Tonight it was round 2 as we once again met Nicola from A Mile In Her Shoes to help sort kit donations. We had 12 lovely runners including one newcomer Emily, big welcome!

We mixed things up tonight and did a hill session before the task by running over the the infamous West Walk to complete a few reps. To encourage/bribe the runners I promised prizes for the first person up the hill each sprint rep. Michael K and was first over the line on attempt number one and looked like he'd really worked hard for his haribo reward and second time round Tim bounded to victory to claim the treasured red GoodGym laces. Good work from everyone all round!

We then jogged down to The Kings Arms (a massive thank you to them for hosting us for the past two weeks) to start on the new batch of donations to sort. We had a few different things crop up this evening including an array of running knickers with delightful motifs printed on the bum, unfortunately not very useful for the charity but a good source of entertainment for the group!

Again even though there was a mountain to sort through this evening we got it all done and everything is now ready to be given out women who are finding their feet through running with this great charity. We will continue to work with A Mile In Her Shoes in the future but if you'd like to be involved more in the meantime head over to their facebook page and think about popping along to their free fun running fitness session on 16th December.

Last but not least a little shout out for Michael C who looked after Hannah on the run tonight as she is a little injured, it's lovely to see everyone working together and looking out for each other.

Great job tonight everyone, happy running!

This week 13 GG-ers ran 5.6km to help a dementia day care centre tidy up the garden.

We started, as always, at the Phoenix - where two newbies showed up for doc checks, but then ran away (and not with us). Next time!

We then did some quick house keeping, before warming up by the Phoenix. This included many lunges, wingles and hip thrusts. The sort of this Boomerang was made for, really.

It's always a slow burner warming up in winter, but those hills to Hornsey made sure we were at least warm in parts!

Damian lead the way, while Freya was our trusty back-marker. Tonight was Damian's 99th good deed! If you'd like to help him celebrate the big 1-0-0, he'll be doing a mission at Long Lane Pasture on Saturday. You can sign up here

Once we made it to the centre there was a little confusion at first about where the door actually was - the perfect opportunity for the gang to get their squats in while I figured it out.

Poppy welcomed up into the centre, offered the team some juice and water and explained what we'd be doing. Tonight's tools were kindly lent by the folks at Friends of Tottenham Green, as the centre doesn't have any of their own. We split into four teams to turn the soil in the raised beds, chop up a dead bush, pull the weeds from the bricks and collect the fallen leaves.

We'll be helping a few more times over winter to get the garden ready for spring time. This will mean the people using the dementia service will have the opportunity to use the wonderful garden and come outside. Unfortunately the garden becomes a bit too dangerous when it gets overgrown for people with varying mobility - so our help was very much appreciated!

We then gathered for a quick group photo, which Poppy kindly offered to take which means I get to be in it!

It was then time to run home - back up the massive hill!

Nothing like running uphill for over a kilometer to get those legs burning! We all had a little breather at the top before continuing to our next checkpoint, where we stopped and had a mini fitness sesh focusing on glute activation.

We then split into two teams: the speedy team zoomed off with Damian for the final 0.4 miles back to base while the less speedy group stayed with me. My group was doing 9min/miles, but I forgot to ask Damian what his group did. So I'm going to guess 7, because they vanished into the night so fast.

It was then time to stretch it out and loosen the muscles we worked so hard tonight. Followed by Chocolate Bourbons + Some fancy sweets from Moldova courtesy of Eleanor

5, 6, 7, …14 steps (That's what it took to build a table tennis table).

Wake me up*

After a warm-up we set off on a riverside route to Transforming Lives for Good (TLG for short). Our run to the river was almost as long as the queue to see Evanescence* at Hammersmith Apollo.

Deborah and James greeted us once we arrived and gave us a rundown of what TLG do. They provide support, care and education to children in need. The TLG school we had come to help out at offers holistic 12 week programmes to help excluded teenagers aged 11-16. These centres are a lifeline, giving them the chance to catch up on missed qualifications, raise their aspirations and provide building blocks for a better life.

Divide and conquer

Our tasks for the night were to put together a new ping pong table and clear a store room of old furniture. A team of four took on the table and the rest quickly demolished the other.

Keeping out of mischief

Both Deborah and James were blown away by the speed the store room was sorted in. James then set about finding other things for the team to help with. This included fixing a shelf to a coffee table and starting to organise another cupboard.

I had planned to take this group off for a fitness session, but suddenly the table tennis team needed extra eyes and hands to find stray screws, washers and attach the table top securely.

Finishing later that usual, but with a brand new ping pong table finally complete we dashed back the short way to home and had a warm down.

Thanks to Debs and Jo for your GG touristing, it was lovely to have you along!

Happy running,
PSB out.

We returned to the place it all began this week, running the 2km to Long Lane Pasture to shovel some compost. We were actually shifting the piles of compost that we created last summer, when we piled up all that cut grass and hay. I did not realise how long it takes for compost to become compost!

We started with a quick intro at the cinema where we all met Luke – give him a cheer for his very first run with us!

With many GG Barnet runners still in Riga, it was great to see we still had such a wonderful turnout for the task at hand. We started off with a gentle jog down to Cherry Tree Wood to warm up on the grass before Heather lead the team towards Long Lane Pasture. Amanda missed Hazel and her portable speaker, telling me running without the GG Barnet playlist just wasn't the same! You can add tracks to the GG Barnet Tunes playlist here.

We arrived at Long Lane Pasture in about 20 minutes – our longest run in weeks! The Pasture team greeted us and showed us our task. Nicola did a wonderful job raking the pathways of catepillars (not real catepillars), which fall from the trees and kill the grass. Luke and Lilian both took a few scratches from the brambles and I was very impressed (and also a little worried) with Amanda's commitment to getting a good team photo at the end. We do have the best photos in Barnet.

We finished up with a running game around a big ring path, before heading back to base.

This week's Barnet Biscuit was homemade cloud cookies and ginger & cinnamon biscuits courtesy of Joanna

I don't know if 'cloud cookie' is the actual name, but Louis and I both agreed that's what it was like eating.

Join us next week for our VERY LAST EVER run to Hammerson Nightingale care home on the Bishops Ave. We will be packing up the library. The home is being knocked down, so this will be our goodbye GoodGym good deed. It's 1km each way.

These are the missions I mentioned today:

Saturday

Allotments in Harringey

Night of 1000 PBs NW5

Sunday

Animal Home NW10

Creos N10

Clear Ms P's Patio N4

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!

Barnet’s do-gooding, get-fitting biscuiteers were in fine fettle last night after smashing a brilliant task in record time.

After a slightly delayed start (sorry team!), we said congratulations to those that had done Park Runs that week, and to our Barnet heroes. Well done to Hazel, Damian, and Madeleine for topping the distance, good deeds and cheers league tables. Give ‘em a high five, Barnet!

Before we set off for the run, we did a headcount, and discussed one of the capital’s most pressing issues. Apparently there are some definitive rankings of Londoners’ favourite tube lines. According to the statisticians, the most popular line is the DLR, followed by Jubilee, then Victoria. But Barnet disagrees, and had some good reasons to back up their faves. The winning tube line, by a long way was….drum roll please…the oldest of the deep-level lines, the incomparable Northern line! Of course it was. Reasons included, ‘because I’m Northern’, and ‘because we can see it from here’. Fair enough.

With that decided, we set off for Northway Gardens. It was a lovely run there, covering part of the Bishop’s Avenue and having a good snoop at the giant (empty) houses as we went. Damian knew the route like the back of his hand, and after no time at all, we arrived to see Brian the gardener waving at us from his car. Which, when we got closer, we could see was filled to the brim with bags of compost (and a couple of bits of wood). The GoodGym fates were smiling upon us last night, because would you believe there were exactly as many bags as there were runners? Crazy stuff. Taking one bag each (and a wheelbarrow), we emptied the car and set off for the gardens a few minutes away. Compost unloaded, there were a few other jobs to do, such as de-bulbing daffodils, emptying compost bins, filling pens with leaves and shifting pots. All of which was done quickly, much to Brian’s approval – and we even got a few gardening tips and a bit of history on the garden itself, which is run entirely by volunteers and is beautiful.

We took advantage of the lovely surroundings to do our fitness session next to the garden. After a quick core blast and sprint session, we finished off with a game of British Bulldog. Apparently this was banned in some schools, but in Barnet we laugh in the face of rules, and launched into a very speedy game that saw some super-fast sprinting and tricksy footwork. On the run back, we took advantage of the red lights to have a squat challenge, seeing who could hold it the longest. The team obviously has glutes of steel, and outlasted the traffic lights, before finishing off the run with some stretches. Baking Queen Hazel treated the group with some delicious cookies and brownies wrapped in their very own little sweetshop bags – so cute! Next week trainer Pennie is back to lead you through the streets of Barnet to do even more good for the community. Be there or be square:

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/gg-barnet-helps-archer-academy-create-a-cool-space

This week saw the return of Team GG Barnet to the BFC to help Jade sand and paint more furniture. We were joined by GG newbie Freya, who has been meaning to join us for AGES and finally managed to come along. Be sure to give her a cheer!

This was our speediest week yet, with the speedy and less speedy groups both breaking records on our return to the Barnet Furniture Centre! Damian lead the speedy lot the 3.7km to the BFC, while (TF) Freya lead the less speedy group. I was our trusty back-marker this week. Hazel treated us to a soundtrack with her brand new portable speaker, playing TONNES of great tunes.

The speedy group beat their very impressive time last week by about a minute or two, while the less speedy group managed to run the 3.7km in just 22.51 minutes – only a minute slower than the speedy group's record last week. I think this means we are getting faster!

Jade and her project managed had a tonne of furniture ready and waiting for us to sand and paint, with the main rule being: leave no drips. Damian, Paul, Joanna and Jody did a fab job sanding outside, making the most of the longer days. Everyone else got to work painting drawers inside. (New) Freya and I bonded over a love for burpees, which I'm sure everyone can relate to.

Once everything was done, it was time to say our goodbyes. With such a speedy time under our belts, and in honour of our new runner, we did some burpees before the run back.

Damian, TF Freya, Paul and Nicola made up the speedy group, while I lead the rest of the team back to base. Chris was my trusty back-marker.

Very impressive 7.4km this week, combined with beautiful upcycling and improved burpees. Good job, team!

Barnet Biscuit of the Week: Chocolate muffins and chocolate crunchy balls courtesy of Hazel!

There's a big mission on Saturday that needs ALL HANDS ON DECK. We're joining forces with GG Haringey to help Grow The World In London and Go Grow get there site near the A10 up and running. Sign up here

Jobs that need doing: Strim and dig for planting plot 1&3; Plant potatoes, onions, broad beans; Build raised beds; Dig and fill 6 exciting raised beds with manure; Clear the greenhouse and re hang the door

Mission starts at 11am.

Next week I'll be in Cyprus with my gran learning how to make halloumi from scratch; but you'll all be running back to Archer Academy to continue work on the pond. Be sure to sign up! It's 500m each way. Great space to play (do fitness) before running back. Anastasia will be leading you in my place.

See you all when I get back!

PS Don't forget about the social this Thursday. Details here

As always the team gathered at the Phoenix on our first day-lit run of the year! (The first half at least!) We were joined by GG newbie Alexandra and GG tourist Ollie. Give them a cheer!

After a quick warm up by the Phoenix, we split in into two splinter groups and made our way to the Barnet Furniture Centre for some upcycling. Damian lead the speedy group while I took the less speedy group, with Bristol Chris my trusty backmarker.

The others were already hard at work when we arrived on site. Jade, the task host, was very excited to have us all there helping and had plenty for us to do. Chris and Beattie managed to not eat the Lindt chocolate bar casually left behind them, earning them the 'Good' moniker, whilst almost getting their table looking ship-shape. Their smug faces say it all, really.

After 25 mins hard graft, and some dancing, it was time to say our goodbyes. We gathered outside for a quick photo, while I tried to avoid being run over, before splintering off once more for our run back to base.

The speedy team broke GG Barnet records, running the 3.8km back to base in just 21:08mins!

The Barnet Biscuit of the Week: HOMEMADE CHOCOLATE BROWNIES courtesy of Hazel

Next week we will be running back to BFC to carry on upcycling furniture. Tonight we did a week's worth of work in half an hour. Sign up here to help.

See you next week! Pennie