Mud is thicker than water

9 fantastic GoodGym-er ran 1.5km to help Long Lane Pasture shift compost.

We were joined by TWO GG newbies: Rachel and Abs – Give them a cheer!

We were also joined by THREE GG toursits: Dave and Marusha from Haringey, who both did the Haringey SS this morning and Patrick from Islington who did the Islington SS this morning – and RAN all the way to Barnet with Damian.

Me and the Haringey crew were first on the scene, quickly followed by Shawn on his bike. Once every was there we popped our belongings under the shelter with the Long Lane crew and headed to our fave training path.

Here we had a brief intro and warm up before heading off for our lap around the pasture, with Hazel as our trusty back-marker.

While a nice short loop, it does include quite a hefty hill! Great job to everyone for making it all the way up! Our reward: a quick down back to the entrance of the pasture.

It was then time to get to work. We were collecting piles of cut grass and brambles and shifting it all to a compost pile – and in some cases axes off extra bits to add.

Everyone got to work, and after an initial confusion in the proper piling strategy, it was all systems ahead, with numerous wheelbarrows being filled and compost being shifted. We were on fire. We went up and down the path so many times in the 30 minutes of work that we created a bit of a river of mud. Some parts were so deep and squelchy that the mud made it inside our trainers. Rachel was the only one to bring a change of shoes! Very clever!

We finished all the bits we needed to do with time to spare, meaning we had time for the all important photo-shoot by the bench with Donald. We then returned all our tools back to the shelter, collected our things and said our goodbyes.

It wasn't quite over though for the GG Barnet crew. For the final portion of today's Starter Sesh I ran the gang through a few drills to help improve their run, starting with an ankle drills elite coach Steve Vernon taught me when I was marathon training. We built up to some short bursts practicing knee drive and propelling yourself forwards off your back leg and I got everyone thinking about their glutes. Abs and Shawn had this part down with ease.

We finished with some stretching and high fiving before we all went our separate ways.

See you all on Tuesday for our next group run, where we'll be running 3km each way to help a dementia day care centre clean the walls. INSIDE TASK.