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!

Week 49! With one week until our birthday, 15 GG-ers gathered at the Phoenix to run 6km for Stephen's House and Gardens.

We were joined by GG newbie Ray – give him a cheer!

This week's task was organised by Paul, who volunteers with Stephen's House and Gardens. He lead us to the task, for which we flyered along the way, and collected the tools ready for us to use.

It was a real speedy run tonight, with the front group running around a 5 min/km and the back group running 5.30 min/km.

We were quick to work to, pulling all the weeds from around the tree – and litter picking the area – all in 20 minutes. Leaving plenty of time for Paul to take us on a quick tour of the grounds. We're very lucky in Barnet with all the lush green spaces we get to run through. Not seen anything like it in any of the other boroughs I've run in!

We had a quick play on some of the equipment, which we incorporated into a circuit, before the park closed. Paul then lead us home, with Freya my trusty back-marker.

Next week is our birthday. Tell your friends, bring biscuits, sign up here. Let's try and get as many people along as possible!

Props to Paul for this week's pun.

This week's Barnet Biscuit was some kind of chocolate creme filled chocolate sandwhich

29 hot Hackney GoodGymers ran over 8k to a new project for the group a Well Being garden to help service users dealing with diabetes.

A steamy Hackney evening brought out a great turnout to set our PB total distance for a group run.

Leaving the Bakehouse at super speed with Peter leading strong a recce crew up to Stamford Hill. While the rest of the squad kept a strong a consistent tempo over the 4 and a bit Kilometres.

We met Rose who who manages the house to support her service users who are battling with diabetes. We got stuck straight into the overgrown garden cutting, hacking, weeding, digging to great effect!!

Making amazing progress with limited tools, everyone put in a top shift in 40 minutes of non stop action! We had a couple of slight pauses to rehydrate and refuel on some lovely water melon 🍉!

We made great progress and Rose will sort out some more gloves and tools for our next visit in 2 weeks!

This looks like being an amazing project where we can make a huge difference taking an overgrown waste land into a productive space to grown herbs and plants as well as providing garden therapy for the service users.

Leaving in phases so we could tidy and maximise our working and running time.

While Rich and Phil chased us down with some impressive running the Sexy crew kept a solid tempo to finish off a great run. We were soon met by the rest of the speedy runners after a top all round session!!

Be great to have you all along next week when we continue our summer season helping Bruce the Hackney Park Ranger!

Don't forget about the last couple of Fitness 4 All sessions meeting at Bethnal Green tube at 6:45 on Thursday's June.

We (Phil) have started a Hackney WhatsApp group if you would like join it to hear about socials, group run info, races, parkrun get togethers or anything send me your number and I will add you to the group or see Phil next week!!

Talking of next week we are heading out after the group run for a drink!! Be great to have you along!!

Smooth Running

Joel

22 brilliant runnners brave the storms to complete TWO tasks in Lambeth

It was a typical June Tuesday - gale force winds and torrential rain. This can only mean one thing: there's work to be done of the gardening varierty.

After a lovely warm up involving drama-based games from John the ACTOR, we headed off in two groups.

Team 1 went to a nearby estate that Loughborough Junction Farm have an outreach programme at. We wiggled our way in to a fantastic allotment space. They needed a path digging from the back to the gates and loads of woodchip spreading over the path. We got to work and managed to finish the whole pile of woodchip and spread it across the whole path. It looked great!

Team 2 headed over to Clapham Common and the friendly Bandstand Beds. We have been clearing an area between the fence and a shipping container over the last few visits. This time the end was reached and a new storage container got put down by a smiling Rich and George - apparently this container used to carry art to the Tate Modern - ONLY THE BEST FOR CLAPHAM COMMON!

With a return to base and some stretches, we all went home to dry off, happy with an excellent and productive evening.