This morning, six GoodGymmers and their dog (😍) met up to help Stephens House and Gardens in Barnet (including Veronique in her first ever GoodGym good deed!! Awesome stuff!)

Stephens House and Gardens were left in trust for the people of Finchley by Henry "Inky" Stephens. Inky made his name in indelible ink (hence the apt moniker), and was equally keen to leave his mark on society through various philanthropic acts. Although the Gardens are open to the public, they're not technically a public park and so they often arrange volunteering days for help with what some gardening maintenance.

Today, our task was to help out by clearing up leaves (to be honest, most gardening tasks until February will probably involve leaf clearing in some form or other. To expand on Paul's comment below: it's a leaf-fall job, but someone's got to do it).

As we started to rake up the leaves, the Head Gardener gave us one clear direction: "Please rake everything up into one big pile of leaves so I can bag it all up tomorrow". However, with high winds forecast, as more and more volunteers started to filter in, we decided to use the extra manpower to fill builder's bags with the leaves and to drag them off somewhere into the distance (I didn't get close enough to see where, but I'm assuming that they ended up somewhere useful).

A seemingly infinite amount of raking, scooping and dragging later, the area we were working in looked much clearer (at least, we were able to see the green, green grass of ground!), and we enjoyed some mini cupcakes and that smug feeling of having accomplished something before heading home.

Goodgym Barnet ran on a search and destroy mission in Highgate woods for the ranger Cindy. We gathered at the Phoenix cinema to greet each other and number up. A quick survey of favourite colours produced three purples in a row! Welcome to Niall on his first run and tourist Pete from Stockport. Give them a shout out! We set off for Cherry tree woods for a warm up, and then on to Highgate woods a short run away, doing some paired exercises on the way. Cindy met us at the Pavillion Cafe and explained our task which was to remove some of the dens created by the public. They are a fire risk and also removing the wood from the ground destroys the micro habitats for some of the woodland organisms. After completing our mission Cindy generously gave us a tour of the woods including taking us into a conservation zone. Highlights included hearing Britons smallest bird the Goldcrest and pointing out a couple of lightning strikes on the trees. We then had a little time to pair up to do a running frisbee drill before running back to the Phoenix.

Thanks for coming running and destroying …makes a change!

Last night sixteen superb GGers ran 4km to do some gardening in Northway Gardens.

Meeting at the Phoenix, we were joined by GG Barnet celebrity (and now Camden regular) Freya and GG first timer Ruth! Give them a cheer.

After a quick warm up we set off with Fay and Hazel back marking. The run took no time - though we found a nice patch of grass for some squats halfway too.

Arriving at the gardens, we quickly divided into teams. Task leader Brian explained that we needed: a team opening compost bags and spreading it in the beds, a team litter picking, a team edging the pathways in the gardens, and a team edging the flower beds.

Everyone got to work and soon all the littler was collected and the compost spread. This left everyone to work on the edging - with some new tools from homebase courtesy of Brian - which soon left the flower beds and pathways looking very smart indeed. Hopefully the pictures give some idea.

We all agreed that the gardens are looking great and it's a real pleasure to be there on such a sunny evening.

After tidying up, we said our goodbyes and set off. This time we stopped for a running drill: 300m (ish) laps near the station. Dividing into teams, everyone did one lap at medium effort before kicking and working hard on the second, especially on the slight incline. Good work team.

After that it was a short dash back to the cinema, with a sprint finish of course, and some stretching.

Sarah had kindly made lemon cookies which she shared out at the end. Thanks Sarah!

Next week we'll be heading to Friary Park to litter pick: it's 5k each way, so one of our longest runs. If you have any concerns with the distance but still want to come let me know and we'll work something out.

We'll be back at Northway Gardens to carry on our good work at the end of July.

This week's Barnet Biscuit: lemon cookies courtesy of Sarah.

Over to Gaga:

This week 13 GoodGym-ers ran 5.7km to help Muswell Hill Food Bank weed, vacuum, mop and wipe.

We started with a few warm up drills along the side of the Phoenix that I learnt from the NBMCR middle- and long- distance coach Steve Vernon at the New Balance HQ last week. Nicola was a pro at these straight off the bat!

With our legs all warm and our numbers all counted, it was time to head off towards Muswell Hill. Hazel kept me company leading the pack, while Chris was our trusty back-marker.

On arrival we were greeted by Aimee and Deborah, who dished out the tasks before everyone got to work. We had an outside team weeding the patio, an inside team vacuuming and mopping the floors, a window team wiping the windows and Sarah was a team all on her own cleaning doors.

While all this was going on, a couple practiced their wedding dance inside. Deborah treated us to some bananas.

Once all the working was out of the way, it was time for a few strength drills. Walking pause lunges to improve balance, core stability and single-leg strength, bear and crab crawls to improve core, quad, glute and shoulder strength, and kicking squats - again to build that single-leg strength. Running is a series of single-leg jumps, so you really ought to make sure both legs are holding their own if you want to avoid injury, run faster or ran further.

We then ran back to base, with Nicola helping me lead the way and Freya our trusty back-marker. With Chris and Shawn hot on our tails we ended up running up the hills faster than we ran down them on the way home, which made no sense but was fantastic for everyone's legs and lungs and general levels of awesomeness - so good job!

This week's Barnet Biscuit: Chocolate fingers, courtesy of Freya

This week's pun, courtesy of Damian.

It's Freya's birthday next week, so there will be cakes and merriment to celebrate on Saturday. You can sign up here

We need a couple more volunteers for gardening at the Westminster Drug Project on Saturday. Sign up here

There's also a mission to help Mrs F on Saturday and a mission to help Grange Big Local set up their community festival on Sunday.

Last night eight runners braved the rain to help out at a local foodbank, got completely soaked, and still ended the night with a smile on their faces. What a team.

It started at the Town Hall with a little light drizzle and a lot of good news. Well done to Dave and Andy who both did great times at the Gunnersbury parkrun this weekend, to Remy, who gritted her teeth and beat the grueling Winshester half marathon, to Natasha who smashed a 5k race, and to Will, who joined us after an intense 10k the night before. What a week of running.

With a short warm up and a quick discussion about our favourite chocolate bars - which ranged from healthy dark chocolate and lime to good old Lion bars - we set off on the 3k run to Ealing Road Baptist Church. Shout out to Jennifer who had a great run down there, and to Michelle for battling jetlag womanfully! We also saw some excellent fartlek from Andy, Will and Remy.

Roger, the Pastor, was waiting for us with water and jobs as we soggily trooped into the building. A quick shake off and we were ready to get stuck in. It started with stacking books and chairs, which we completed in no time at all, before we moved onto the foodbank which Roger runs for local communities in need. With Will and Adam skillfully dismantling a stack of shelves the rest of us formed a (somewhat chaotic at points) human chain to empty and pack up the food. It turned out to be a lot of fun as well as a good upper body work out. Even if we did have to have several attempts at taking the video. " You actually have to move" said Natasha.

By the time the jobs were done the rain was coming even more steadily, which gave us a nice opportunity to 'cool down'. We're fighting a embittered battle to 'Beat the Streets' in Hounslow at the moment, and each have a card which we tap against a whole load of stations across the borough to record how far we've covered. So, despite the rain, off we went looking for meters, happily tapping and squatting our way round and noting all the good pubs that we weren't stopping at.

Before long we had made it back to our starting point, and with a few stretches we finished the night, already anticipating hot cups of Yorkshire tea, warm dressing gowns, even warmer showers and cold prosecco. Next week, it'll be warm and dry as we tackle the fly posters and graffiti under Turnham Bridge, so go on, sign up here.

Don't forget the social next Thursday at the fabulously named Blacksmith and Toffeemaker in Angel, where we will represent Hounslow at the monthly international pun of the month competition!

Last night 18 GoodGymers - including two new runners - ran 6k to sand some furniture at Barnet Furniture Centre.

We set off whilst it was still light with Hazel leading and Freya backmarking. Arriving at BFC, Jade dolled out the sandpaper and we got to work - a bench, a table top and legs that needed smoothing down, and some red drawers with hundreds of coats of different colours that needed some serious elbow grease. The group got stuck in and Jade was so thrilled with how much we managed to get done. She'll update us on just how many different colours there were on the red drawers - there at least 5 we could find!

Jade showed us more of the treasure trove that is BFC and explained that they upcycle furniture and either sell it on privately or provide it for free to those in need.

'I like to think of us as the Robin Hood of Furniture!' She said

It's an amazing place and a great opportunity to blow off some steam with a serious bit of elbow grease!

It began drizzling as we warmed ourselves back up for the run home and it didn't stop! Happy and quite sodden the first group to arrive home put on a sterling sprint finish before some stretching and a well deserved biscuit from Hazel.

Shoutout to Shawn who did his first mission this weekend and told us all about it. Missions are a fantastic way to make an impact in a different way to a group run - there is one happening this Sunday (17th) that you don't need to be document checked for - it's a gardening day at St Stephen's House. It's going to be brilliant, make your Saturday even more special by signing up here.

Looking forward to being back at the BFC soon. Well done everyone, a cracking run and task. May the rest of your week unfold just as well!

Lucy J