11 GoodGymers ran 6km and helped The Haynes Centre casrefully take bluetack off their walls

Welcome along to Rebecca whose first time it was last night, also there was lots of January newbies back for more in the cold weather - lovely to have you along!

With Pennie away I stepped in to lead the good and fitness in the wonderful area of Barnet.

In the news this week:

1. Well done to everyone who took part in Cross-Country at the weekend down in Wormwood Scrubs - lots fun! One more fixture left on 10th February in Trent Park - sign up here
2. I am leading a long run for GG Members this Sunday if you'd like to come - 10-12km and 16km options. More details here

Right onto the evening at hand, after a quick intro and warm up we headed east on the back streets towards Muswell Hill and then down the other side to complete our 3km run to The Haynes Centre (technically in Harringay shhh). The Centre is a specialist dementia day care centre for Haringey residents with moderate/severe dementia. The centre provides social, intellectual and physical stimulation to aid in the wellbeing of people with dementia.

Well blue my tack!

We met Poppy from the centre (who came to GG Islington in November - cool) she explained that our task for the evening was to carefully remove all the posters from the hallway walls, pick off the blue tack and wipe away the marks with sugar water & clothes!

Everyone got stuck in and we were done really quickly - over 20 minutes the team of 10 GoodGymers got the job done - that's equivalent to over 3 hours of work for Poppy! Nice one guys!

On our way home we had a choose of hills, we were at the bottom so we had to go up! Deciding upon Cranley Gardens, the long and drawn option, we climbed up, up and up to the top. Once we were close to home we did x3 hill sprints up a short hill practicing our arm drive:

• 90 degrees
• Hand in line with hip
• No crossing over the body

Well done all for a fantastic evening of good for The Haynes Centre and for running 6km overall! Boom!

Sign up here to join Pennie next week.

PB out.

This week 13 fantastic runners ran 8km (through heavy rain) to collect discarded christmas trees and take them to be recycled.

We were joined by THREE newbies! Jenny, Catherine and Ben – give them a cheer!

Not only was tonight our first run of 2018, it was also Sarah's last run before moving to Amsterdam.

After a quick warm up by the side of the Phoenix, we headed off towards Summer's Lane, over the north circular, through Glebelands. Damian was our trusty leader, while Paul was our back-marker, leaving me to move between the group and talk to all the new people.

We were greeted by a ginger cat along the way, when we stopped for our mid-run squats.

Once we made it the 3km to to the recycling centre, we split into three groups. Jody, Paul and Damian each took teams in different directions in search of discarded Christmas trees.

20 minutes later and we'd all returned to the reuse centre with our trees. We found five - beating last year's score (of three).

We then stopped for photos under the lamp post. This was were we saw the unexpected drama of a car crash. A driver stopped in the road to let me cross and by the time I'd made it back to the group another car had gone into the back of the first!

Graham offered himself as witness, so I waited for him while the rest of the group started back. Luckily, we were real speedy, and caught up with the others by the end of Glebelands.

Damian then took a speedy group back for the final kilometer, while I lead the others.

By this point we were all drenched from the torrential rain beating down on us. But a GoodGym-er never let a bit of rain stop them.

We were back at base in no time, stretching under the cover and eating Barnet Biscuits courtesy of Paul.

Next week we'll be heading to the BFC for an inside task with furniture. 3km each way. See you there!