Week 49! With one week until our birthday, 15 GG-ers gathered at the Phoenix to run 6km for Stephen's House and Gardens.

We were joined by GG newbie Ray – give him a cheer!

This week's task was organised by Paul, who volunteers with Stephen's House and Gardens. He lead us to the task, for which we flyered along the way, and collected the tools ready for us to use.

It was a real speedy run tonight, with the front group running around a 5 min/km and the back group running 5.30 min/km.

We were quick to work to, pulling all the weeds from around the tree – and litter picking the area – all in 20 minutes. Leaving plenty of time for Paul to take us on a quick tour of the grounds. We're very lucky in Barnet with all the lush green spaces we get to run through. Not seen anything like it in any of the other boroughs I've run in!

We had a quick play on some of the equipment, which we incorporated into a circuit, before the park closed. Paul then lead us home, with Freya my trusty back-marker.

Next week is our birthday. Tell your friends, bring biscuits, sign up here. Let's try and get as many people along as possible!

Props to Paul for this week's pun.

This week's Barnet Biscuit was some kind of chocolate creme filled chocolate sandwhich

LOADS of excellent runners tackled THREE tasks across Lambeth and did loads of good whilst they were at it

First up, hooray to Dee and Jim who finally got their black t-shirts after weeks of waiting. Another big hooray to Steve for hitting his 100th run and getting his wings t-shirt (on time and everything). BIG CHEERS for the excellent running all of you!

We had a nice big crowd along for some running and supporting community projects and we had a lot to do. After a nice warm up led by John we headed off to three brilliant tasks:

Group 1 was led by Sarah. They went back to the Moorlands Estate allotment and finished digging and woodchipping the path. We've been there a few times over the summer and this visit saw the path finally complete. Great stuff!

Group 2 was led by Katie. This saw another return to the BAGS OF SOIL at Loughborough Farm. They need to move some massive planters full of soil literally about 2 feet. Soil is heavy. Very very heavy. So we need to dig it from one bag to another. Rose was part of the group who made headway a few weeks ago and this time she was back for revenge! She totally smashed it in a neat little team of three, entirely emptying one bag into another before heading off to do some weeding. Katie, Beth, Nelly, Jim and John took on the fearsome task of a massive, super compacted bag. After a seemingly endless dig and shovel, they had still not transferred all of the soil. HOW IS THERE SO MUCH SOIL? Still, a top effort and a job well done by all.

Group 3 was led by James and John. They headed 2.5km down to Kennington Park and the lovely Bee Urban project led by Barnaby. There were three teams, one on watering, one on weeding and one turning compost. Dee also got handy with a saw DANGER KLAXON John did some fitness with them and everyone got tired.

And with that we all returned home and went to the pub, where we valiantly stayed outside because it's August even though we were all freezing. That's the GoodGym spirit!