A small army of red tee shirts met at the Phoenix for Barnet's first birthday. There was glitter. There were red and white balloons. There were smiles and laughs.

So many wonderful runners showed up to celebrate our birthday, including GG newbie Maz – give her a cheer! Shout out to all the GG tourists who came to visit for the special day and to all the GG Barnet oldies, who we've missed in the weeks (months?!) gone by – thanks for coming back!

After a brief introduction from Pennie, 28 GoodGymers headed to Cherry Tree Woods for an animal inspired warm-up. It's safe to say we were already pretty toasted in the evening sun, but high-five fitness sessions don't complete themselves!

Picking up the pace, we headed 2km to our task – supporting volunteers at Long Lane Pasture. The pasture is an incredible green space run by a group of volunteers, and they needed some hands building their compost piles. This was actually the task we did on our very first GG Barnet run last year, which made it even more special. No councillors in suits this time – but we still beat our numbers with the largest ever Barnet turn out in history! Big cheers all round, really

Splitting in half, the Barnet runners worked in teams to rake and hoe the long grass; piling it all on to the compost heaps. One beautiful sunset and 25 minutes later, we regrouped and were honored with a 1st birthday chocolate cake(s), gratefully given to us by the volunteers at Long Lane Pasture. What babes they are!

Next up was circuits and frisbee matches. While half the runners star-jumped and lunged, the other half took part in fiercely competitive frisbee games designed to get us all running fitter and faster.

Chocolate cakes (sort of) burned off, we returned to base – the Phoenix cinema. Damian lead the speedy group back, whilst Pennie took the leisurely group. We then took over the cinema cafe balcony and toasted a year of great group runs. Muchos grassias (gracias) Pennie – we are as excited about the next 50 weeks as the first 50.

Happy birthday Barnetians - cheers to your efforts in 2016/2017 and here's hoping we can reach out and help even more people in our community in this next year, particularly isolated older people.

Don't forget to sign up for next week's run here. We'll be doing some silent gardening for the Westminster Drugs Project.

TFF (Task Force Freya)

Ps. This week's Barnet berry was blackberries! Some blackberries picked from the pasture were used to make Barnet's oat & cinnamon biscuit of the week. I thought they were bloody brilliant (but I made them so I may be biased...)

Thanks to everyone who brought cakes and snacks for the after party at the Phoenix. And thanks to the Phoenix for being such wonderful hosts!

We've got 10 free tickets for regular runners to go and see something. Louis is our desingated movie organiser. There's 6 spots left, so if you want in, email Pennie asap!

What a year it has been. Last night 50 runners celebrated 51 runs, which is a colossal 102 hours of doing good, in Wandsworth. We've been to schools, cancer charities, community gardens, food banks, independent theatres and refugee support groups. We've covered an enormous 295 kilometres together, have run races, made wonderful friends and have done too many squats to count. You've made GG Wandsworth the wand-erful place it is, gang!

We had a whole bunch of ace new runners join us to celebrate, people of GoodGym give a huge cheer to Steph, Nick, Georgia and Cathy! There was some lovely GG tourism - hello Patrick, Katie, Pritesh and Andy - and we even shared our anniversary with birthday boy Dan. So much good stuff!

To mark this special run we were heading back to our very first task at the Katherine Low Settlement, an amazing charity that works to tackle poverty and build stronger communities. They run a range of community projects to support children, older people and refugee communities in Wandsworth. And we love them! But first we had some warming up to do. After a few dynamic exercises we found out what makes everybody happy. From cheese, to puppies, Goodgym to birthdays, we really a cheerful bunch.

Like a small do gooding army, we set off for KLS and smashed out the 2k run in no time. While half of us headed inside to wash down walls, deep clean the kitchen, clear the cellar and scrub windows, the other half got busy outside with a fun fitness session. We played planking lions, pass the parcel, and a moderately successful musical workout to Squats and Shots. We swapped teams, and then finished off the night with a monster game of Clusters.

To run back we divided up into three groups depending on pace, and finished up back the BAC at pretty much the same time. Great running, team. After a few stretches, there was a very beautiful collage of happy memories, and we headed up to the common to see off the night right - with a quiz and a picnic. Well done to the winners who won with a brilliant visual representation of GG Wandsworth, and also guessed the Snakes on a Plane quiz question correctly.

Here's to an amazing year - bring on Year Two of running and doing good in Wandsworth! Let's kick it off with a cracking run next week.

It's not always easy to take the plunge and try something new, which is why we should say a massive welcome and well done to Matt, Kate, Vicki and Jess who all made their GoodGym debut last night. Give them a cheer!

A hat tip also goes to all our park runners who raced on Saturday - if you haven't heard of them these are a series of free, timed 5k runs all over London which are super fun and great for improving your speed, ask if you have any questions! - and to Jack who did a 10k race on the weekend.

We kicked off the night with a nice, meaty session of dynamic warm ups. We also found out what everybody's super power of choice. As suspected, to be able to fly was top of the list, but we also had a lot of people wanting to breathe underwater, to have selective invisibility and to be able to teleport. We had a couple wanting 'Bernard's watch', but the prize goes to Emily, who would cleverly choose to be able to nab everybody's super powers in one go. Of course!

Tonight we had a respite from the heat of last week, thank goodness, and a nice 2k run down to Alderbrook primary school in Balham. We took a shortcut across the common, and with Will doing a bit of extra work figuring out where the entrance to the school was, we arrived in no time at all.

We were greeted by Linda, who led us to the three areas that needed painting. It was all really helpfully already set up for us, with piles of paintbrushes, sheets and buckets of paint ready and waiting. We divided up into three teams and set about giving the walls a lick of white paint. With 40 pairs of hands - that's 80 hands and no less than 400 fingers (don't even start with the whole 'a thumb is a finger but a finger is not a thumb thing') people - we got the job done in less than half an hour. Just enough time for Sophie, Luke and Alex to play the bat/bongo/music thing outside, and for Sarah, Jo and Matthew to give the climbing frame a go. A jolly good time was had by all.

We sprinted back up the hill to the common, where we found a nice little spot for our fitness session. This week we were attempting the 7-minute work out, which features all manner of exercises including jumping jacks, planks, press ups, high knees, and a whole squat-load more. Then we gave Will's military challenge ago, seeing how many press ups we could do in a minute. So tough!

Session smashed, all that was left was a quick run back to the BAC, with the Wandsworth playlist as our soundtrack, and a few stretches. What a group, what a night. Same again next week?