9 wonderful GoodGym-ers ran 6km to help clear dead plants for a local carehome

Today was GG Barnet number 10, which means GG-ers can start claiming their free cinema tickets from the incredible Phoenix Cinema as they hit their tenth Barnet run. Damian was first past the post tonight. I have been given the first 10 tickets, so when 10 of us hit 10 we'll arrange a movie night to celebrate!

Today was also the first time the team gathered inside the cinema instead of the steps outsides, proving that summer is in fact over. Thank you for running around in the cold with me team! And well done for layering up this week! And a MASSIVE welcome to GG Barnet newbie Jody who rocked up to her very first group run already donning her red Tee! BOOM

After a quick warm up around the side of the cinema, making sure our muscles and joints were ready for the run ahead, we set off towards Dell Field Court care home in Finchley Central. Anna lead the way, while I backmarked. Georgina kept me company, powering through even when things got tough.

Tonight was one of our longest runs, only reaching the 6km mark once before. With a few sprints thrown in along the way, a few of the team even made it up to 7.5km. It was even Joanna's second run of the day, impressively!

When we reached our destination, we were lead out back to the very dark garden and set to work pulling out the dead flowers. Good thing we had those head torches, eh team? Only, two of my three ran out of battery fairly early on – doh! Mia made wonderful use of my last torch standing!

Everybody worked super hard, getting as much done as possible before it was time to pop all the dead plants in the green bin and head back to base. But not before a quick fitness session in the care home's driveway.

We did a mix of squats, squat jumps and squat walks to really fire up those glutes and quads, as well as mobilise those hip flexors. We even added in some squat walkouts for good measure. Particularly beautiful press ups from Jody and Mark

We then ran back a slightly shorter route with me and Freya leading the pack and Mark our trusty backmarker.

Damian smashed the Sprint Finish and then treated the team to this week's Barnet Biscuit: homemade flapjacks

Well done to everyone for your effort today, you all smashed it!

SIDE NOTE: The Hammerson carehome, whose shed we cleared up a couple weeks ago, has a number of charity places available for the LONDON MARATHON. They've offered them out to the GG Barnet crew. If anyone is interested, let me know and I'll put you in touch with Atarhe.

Don't forget, if you want to get involved with Missions and Coach Runs, bring your documents along to our next run to get the ball rolling. You need photo ID and two proofs of address from the last three months. Next week we are going back to Strawberry Vale to litter pick, as the North Circular has collected an awful lot of litter along that road. The last time we were there, we were stopped by two members of the public to thank us for our help. East Finchley Councillor Arjun Mittra tweeted us pictures of the mess it's in again, asking for our help. I'm going to try and convince Arjun to join us =] If you want to tweet him something really lovely to try and encourage him, his Twitter is @arjunmittra.

See you next week, folks! Pennie

20 energised GoodGymers ran 6k to One Housing to start the creation of their WellBeing Garden.

A huge congratulations to Clare, Dan and Mireille for there recent half marathon performances!

With it being Mental Health awareness week we were Running and Talking even more than usual on the 3k back street route past my old primary schools to One Housing. One Housing are an organisation that provides modern and high quality Housing for people with mental illness as well as provide support for the service users to enhance their quality of life.

We arrived and found that maybe let's say the right kinds of tools were not ready for us but we had energy and enthusiasm to hand! So armed with a ** Hammer, Golf club** we set about clearing as much of the over grown vegetation so that we would have space to do all the Landscape Art next week! ** Holly** our ** Head of Artistic Development** took charge of colour design and arrangement and is really looking forward to next week's pattern creation session!

Nine filled bin bags of weeds and out of control Ivey later we had smashed the task! Next week armed with the list I left we will have all the equipment to transform the Wellbeing Garden into a magical space!

On the 3.1k (upon Rich's request) run back to base we took a sneak peak into a building that we will hopefully become very familiar with in the coming months!! It looks like an epic project in size and intrigue! Look forward to getting stuck into that task in a couple of weeks!

A strong run back with a bit of a sprint finish rounded off by a few revitalising stretches saw finished off a top evening!!

We talked about dominating a 10k race in November! Here is the link to the Regents Park 10k for info and how to enter (slightly cheaper to enter on Bookit Zone). I will be running (assuming I have found my legs by then), be great to have a group getting out there and running well!! Will set up a Race on the GoodGym site next week.

Next week we will be back at the Wellbeing Garden and would love to have you along! Please sign up here as an added sweetener we will be going out after the run on mass to a food establishment where we will be able to replenish our fuel store post run! The monthly social is always fun and a great with great chat, would love as many people to come along as possible!!

Have a great active week!

Strong Smooth Tempo

Joel

27 energy filled Hackney GoodGymers ran 6k to attempt to help Gillett Square Kids play project. After a Key drama, we turned our attention to getting fit with a top fitness session in De Beauvoir Square.

We started the evening on chip watch as Ros teased us mortals with feats never before seen at GoodGym Hackney. Eating triple fried chips at 6:55 is an unconventional preparation for the session but she backed up the big iron stomach talk by holding the food down and dominating the physical session, fair play!!

We welcomed some amazing new faces to the fold and had a DBS ID check done to get going helping vulnerable and isolated older people in Hackney! If you fancy going on Missions and/or Coach runs bring your ID and proof of address along next week!

We celebrated the achievements of our brilliant runners who had completed Berlin Marathon, Cardiff Half marathon and Hackney Marshes Parkrun in the last couple of weeks! Lots of amazing performances and so inspiring for the rest of us as we dream about our next running challenges!!

So the task didn't go to plan!! We ran the 2k (with slight detour) to Gillett square to begin the task of cleaning the oversized outdoor play equipment but the key holder was nowhere to be found! I can only apologise for this, the session was confirmed on Monday so not sure yet what went wrong. Instead of waddling home with our tail between our legs we decided to go dominate an extended fitness session on our favourite De Beauvoir Square track!! So we ran down there and split into small teams of 3 for a mass continuous relay! 7 minutes of scorching running action saw us run half a lap (150 metres) before tagging our team mate who sped off around the track! The laps tricked but and the pace remained high and serious effort from everyone was put in! As reward we had a 3 minute rest as I am nice like that before smashing out another 7 minute block of continuous relays!

As Peter had maybe gone a little too hard on the sprints we broke the running up with some physical preparation exercises! 4 groups completed minute efforts in Lunges, squats, press ups and plank holds. With our muscles throbbing there was just enough time to finish off the evening with pairs tag race where, in pairs, we ran around the track at 80% when we met our pair we turned and gave it Full Beans to beat them back to the start! Three rotations of this finished off a quality running fitness workout! A 10 minute jog back to base and static stretch-out rounded off a top evening!

Thank you guys for your hard work and huge efforts well done, hope you slept well!

Next week (have already been confirming task) we are off to a new task to create a Well Being Garden in a residential facility for people with mental illness. We have lots to do, so would be great to have you along! Sign up here and if you have one bring a head torch/bike light along with you!

We have a double dose of actities this Thursday! First the start of Fitness 4 All Camden where I will be taking a 4 week block of Running Fitness sessions just behind Kings cross station in Granary Square. Please sign up here. Also on Thursday is the monthly GoodGym social drinks, this month they are in Islington, check out all the info here.

Have a good week and look forward to seeing you all next time.

Smooth circuits

Joel