An intrepid crew of runners braved the mud to help out with path laying, bramble control and tree planting at Crouch End Open Space (CREOS). Due to the cold weather, some of us were in ninja mode, with flashes of red as the giveaway.

The path laying was particularly needed, as floods last year had damaged the approach from Queens Wood. A posse of volunteers came to the rescue, with wheelbarrows and hoggin - a sand based mixture that sets quickly.

With the hoggin being spread, we also set about clearing a drainage channel at the side of the path.

After all that, it was time for a well deserved tea break. John and Karen arrived, fresh from den making at Highgate woods - a double mission Sunday for them!

22 intrepid runners braved the surprisingly mild evening to take on our two tasks on Wednesday night. The first, just around the corner from our meeting point, was shifting and sorting wood with some litter-picking at the Story Garden, led by the wonderful Louise. The second - slightly further afield - was ripping out some flowerbeds and tidying up garden waste at Saint Pancras Community Assocation, led by myself and Pritesh.

We had not one, not two, but THREE new runners joining us tonight, Elisabetta, Meghan and Bettina it was great to have you with us! Hope you enjoyed yourselves and I'm looking forward to see you on another run with us all soon.

After the introduction and our warm-up stretches, we split up and headed out to our tasks, hoping that it wouldn't rain. It seems that a winning combination of Abi's self-confessed good luck charms and Steve's weather optimism that it wouldn't chuck it down was really all we needed for a rainfree run, so thank you both!

As with many GoodGym runs, several of us pondered 'What really is a weed?" as we were getting through our tasks, but we managed to fill 10 bags up over the 30 minutes we had to get it done. There's more to do so I'm sure we'll be back very soon. Over at the Story Garden, the sorting and stacking of wood went brilliantly. Hats off to all!

Once we'd finished off our tasks for the night, we headed on to Granary Square - with the Story Garden team joining us along the way. Here, we played a game of Rock, Paper and Scissors (fitness edition), with sprints for the winners and planks for the 'losers'; everyone is a winner when it comes to fitness! After a quick two laps of the square later - increasing our speed on every section, we headed back, cooled down and a few of us went on to the pub.

Looking forward to seeing you all next week for what will be my first (eek!) run without the brilliant Pritesh leading us on. You'll be greatly missed, but will always be welcome back whenever you'd like!

Have a great week and see you next time.

Happy running,

Ben