A lovely eleven ran 4km to Baxters Field, where we painted the railings along the edge of the park.

As is usual about this time, we found ourselves saying 'Well done!' to Bradley, who this weekend ran two 10k races, yes two (well, it was a long weekend, so why not?)! He's got it bad. In fact, he and Conroy came to our session via the running track...in that heat! Well done to the rest of us for making it out, water bottles in hand, taking it slowly, like sensible people ;) We had a little chat about last week's social, which was great, how lovely to see each other over a drink and all looking so clean and well-presented! I've noticed a surge in cheers since then, following our conversation about how rubbish the cheering levels are in Bromley.

This weekend, our very own Stuart is off to Bucharest with the GoodGym Race Team, to run a half-marathon. We talked a little about the team and the benefits of joining in, which include support from fellow members, fun races, a fancy vest and guaranteed #RedThunder. You don't have to be part of the Race Team to join in though, everyone is welcome to go along to races and supporters are just as welcome as runners. Good luck Stuart, we look forward to hearing all about it!

Going back to the cheers...this week we were joined by Rachael, who was here for her very first group run, having been recruited by Louise (good work Louise!). You will, of course, want to show Rachael some love by clicking on her name and giving her a right old cheer, welcome!

To the task. Up hill.

This week we were off to a brand new task, thanks to Tim putting us in touch in with the task owner. Baxters Field is a lovely little park, hidden away off Kirkdale and is largely taken care of by a group of 'friends', people who use the park and decided it needed some regular TLC. They have worked hard to plant saplings, to lay paths, install a picnic bench and now, with a bit of help from us, paint the railings that run along the edge of the park. Getting here was a challenge in itself, with the road rising up and up, until we all cheered, hands in the air, as we turned off to enter the green space.

We were met by Philippa, who herself ran the London Marathon a couple of weeks ago. We were shown the railings, the pots of thick black paint and were handed paint brushes by Conroy, who was clearly eager to make a start! We each took a section and got going, chatting as we worked. As always, lots of talk of running, coach visits, missions and, this week, Bank Holiday activities (the beach, London Zoo, B&Q...). Time flew, but so did our brushes and, stepping back, we could see just how much had been achieved in such a short space of time - excellent work! Thank you Philippa for making us feel so welcome, with cold drinks and sweet treats to keep us happy (and give us a little boost for the return run). There is plenty more for us to do, so I'm sure we will be back soon.

Race to the cones

Finding a space on the grass, we did a very quick fitness session, involving cones and cores (sorry it was brief, we were too busy snacking!). What a treat to enjoy the reward of a downhill return run, a sweep around to our start point and a nice deep stretch. Next week we will visit another new task, this time at Forest Hill Station, where we will tend to the planters, sign up here to join in.

Happy running and see you soon!

Covering 5km of running, thirteen top athletes took to the streets of Sydenham to help out at the Community Library.

As you can see from the photos, we had a half-marathoner in our midst. On Sunday, Clare took on the inaugural Big Half, a half-marathon organised by the London Marathon team, starting on Tower Bridge and finishing by the Cutty Sark in Greenwich. The event was different in that it was focussing on the communities it passed through, with many participants representing community organisations and charities in the four host boroughs. GoodGym were out in force, with 250 runners taking part and lots of non-running members out on the course, cheering everyone on (I was in Deptford with my son, catching a glimpse of Sir Mo himself as he glided by, before taking the win :) As I sat down to write this, I noticed that Clare was also doing her 25th good deed this evening, so a double well done!

On the subject of half-marathons, we also talked about the very local Beckenham Half-Marathon, which is taking place on September 23rd. It was brought to our attention by Ian, who ran the race last year and enjoyed it. Why not sign up and give yourself a goal to work towards (Kate and Ian have already committed!)?

Shelf life

Tonight's task was over at Sydenham Community Library, so off we headed, doing a little knee-lifting warm-up as we went (the High Street was particularly busy this evening, so we probably provided much-needed entertainment for the static traffic). Thank you to David for back marking this evening, making sure nobody was left behind. As we ran, there was a mysterious rattling noise coming from Bradley's rucksack which, he informed us, was Smarties. Nice! Turns out he was joking and it was actually a supply of vitamins. Bother. Everything was just fine though because, at the task, Ilse had laid on a delicious selection of treats! Who needs Smarties when you have mandarins, coconut macaroons, Bourbons, cheesy twists and cheesy/spicy savoury triangles? Thank you Ilse!

There were a few different jobs lined up for us tonight, with everyone picking something they liked the look/sound of:

• painting the toilet
• cleaning the IT equipment (using fancy spray cans)
• pulling out the fridge in the cafe, to clean behind it
• taking books off the shelves to clean underneath

Everyone got stuck in, pausing occasionally to enjoy a snack, with piles of books building up and cloths getting surprisingly grubby - the library is on a busy main road, with all the grime drifting in from the traffic passing by. Ilse informed us that the Romance section was especially filthy, of course, but Louise found that the Science Fiction was also quite grimy. Interesting. As time ticked by, there was the inevitable chatter about what we're reading and the odd rumble of laughter as a funny title or subject emerged from the shelves. Gathering together our cloths, sprays, brushes and rollers, we wrapped up our work for the evening and made our way back outside.

Witness the fitness!

On our return leg, we like to have a little fitness session if there's time and tonight I had planned a simple version of a classic (I had hoped to use the local basketball court, but it's still bathed in darkness...soon, soon). Running between the grass and the benches, we tried to cover as many laps as we could in one minute (I let Clare rest her legs, I'm not that cruel!). Well done to everyone, it's quite an intense exercise after a 5k run! This is a great way to test your fitness and look for improvement, choosing a space that you will revisit at intervals to see how you are progressing.

Don't forget (I forgot to mention it!) that this Thursday is the monthly GoodGym social, which is in Greenwich this time, so not too far away. Sign up here to meet runners from other areas, to hear from the guest speaker and vote for the International Pun of the Month. While you're at it, why not sign up to next week's group run for more of the same good stuff?

A very lucky thirteen took off through Penge to help sort through food donations at Living Well.

With it being Valentine's eve, this was our last chance to run ourselves towards the Love GoodGym badge on Strava. A few have already done so, having run one hour in a session between the 1st and 14th of February, great work! There has been some super running going on, with Molly covering lots of miles, it turns out she has a half-marathon at the weekend, good luck Molly! Also on the agenda for tonight's pre-run briefing was Ian's first mission. It sounds like it was a less-than-straightforward mission to start off with, but this doesn't seem to have put him off! Missions can be anything from changing a light bulb to moving furniture, but always involve helping someone when they are finding the task difficult and also spending a bit of time chatting and helping them feel less isolated. Well done Ian.

Tonight we welcomed first-timer Kate with open arms, hopefully making her feel at home!

We had a flipping good time!

As it's half-term, we were visiting one of our favourite tasks, at Living Well. We can only visit here during school holidays, when the regular Tuesday night Scout group take a break. Since our visit at the beginning of the year, the container had been sorted a little more, but still needed our attention to make things more accessible. Rowena was telling us that many of the regular volunteers are daunted by the thought of having to find anything in the container, knowing that it might involve a fair bit of lifting, shifting and searching. Our job, then, was to pull out the crates, take them to the church to be sorted and organised and to return them to the container, where they would be stacked in order.

Having such crate fun we could barely container ourselves!

Forming three teams, we had Ian and Conroy (with input from others) keeping track of activity in the container, passing crates out then, as the space became more manageable, grouping foods together, so they can be reached easily by volunteers. Inside the building, the food bank store room was being cleaned and reordered by Kiri, Hannah and Molly, while the rest of the group shuttled to and fro, carrying heavy crates and sorting them, ready to return to the newly stacked container.

Bean me up Scotty!

Thank you Kiri for that one!

During the task, a few people mentioned feeling peckish and, with it being Shrove Tuesday, I decided to do a little survey into what people like on their pancakes (n.b. some of these are what people prefer and some are what they were having for dinner).

• Cath - spinach, beetroot and feta/creamy mushroom (fancy!)
• Emma - jam and peanut butter (crunchy, of course)
• Stuart - salmon and cream cheese
• Alice - sugar and orange juice
• Louise - bacon and maple syrup
• Kate - maple syrup
• Molly - sugar and lemon juice
• Hannah - marmite and banana (controversial)
• David - avocado and poached eggs, on sweetcorn and courgette pancakes (show-off)
• Conroy - peanut butter
• Ian - banana (with pretty much any combo, but probably not marmite)
• Kiri - nutella
• me - berries, yoghurt and maple syrup

With time ticking away the end of our task creped upon us and it was time to return everything to the container, where the crates were now easy to reach and clearly grouped. It seemed like we went from having tins, bags of pasta and boxes of tea strewn across the floor to everything being neatly packed away in about five minutes - excellent! As Rowena thanked everyone and told us about how much this work will help things to run smoothly, we were given some chocolate eggs to nibble, a sugary treat to get us through the very quick fitness session that followed (where it turned out Cath is a pro at mountain climbers!).

Thank you everyone for working so well as a team, this will make such a big difference to Rowena and her volunteers.

Next week we will be returning to Melvin Hall to get our paint on again. Sign up here and join us for a bit of roller fun.

In sub-zeros our thirteen heroes took on 5km and many, many books.

That's right, sub-zero, time for all the layers! How lovely to see Alice and Cath back after a little break (I say break, work took over so it's not like they had their feet up!) and to welcome David, Helen and Joe back after their first visit last week - they weren't put off by the crazy hills! We also welcomed a visitor all the way from GoodGym King's College London, welcome Sophie, I hope we made you feel welcome south of the river!

To get the evening going, we basked in our own glory a little, having won our division in the GoodGym January Challenge; excellent work everyone who took part! We also warmed ourselves up with some dynamic stretches and a few 'bounces', which it's impossible not to do when it's this cold! We were very excited this week to be heading to a brand new task. It's always lovely going somewhere new and running in a different direction, so off we went, towards Sydenham Community Library.

Our run took us past some very grand houses, their beautiful stained glass prompting lots of 'Ooohs' and 'Aahhhs'! We were soon approaching the building and finding the entrance around the side. Here, we were met by Ilse, who ushered us in and told us what we would be doing this evening. The library is run by volunteers so of course, when they are busy doing to the day-to-day running of the building, seemingly small jobs such as cleaning the shelves, are overlooked. We were here to make a difference by pulling out the books in the children's library (which has 90 school children passing through on a Thursday!) and cleaning the shelves. Our taller members were tasked with giving the windowsills a wipe and to do a general dust and tidy up all round.

As everyone busied themselves with these jobs, I wandered around, taking photos and asking what we're all reading at the moment (and I might have shuffled some newspapers and flyers into neat piles, I like a neat pile). It was a delight to see just how varied our reading is:

• Stuart - The Fisherman
• Louise C - The Pie at Night
• Tim - Le Grand Meaulnes (fancy!)
• David - Stoner
• Helen - Homo Deus
• Joe - Prisoners of Geography
• Louise C-W - Thinking, Fast and Slow
• Cath - Swing Time (and Frog Belly Rat Bone)
• Alice - The Distance Between Us
• Hannah - The End of Eddie
• Jane - The Glorious Heresies and The Power
• (Sophie couldn't remember the name of her new book!)
• Me - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Isn't that wonderful? So much to talk about while we run!

The space was quickly filled with piles of books, carefully ordered, to be put back as they were found. Once wiped down, the shelves were refilled, with a bit of sorting in the process and some pauses to enjoy the illustrations. There was just enough time to dip in to the snacks that Ilse had very kindly provided, before we guarded ourselves to head back outside. I'm sure we will return soon, to continue these jobs and to do some much-needed painting.

Once outside, it seemed churlish not to venture into Home Park to have a play on the outdoor gym equipment. It's a great little set-up, somewhere to stop off on your run to do some body-weight exercises. Whenever I pass one of these park gyms, they are always busy, with all sorts of people having a go. Heading back up towards Penge, we took The Hill over the railway line at Penge East and reached our start point for some stretching. Next week is a visit to one of our favourite tasks, helping our at Living Well. Expect a slightly shorter run and a great lifting, shifting and sorting task at the food bank. See you then!

Don't forget, it's the GoodGym monthly social on Thursday, this time in Holborn. Details and sign-up here.

This week 16 wonderful GG-ers ran 4.5km (ish) delivering booklets for our fabulous hosts, The Phoenix. Most were kitted in their Santa hats / outfits, with Graham even riding a reindeer. Paul came armed with extra outfits, including a Santa dress – which Hazel wore with pride.

We were joined by GG newbie tonight, Heather – who moved to London to marry Shawn! Give them both a cheer!

After a quick warm up by the side, we ran off up the hill. After about 1.5km of running, we split into teams and began the leap frog flyering. Damian took one team, while I took the other. We had four bags full of the booklets – and as ever, made quick work of the lot!

Then it was time for a quick fitness session, starting with squats, burpees and lunges; and finishing with a race to 100 step ups on the curb. Graham was the speediest, very quickly followed by Sarah.

Damian then lead us back to base, while Freya and Rupesh took charge of the back-marking.

We then did all the stretches before heading upstairs at the Phoenix for our Christmas celebrations. There were many snacks, some even homemade, and a surprise appearance from Eleanor.

Tonight was Danica's last GG Barnet run before she leaves the country forever (or for ages) to go traveling. Give her all of the cheers and the virtual hugs

Thank you all for a wonderful year of GG Barnet-ing. Next week will be our final run - but I won't be able to make it. You'll be guest lead by the wonderful Camden Paul. See you all in the NEW YEAR!