURY

Simon explains what went down at Barnsbury:

Nine of us bobbled over to Barnsbury Community Centre. There's never a shortage of soil at the centre and tonight was no exception.

Gloves donnned, of course, we spent a good 25 minutes or so shovelling and wheelbarrowing (and even dragging) tons of the stuff. Great upper body workout. We worked so hard that a couple of the wheelbarrows gave up before we did. Rock 'n' Roll!

The ring around the famous centre-piece (where all the soil came from) was looking a little patchy and bare, so we each grabbed a couple of handfuls of grass seed and scattered the goodness around. We possibly over did it, so it'll be very interesting to come back and see the jungle we created in a few weeks or so.

Goodness all done it was time to do some fitness. We had a cone relay race, then we had a handicap cone relay race (my team lost so results are irrelevant) and on the way back to the pool we played the only game that is fit for a journey back from Barnsbury Community Centre: secret surges! Then a little work on our technique (run tall! run ninja!) before destroying ourselves with a high-knee/lunges combination. Phew.

Simon

DEBATE

On such a glovely evening it only seemed right to debate something glove related. Are fingerless gloves stupid? Some people thought so, but reckoned that the padded variety for cycling were fair game. Quite a few agreed that those gloves that are fingerless but have a detachable mitten bit were brilliant. Put to the vote, the large majority said that they were fine. So, there you have it. May your palms stay toasty and your fingers frosty.

BISCUITS

What goes in gloves? Biscuits. I mean Fingers, so we had a special treat with some chocolate fingers. Yum. Even better than this Graham - fresh from WINNING Man vs. Horse as part of the fastest mixed relay team - had brought along a few mini-buckets of posh biscuity treats. And Beth is going to MAKE biscuits next week. Biscuits!

Remember that glove is all need. See you next week,
Simon