36 amazing runners, two huge tasks, one great Monday evening.

We started our run last night with a bumper week's worth of news. A big well done to Emma who smashed a hilly and warm Richmond 10k on Sunday, Frances, who ran the Rutland half, and to Helen who racked up a new 10k PB at the Richmond duathlon. What a great weekend of running.

A huge welcome to our lovely new faces, Liv, Kate, Alexandria, Eleanor and Ros. It's great to have you running with us - give 'em a cheer GoodGym!

As mentioned in the intro last night, we have a special buddy-up run happening on Thursday in conjunction within Ideal Flatmate. If you're looking for a new flatshare or the perfect flatmate, then come along to this run to meet others in the same position, and even to get a good deed in at the same time!

We also have a community mission coming up - you don't have to be DBS checked for this one, so if you fancy helping out the lovely Balham and Tooting Community Association put on their Fun Day, helping with jobs like serving tea and coffee and welcoming people, then sign up here - all proceeds from the day go to St George's Hospital, so you'll be doing some real good.

Double the Task, Double the Fun

It was a two tasker last night, and a special night as we celebrated newly qualified Chi leading his first run. Go Chi! So after a warm up, where we got our heart rates up and discussed our favourite sandwich fillings (cheese winning by a massive margin), we split ourselves up into two groups.

The first group was running down to Paul's Cancer Support Centre, a charity which offers support through alternative therapies, counselling and other services to people living with cancer. After a 2k run, we arrived to find two rooms that needed emptying to make room for more services. We got cracking, only to find that it was slightly more complicated than first anticipated. Not to be put off, while a few people played car tetris trying to get all the furniture in, others started dismantling a couple of massive tables that were two big to get through the door. We managed to sweet talk a lovely local bike superstore to take the furniture, saving the charity a trip to the dump, while Clare and Hanna got the tough job of putting the tables back together in their new home. Nice one team!

Meanwhile, Chi was leading the second group on a longer run down to Balham, where Kate, the secretary of the Tooting and Balham Community Association was waiting with 500 (!) leaflets ready for distribution ahead of the Fun Day this weekend. In a huge push, the group managed to cover 8 kms and got rid of all of the flyers. Was it the pumping music? Was it the challenge of getting rid of so many leaflets? Was it because it was Chi's first run as leader? Absolutely amazing work guys.

While group one finished off their shorter run with some gruelling hill sprints and the burpee challenge, group two polished off 8k and we arrived back at the BAC almost simultaneously. GoodGym win! Next week it's another two tasker (fingers crossed), so we need as many of you lovely people as possible - sign up here.

It's always brilliant to see so many lovely runners meeting up on a Monday ready to devote their evening to making Wandsworth a better place to live, and last night 37 excellent faces were eager to run 5k and lend a hand at two community spaces. And please give a special cheer to Claire and to Alice who came along for their first GoodGym experience last night - welcome to the gang!

A big well done to James and to Hanna who took on the Hampstead Heath Duathlon on Sunday, swimming all the ponds and pool, and running over 5k between each swim. Amazing stuff!

If you want to hear more of the incredible good deeds racing that the GoodGym crew across all areas has been up to in the last month, then come along to the social on Thursday. This month it is going to be in Hammersmith at the Rutland Arms pub. Everybody welcome!

Fitness First

We turned our session on its head last night - our task owner couldn't make it to meet us until later, so it was fitness first, doing good second as a one off. So after a warm up where we found out all the nice things that had happened to us over the weekend - booking wedding venues, dancing, lots of great meals, racing and puppies, puppies puppies - we set off for Battersea Park. A short run later, we kicked off the session with a couple of technical points. Important things to remember are:

Run as though you are falling forward slightly and by bringing your legs through quickly stops that

Your legs should mimic the movement of a cyclist

Your arms drive your cadence, not your legs

Next we moved on to a tough fitness session which saw us alternate between sprints and conditioning exercises such as planks, diamond press ups, sump squats and supermans. Is anybody feeling it today? ;)

Finishing up in the park we took a gentle run over to a local garden where we got stuck straight into the first task of shifting compost into raised beds, while the second group went over to the Venue - a community centre for local people that feeds the homeless and manages an amazing zero food wastage program. After half an hour cleaning windows, the kitchen and bathrooms, it was time to hit the hill on the way back to the BAC and to stretch it out.

Most of you will remember the huge fire that ravaged the grand hall of our beautiful meeting place, the BAC, in 2015. Well, the amazing news is that the Grand Hall is about to reopen and will be celebrating next Thursday. More details to come, but let's support and celebrate this wonderful place that is our home every week and allows us to go out and do our thing!

Next week we have a big run and a massive task. A local community association has asked us to come and help them plant 100 trees. It's a longer run - don't let that put you off because it's only half way in one go, and the good news is that there will be no fitness session! Sign up here to start your week off by making a huge difference in the local area.

This week 16 marvellous GoodGym-ers ran 2.5km to move logs for Martin Primary.

We were joined by three GG newbies: Vicky, Gemma and Alice – give them a cheer!

This week's run comes hot on the heels of Race the Neighboours, where N2 took on N10 – but more importantly, where GG Barnet took on GG Haringey. Massive congrats to the team who WON, with Damian managing a ridiculously impressive time of 48 minutes something. Check out the race report here.

We started off this evening's run with a gentle jog down to Cherry Tree Wood for a quick warm up full of skipping, running and dynamic stretching to get the joints and muscles ready for the task ahead. Task Force Freya was my trusty back-marker. Once everyone was warm we headed to Martin Primary.

Once on site, we were met by Tristan and assigned our task: move all the logs from one pile to a new pile inside the forest so he can use them to build some things. It was a pretty hefty pile, but as always, we sprinkled that GG magic and had it all shifted in under 30 minutes – leaving plenty of time for our fitness session. Louis requested we have a go on the mini obstacle course, so we combined it with some sprints and abs work. Tristan's kids even joined us for the last part.

It was soon time to head back. Graham was our trusty back-marker, while Paul kept me company at the front.

This week's Barnet Biscuit was the viennese swirl

Shout out to Damian for this week's pun!

Next week we will be running to Meadway to plant some bulbs in a community green space. Sign up here. We'll then be having some drinks in the pub afterwards. (Feel free to drink water if you don't want beer.)

If you are free on Saturday, we have a mission for you in Kentish Town. Sign up here You'll be helping the Rainbow Trust at a concert!

There's also a mission in Haringey tomorrow, still needs two people. Sign up here

I'm back! After three weeks in Cyprus, I have returned to GG Barnet, just in time for one of my favourite tasks: pond building at Archer Academy.

This week we were joined by GG newbie Louis, who came along with Phil – giving me an excuse to hand out some limited edition GoodGym laces. Give them both a cheer!

We gently jogged down to Cherry Tree Woods for a quick warm up including some high knees and some stuck in the mud. After some confusion regarding stuck in the mud, I realised it's been too often since you all played playground games and we'll clearly have to play more often to refresh your memories.

Heather wanted a slightly longer than 500m run to the school, so after a vote, Damian lead the gang through the woods and around to Archer Academy for a slightly extended run of 1.5km. Amanda and I held up the rear with our matching knee injuries.

We were greeted at the school by Maaike, who gave us a quick brief on today's task – filling the pond with water, clearing the old fence and dead trees, building hedghog houses and litter picking – and a quick safety run down. Then we collected our tools are got to work.

In typical GoodGym fashion, everyone was hard at work right away, splitting into teams to get things done. The hose could reach all the way to the pond, which meant nobody needed to be on water carrying duty and everyone could focus on the other tasks.

After 40 minutes of wire carrying and cutting, metal shifting and twig snapping and bundling, it was time to tidy up. Maaike was super happy with how much the team got done especially compared to how slow the 15 year olds work. Take that, kids.

Once all of our tools were back where we found them, we headed on to the astroturf for 10 minutes of conditioning work, starting with burpees and shuttle runs. There was a fair bit of flailing around and extended periods of time lying on the ground, but also lots of burpees and running. We then moved onto some core work. I was about ready to let everyone rest when the team told me Ana worked them so hard last week their abs hurt for days, so I figured they could work through a couple more exercises. Everybody loves V-snips and alligator crawls, afterall.

We then said our goodbyes, with Maaike promising to join us next week as we run to Martin Primary to do good. You can sign up here. It's another short run and garden work.

The Barnet Biscuit of the Week this week was the trusty chocolate wafer.

Jody is organising a massive game of ultimate frisbee this Sunday at 12pm in Regent's Park and everyone is invited. See the details here.

And Joel is running his fitness for all sessions from the Phoenix for the next four weeks. Sign up for this week's session here

See you next week!