Things don't always go to plan and sometimes tasks fall through at the very last minute. But with some quick thinking and a bit of improvisation, good things always come. We did not run to BFC this week. Luckily, Hazel and I both had a bunch of GoodGym flyers in our bags. Quickly, Plan B was hatched.

As ever, the gang met at the Phoenix ready for the run ahead. We were joined by GG newbie Jack who had spotted us running about and decided to come and see what we were all about. Give him a cheer!

We congratulated Hazel and the other Jack for their great running in yesterday's 10km and gently ran down to Cherry Tree Woods to warm up. There was jogging, running and bear crawling. Nobody likes bear crawling, but I promise they're really good for you! In terms of efficiency, they're right up their with burpees – and you all know how much I love those.

We then headed off out of the park for a big ol' loop up to Muswell Hill before stopping for a few tricep dips and press ups at the top of the road while Amanda and Hazel caught up. The perfect spot to split into teams and flyer hard. In traditional GG Barnet style, we speedily flyered the whole road using our honed leap frog technique, making a huge loop.

Once the two teams joined back together, Nicola lead us up to Highgate Woods for an extended return to Cherry Tree Woods. The team were promised 7km today, and without the run to BFC, we wanted to make sure we still got close. We managed just over 6km in the end, including a really lush run through the woods.

I had to run up the hills in the woods as it was way to hard to scoot through the mud and can happily report that it didn't hurt! This is very exciting news indeed. (I will be testing out the running on Sunday for the first time in AGES – wish me luck!)

Once back at Cherry Tree, after six whole kilometres of hills, it was time for the fitness session. The group reported a knackered rating of 8/10, so I decided to be nice and stick to floor work. Everybody likes lying down, right? Abs it is. Shawn came out victorious with some very speedy ab work, winning him the honour of first dibs on the Barnet Biscuit.

This week Barnet Biscuit was the mighty Jaffa Cake, courtesy of Freya, who was with us in spirit.

Thank you for all your hard work tonight team. See you next week when we run back to Dell Fields to paint some garden furniture. Sign up here

If group runs were meals - stay with me here - then last night's in Barnet would have been a picnic. We had a lovely summer evening, we had the famous Barnet biscuit, and we had a task sandwich...

It all began at the beautiful Pheonix Cinema where we said hello to some ace new faces. Give a cheer to Tim, Laura, and Bethany, runners of Barnet! While you're there, why don't you also give a virtual pat on the back to Heather who, perhaps unsurprisingly, is topping the distance leader boards after running the Paris marathon last weekend. What a star! Hat tip to Hazel who is leading the cheers and the good deeds - way to go Hazel.

With Penny away on her hols, we did a head count and at the same time named our favourite biscuit in honour of the erstwhile biscuity trainer - chocolate definitely came out at the top of the rankings. Our task was only a very short run away, so off we set, looking forward to getting stuck in with the lovely Paul and Kim back marking for us. Ah, such hope, such optimism. It was only when we arrived at the Archer Academy ready to start digging a lovely big pond, did we find the building was locked. Tumbleweed skittered across the tarmac. It didn't look good. A quick call confirmed that the Easter hols meant that the school was closed. What were we to do? Luckily Barnet has a crack team of a task force, and after a moment of Damian and Hazel putting their heads together we came up with a plan. Paul still had some leaflets at home from a charity GoodGym had worked for previously - a brilliant sounding organisation called Barnet Furniture Centre that helps low-income families by providing them with affordable furniture. Phew!

We didn't want to waste the lovely quiet spot we found ourselves in and decided to do our fitness session first. It was circuits night, with five stations featuring burpees, sprints, squat holds, planks and press ups. 45 seconds of work, and 15 seconds rest between each circuit was a tough work out but Barnet meant business. There were some high energy burpees, some lovely straight-backed planks, and, well, there was some lying facedown on the tarmac too, but that was proof of a good work out. After a couple of games (Fish! Chips! Chicken??) we set off to deliver those flyers, dividing up into teams to get the job done quick smart. Which we did - in record time. Which meant that we had time for the last part of our fitness sandwich. Off we jogged with Damien leading us to a newly-mowed patch of lawn to bust out some core exercises. They were toughies, and ten minutes later our abs were well and truly worked. With that our fitness/task/fitness sandwich was done, and we had an easy run back to our start location. While we were stretching Paul and Kim told us about the chicken connoisseur - he searches for the pengest munch in London. We had some pretty peng munches with the dark chocolate post-run Barnet biscuits - thank you so much. You guys are some peng runners, Barnet! Thanks for a great night. Next week you'll be helping to spread the word about your lovely start location, you can sign up here:

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/helping-out-the-phoenix

ps did you enjoy running along the streets of East Finchley with a soundtrack of your favourite tunes? I bet you did. Barnet cleverly has a spotify list YOU can add to. Just whack your choices on the list and Hazel will upload them to make a playlist for your next run:

https://open.spotify.com/user/hayzec/playlist/103nlP4rUGeecGerbkW51y