9 GG Brenter's ran 6k, to shift 4 wheelbarrows of rocks, 8 of leaves and avoid 1 crafty little fox

On the coldest night of the year so far, the wrapped up and raring to go crew of Brent gathered eagerly at the good old Queensbury Pub on the high road of Willesden, for a housekeeping full of good cheer, good chats and the welcoming of 3 newbies into the fold YAY - The lovely Enrique, our only fella for the night and Sisters Tania and Eliza.

After welcomes and warm-ups the team hot-foot it through the chilly winds down to Harlesden Town Gardens where Gabriel was waiting with his trusty torch. The task to be achieved this night was a Wheel-barrow of laughs shifting piles of rocks to support the development of a rockery and leaves into the newly built comps patch. Needless to say we totally rocked it

After 40mins of back breaking shifts cheered on by a medley of my weird and wonderful spotify treats (summer and holiday inspired) We spaded, pushed and shovelled our way through the lot, managing to avoid Mr Fox who had taken up residence there.

Back to the road and it was fast, fast, fast all the way home. The team were like a speeding bullet, running like a pack of wolves in formation, a beautiful site to behold! Up hills, round bends, through the darkened parks. As we raced through the blackness there was only one thought in our minds, it's head torch season and our short shorts days are numbered.

Back at base we stretched and reviewed. Another epic night, fantastic vibe and laughter that carried our legs through the distance.

See you next time.

DO GOOD. FEEL GOOD. INSPIRE

First of all a big big welcome to our first timers this evening: Pip, Will, Christina, Amanda and Laura. Great to have you all along.

New Barnet trainer Pennie was on the scene tonight leading proceedings in preparation for the GoodGym Barnet launch tonight.

Following the briefing and the look of amazement on Pennie's face as the group pointed out that she had a whistle attached to her rucksack, we set off on our two tasks. Aidan and Patrick were in charge of taking a team up to Caxton House to carry on with what we started last week. Aidan describes what went down:

5 Goodgymers took the challenge of a longer and faster run. We set off just after Patrick's group but immediately detoured to do a lap of Highbury fields, with the noise of a Corbyn rally in the background. We started as we meant to go on, at a nice fast pace. Taking the usual route past Emirates where we enjoyed the late night sun and of course the gentle incline all the way to Caxton!

We made it there with a great pace, but sweaty and out of breath, and Rose put us to work. Today's jobs were a second coat on the benches we painted last week and continuing to de-weed the brick path. With Patrick's group close behind us (we had beat them there of course!) we soon had a sea of red painting the benches a duck egg blue and plenty of weeds flying in the air.

Still plenty to do at Caxton House, so I'm sure we will be back next week to see the lovely Rose again. For the run back we gained Dan who wanted to join and also suggested a sneaky detour to Emirates. Everyone had the option: 1/3 lap run or 2/3 spartlek and of course everyone chose the harder 2/3 option!

Great group run guys!

Aidan

And Pennie led the rest of us to Barnsbury Community Centre.

We spent a good 25 minutes on a variety of tasks: adding compost to hanging planters, watering the plants, getting rid of some nasty weeds and painting pallets.

Post-task Pennie took everybody through their paces with a variety of drills and exercises: high-knees, planks and a gruesome squat/tuck jump combination was on offer. Barnet are gonna get pretty fit!

We (almost) broke tradition and had a cheesecake instead of biscuits tonight (but cheesecake does have a biscuit base). It tasted pretty good post-run. We also debated whether cheesecake is cheese or a cake (thank you, Caroline). A few voted for cheese, Steve abstained, some said pudding/dessert, but the majority reckoned it was a cake. Yum

Pennie will see you tonight and we'll see you back in Islington next week.

Simon

On a fine summer's evening 32 wonderful GoodGym-ers gathered at the Star of Kings, found there way to the upstairs room and had a wonderful evening meeting new runners, hearing about GoodGym and voting for the all important International Pun of the Month!

We were back in North London this month (although apparently South Bank doesn't count as South London - one for Islington to discuss perhaps?) and we had the fun of a room to ourselves. It was a great turn out I'm so grateful to you all for making the effort to come out. Lovely to see some new faces, TWO trainers and recent addition to the GG Central team Neil too :)

I want to say a massive thank to George Bright, our guest speaker for the night - thanks for you sharing your wonderful story and we wish you all the best for your Ironman - 15 days to go! Check out his fantastic blog here and if you wish to donate to his chosen charity the Maytree Foundation you can do here. Thank you also to Vicki McLellan for the delicious cakes and cookies - we raised £68.38 which I'll round up to £70 to go towards George's fundraising.

Not that it needs saying but you are an incredible bunch!

Here's the recap:

HEROES

Full listings can be found here

In the 'Bristol' round (that's cheering to you and me) Pru Comben continued her reign as the cheeriest person in GoodGym and Paul Becker was the most cheered in July.

James Poole of Redbridge topped the distance charts with 627k and we had a flurry of good deed-ers, five tied for third but Frances Powrie did 15 good deeds last month to top the chart that matters!

In the second installment of the 'GG most new runners last month' award we were happy to crown the two week old GG Richmond runners with 44 new runners in July - Congratulations!

Last but by no means least in the heroes section we had the 50s and 100s, a fantastic achievement not only in terms of doing all those deeds but everything that it gives to the community in staying with GoodGym to do so much:

50 - Black T-shirt

• Emily Casstles

• Matt Wrench

• Dave Mansfield

• Benedict Lumley

100 - Wings

• Aidan Padfield

• Richard Giddings

• Frances Powrie

• Megan Fisher

Well done all of you - go give them a cheer everyone!

NEWS

We opened up up in five new areas and have the following to come:

• Ealing - Tuesday 9th August

• Hounslow - Monday 15th August

• Barnet - Tuesday 16th August

• Bournemouth - Wednesday 17th August

Race News

• We hit the New Forest 10 miler - 14 came, 9 ran and 5 poor Bristolians got stuck in traffic!

• We've got the GoodGym 4 x 1600m relay at the Community Games this Sunday 7th August - go along and have a cheer. Some GG Camden folk are leading a bunch of runners at the Regents Park 10k and finally the LAST big race of the year - we're back in Wales for the Cardiff Half Marathon - ONE month left to enter!

International Pun of the Month

Finally, it was super tense this month, it came down to the final vote which came from outside the room! However, with NINE votes, from 32, the International Pun of the Month is...

'Pack it up, pack it in, let me GoodGym' a fantastic individual effort from Steve Lee

So once again thank you all so so much, do keep spreading the word, we've more areas to work in so need more and more people involved to keep doing good, running hard and having fun (and preferably coming to drinks too)!

We'll see you all next month, September 8th in Brixton for the pilot of 'GoodGym Drinks on Tour'!

Pritesh

p.s. Thanks for additional photos to Rebecca and John