Exercise? On a Saturday? You'd better beleaf it

8 GoodGymers met in Friary Park, Barnet to help shift some pesky, slippery leaves. We welcomed two new runners - Preety and Maya - and Goodgym tourist Patrick into the usual motley crew.

After meeting volunteers from the park’s community centre, we set off for a 1km lap of the sweeping open green space. Damian and Dori led the pack enthusiastically, Amanda kept us motivated in the middle, and Hazel did some champion back-marking, chatting to our new runners even up the park’s steep slopes.

Lap over, we began the gruelling fitness challenges. The straight leg runs had us looking like a regiment of silly soldiers, while the knee-up bum kicks got us into a hot mess. And that’s without mentioning the sprints. I joke, but actually everyone aced it and gave 100%. We followed up with some strength exercises – bench press ups, squat walks, and frog jumps. And then on to the main event!

Volunteers at the park’s community centre had a lot of slippery leaves clogging up the paths, and we had lots of willing hands and arms = a perfect match! With heaps of enthusiasm, Pennie had us scooping, sweeping, and lifting thousands of leaves into green bags – 15 green bags to be precise. We swept so hard that we exhausted the community centre’s supply of green bags!

Content in the knowledge that we’d made a dent in the park’s leaf overload, we headed back to the start point. To round off the sunny afternoon in true Barnet style, we finished the session devouring Hazel’s specially baked biscuits – chunky choc chip cookies!

Thanks to all that came, and see you on Tuesday for some more doing good and getting fit.

Freya