PLAYING ABOUT

This week 9 GoodGym-ers welcomed 2017 with a 6km run through a cemetery to litter pick in Muswell Hill Playing Fields (and monkey about on the bars).

The new year kicked off beautifully as eight other GoodGym-ers met me at the Phoenix for our first run of the year – including GG newbie Amanda give her a cheer!

This week we announced the wonderful GG Barnet Task Force: Damian, Hazel, Freya and Paul who have volunteered to be extra helpful on GG Barnet runs. Massive props to these lovlies.

After a quick intro and announcements we carefully warmed up along the side of the Phoenix. It's always important to prepare our muscles and joints for exercise to protect them from injury and to boost performance. It's especially important to warm up when it's cold!

We ran through the cemetery this evening – something I've wanted to do for months, with Damian acting as leader and Paul our trusty back-marker. Freya seemed quite concerned about dead people causing havoc but she didn't let that stop her.

At least half of the group was spooked by a balloon blowing in the wind by somebody's grave. The other half was probably also spooked but didn't get the chance to tell me about it.

When we got to Muswell Hill Playing Fields the group set to work collecting litter. The other Paul discovered a gold mine, jumping into the kid's playground. It wasn't long before the rest of the group joined him, collecting tonnes of litter and testing out the toys themselves.

Once the clearing was all done, we had two minutes of free-play where the group was let loose on the equipment before our very serious fitness session. It's always important to play – something adults don't always get the chance to do. I think we'll have to run to the playground more often.

We then did a hanging leg raise relay, where Paul Salman and Chris even added pull ups into the mix, tricep dips, prisoner pulses, step ups and glute lifts in plank.

Paul Singh then lead us back to base, while I stayed at the back to back-mark. Amanda and I may have got a little lost in the cemetery and added an extra little loop to our journey while the others did millions of wall pressups (or so they said) by the gate while they waited for us. We're building guns of steel in Barnet, you see.

Once the final kilometer back to base was complete and the stretches were out of the way it was time for the Barnet Biscuit of the week.

This week's #BarnetBiscuit was courtesy of Hazel, who stopped at Marks & Specer to find us something. She was aiming for something healthy, but apparently that's not a thing. Fruity M&S cookies sure did the trick.

Don't forget, if you're mission verified there's a big task that needs doing in Barnet on 22 Jan to help Ms F. Sign up here.

Next week we'll be running to Dell Fields Court to paint furniture. Sign up here