Third time's a charm.

After our last two planned tasks for the night had got scuppered, we finally had a task no one could cancel. We had a bulk of leaflets left over from a previous week that still needed delivering. These flyers were helping promote Wand's Project that provides support for people affected by the Grenfell Disaster. Gladys at Wand was quick to think on her feet just hours before we were due to meet and asked us to visit the Charecroft and Edward Wood Estates.

Let the festivities commence

There was a festive fancy dress theme for the evening. Ellie worn some fairy lights around her head and Jason had a very striking outfit (see the photos). After getting a group photo in front of the Christmas tree we set off towards Charecroft estate.

We almost couldn’t get into the buildings at first because the don’t allow people in to drop flyers. However once the security guard had heard about the project he was very impressed and allowed us in.

Then with flyers the spare we headed over the Edward Wood Estate, where we managed to deliver throughout Stebbing house .

After that it was once round Shepherd's Bush park before heading back to base. There Jason was crowned best ‘fancy' dressed and was rewarded with a edible Santa trophy. We had a big Secret Santa swap and Justine got the perfect present... a head torch (that will help make the pavements be a bit less treacherous for her knees..).

Festive fun and farewells

There was more festive fun afterwards when we went on to Bill's for a lovely Christmas dinner// December Social. There were crackers, bad jokes and tasty food. Plus, and farewell speech for Will who was moving back up North. Will has been coming regularly to Goodgym Hammersmith and Fulham since he moved to London in April. He’s been a fantastic addition to the gang and will be greatly missed. Make sure you give him a cheer when he comes back for the London Marathon.

13 of GG Barnet's finest ran 4km, helped Northwold Rose Gardens & did a pyramid session

On a full moon Halloween evening we gathered at the Phoneix Cinema, welcomed newbie Wendy and talked about the news:

1. Last GG Monthly Drinks of the year next Thursday in Stratford - all details here
2. GG Christmas Party is on Friday 8th December at Battersea Art Centre - costume theme is BLACK & RED!
3. There is an Unofficial Unofficial GoodGym Facebook Group if you'd like to join, it's full of news, races, meet ups and more. Just say your from Barnet in the request and I'll accept you.

Led by Damian and backed by Freya we headed to Northwold Rose Gardens to help Brian with some gardening. This was none of your weeding in the dark lark, our tasks for the evening were follows:

1. Shovelling, wheelbarrowing and laying woodchip around hedges and trees.
2. Emptying out three compost (curry flavoured) bins onto various plants to help keep it rich and well fed.

Splitting into small teams we got to work. Various tasks featured Skelton (Freya), BadGym Rep (Damian) and Death (Paul) - nice one for dressing up guys! Slightly terrifying...

Pyramid session IN the dark!

After 30 mins of spooky graft we were done and went to the dark tennis courts for a pyramid session - 1-2-1 for speed efforts with 1 minute recovery in between. Using the tennis court fences we could work out where we were.

Once we completed our 2km run back, we stretched and handed our treats (no tricks).

Sign up for next week here, I'm covering for Pennie again as she'll be recovering from NYC Marathon - good luck!

PB out

After a speedy intro chat we got outside for a warm-up. Thinking about warming up those ankles, shins, calves and hips.

Following that we headed off on the 1.4km run to Star road and Maystar Estate. The Hammersmith and Fulham Goodgym has been back here a few times this year to help out in both the communal areas and some private gardens of older people who aren't able to care for them. This time we were there to dismantle some broken office furniture that had been left in the community hall and plant some daffodil bulbs in the flower beds around the estate.

After leaving a team of 4 to get going with the furniture lead by Jason; Pauline, the lovely task owner took us on a walk through the large estate to pointed out the flower beds.

Unfortunately, the estate's trowels had gone AWOL so the planting crew had to use the handle end of the rack and hoe to make holes in the ground. The method certainly didn't slow them down.

Actually, both the planting gang and the furniture team got their tasks done in no time, which left us enough time for a nice run back via the river. Thanks for wearing your headtorches!!

After getting back to base and doing a warm down, we all trooped down to The Distillers for our October social. Cheers to everyone that came! Sorry to those that got stuck at work, you were missed!

Helen suggested we do the 10k in Putney on 3rd December. Will you join us? Details and RSVP here

Next week, is Halloween and we're helping paint garden furniture and plant MORE bulbs. Sign up here

This week 16 GG-ers ran 6km to deliver flyers for Grange Big Local's community fair on 8 October.

We were joined by a couple of GG newbies: Samantha and Ben. Also recent newbies who started while I was in Spain: Kani and Alice – give 'em all a cheer!

We were also treated to a visit by Gary from Bristol who is starting a 3,000km cycle adventure on Sunday!!

We headed to Cherry Tree Wood for a quick warm up (there'll be a boomerang up on Twitter!) before heading off on our run. Paul helped me lead while Damian was our trusty back-marker, giving his legs a rest after his epic Sunday run.

We soon reached a deadend, which seemed the perfect time to split into our flyering leap frog formation. One team with me, one with Damian. We covered roads we've not often run down, which is always a treat, and took on some mighty hills.

After a quick circuit in a car park hitting the glutes, hammies, core, pecs and shoulders, it was time to head home. We just had to get up the steep car park exit first. Nicola helped me navigate back to the Phoenix at lightning speed.

This week's Barnet Biscuit: The MIGHTY Oreo

Next week we'll be running to help Muswell Hill Food Bank. Sign up here If you have gardening gloves, bring them. And probably a head torch.

On SUNDAY, Jody is organising an ultimate frisbee game and everyone is invited. Sunday 1st October, meeting 11am at the Regents Bar and Kitchen in Regent's Park. The more the merrier!

Apologies for the lack of photos - all the ones I took on the task were rubbish and I forgot to take a group photo! iPhones weren't built for nighttime photography!

Be sure to sign up for the Halloween Run on 24 Sept. We'll be setting up a haunted house. It's all hands on deck with this one, as it's quite far and will need all the help we can get to make sure we finish. 4km each way. Tell your friends.

With the summer holidays in full swing, tonight we were a small group but we still packed a punch and got a lot done between us!

We started our run tonight with a warm up jog down to Walpole for a running technique and drills session before the main event. This consisted of a number of different exercises designed to get our bodies ready for running including some very graceful looking horse style kicking (I promise this is a real running drill!).

We then set off to run to the Elthorne Park stretch of canal on the River Brent where reunited with the wonderful Jack from The Canal & River Trust. This was our second task on this part of the canal and it was great to be back even though it did look like someone had recently had a cider party there and forgot to take all their rubbish home!

Jack split us into two groups, one to tackle an overgrown buddleia bush and make the canal safer for passing cycles and pedestrians and one to paint over the unsightly graffiti on the underpass. Andy, Emily and Larissa were quick to express their interest in painting which involved some lovely boiler suits. It was a strong look guys!

Ronan, Mike and Alex put their hands up to saw and shear the vegetation growing over the towpath whilst I did some ad hoc litter picking between checking on the groups and taking photos, afterwards it was like the cider party had never happened.

Jack always comes really well prepared when he meets us with lots of tools and a number of different tasks we can complete in the location, however the one thing he did forget this week was a wet paint sign! Therefore we've made a little make shift wet paint sign which we will return to paint over next time!

With a good nights work complete we did an Indian file running session to get back to base for a quick stretch and cool down.

Thank you all for coming, every one of you guys are great but special mention this week goes to our visitor Andy from GoodGym Hounslow whose on a mission to get to 50 good deeds before his Wandsworth (friendly) rival! We were deed number 41 on the list so it's getting close now, good luck Andy hopefully see you back with us soon (or will your rival use us to get their numbers up too?!).

Next week we are heading to Ealing Food Bank to help with a bit of maintenance and you can sign up here.

See you next time, happy running :)

After a previous trip to Wales in 2015 we were back to race the train again and this time we brought reinforcements

Over 60 runners from all around the Goodgym world, representing at least 16 different areas, travelled West to Tywyn to take on the mighty Talyllyn Railway.

After some perhaps over-complicated swapping around of cars and passengers and fueled on by a delicious Friday night pasta dinner cooked by Sophie we were raring to go on Saturday morning and looking forward to a day of racing and cheering.

This time we had a presence in every race. First across the line was Dave who came 2nd behind a teenage boy in the 3.5 mile long Tynllwywyn Hen Challenge. Continuing on a theme, Axel was also unfortunately beaten to the line by children, three of them this time, in the 5.5 mile Dolgoch Challenge. They showed a distinct lack of respect for his beard and sunglasses and only allowed him to come in fourth.

Next up was the 10K Quarry Challenge where we had quite a few runners and three train beaters - Simon, Andy and Jack Bradley.

Then came the main event, the 14 mile Rotary Challenge. Not content with already having beaten one train, Simon followed the lead of Pritesh and took the start line again. In this one we had both runners and riders, while the runners were battling with the mud and hills out on the course Andy, Frances, Sarah and Lina were cheering them on from the comfort of the train. That cheering must have worked because this time PB Jr, Sam, Graham and Jacob all beat the train.

With the racing over some went for a dip in the sea before heading back to the bunkhouse where Kevin and his kitchen crew were knocking up a couple of very tasty tagines. After dinner we were treated to a party courtesy of DJ Coyle (aka DJ Ironing board) and danced the night away until 1am.

Another amazing weekend away, can't wait for the next one.

LOADS of excellent runners tackled THREE tasks across Lambeth and did loads of good whilst they were at it

First up, hooray to Dee and Jim who finally got their black t-shirts after weeks of waiting. Another big hooray to Steve for hitting his 100th run and getting his wings t-shirt (on time and everything). BIG CHEERS for the excellent running all of you!

We had a nice big crowd along for some running and supporting community projects and we had a lot to do. After a nice warm up led by John we headed off to three brilliant tasks:

Group 1 was led by Sarah. They went back to the Moorlands Estate allotment and finished digging and woodchipping the path. We've been there a few times over the summer and this visit saw the path finally complete. Great stuff!

Group 2 was led by Katie. This saw another return to the BAGS OF SOIL at Loughborough Farm. They need to move some massive planters full of soil literally about 2 feet. Soil is heavy. Very very heavy. So we need to dig it from one bag to another. Rose was part of the group who made headway a few weeks ago and this time she was back for revenge! She totally smashed it in a neat little team of three, entirely emptying one bag into another before heading off to do some weeding. Katie, Beth, Nelly, Jim and John took on the fearsome task of a massive, super compacted bag. After a seemingly endless dig and shovel, they had still not transferred all of the soil. HOW IS THERE SO MUCH SOIL? Still, a top effort and a job well done by all.

Group 3 was led by James and John. They headed 2.5km down to Kennington Park and the lovely Bee Urban project led by Barnaby. There were three teams, one on watering, one on weeding and one turning compost. Dee also got handy with a saw DANGER KLAXON John did some fitness with them and everyone got tired.

And with that we all returned home and went to the pub, where we valiantly stayed outside because it's August even though we were all freezing. That's the GoodGym spirit!