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!

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!