As group ones go, this one was pretty special! Read on to find out why this is one session we won't forget in a hurry...

It was our first group session of 2023 - welcome back everybody! To kick off another year of doing good and getting fit, we started with a balance-based warm up and a quick round up of all our New Year's Resolutions. There were some really good ones in there including stretching more, getting stronger, running 500 miles over the year, and going o more holidays. All excellent choices!

It was brilliant to welcome back some faces we hadn't seen in a little while, and to have Sarah join her first group run - give her a cheer!

Our job for the evening was at a new location - and what a location it was! With a beautiful view over Battersea as our backdrop, our task was to empty two huge raised beds at St Mary's School so they could create a climate change garden.

The challenge: the beds were at the top of the terrace, which did mean we had a lovely panorama of the city skyline at night, but also meant carrying soil down a long flight of stairs. The excellent news: there was a slide! Yes, in a GoodGym Wandsworth first we could transport ourselves and our big bags of soil down a massive, winding slide.

Before long we were digging away as quickly as we could to get the bags filled and have our turn. There were many varied techniques, from Steph who managed to cultivate an elegant swoosh to land perfectly, to Tim who somehow managed to make it down seemingly on foot! There were also a couple of incidents of overshooting the end of the slide, but perhaps best not to mention that! We finally discovered we could in fact send the bags down by themselves without them slipping, so next week when we return to finish off the beds, we're prepared for a seamless, efficient task.

Don't forget that we're just kicking off the January challenge. Every January, we challenge ourselves to run, walk and cycle as far as we can and to complete as many good deeds as possible. In January 2022 we managed a huge 4173 good deeds and travelled over 85,000km together, and this year we’ve got even bigger targets in mind - we're aiming for a whopping 5,000 good deeds and 10,000km overall. You can help us get there! So far Wandsworth has racked up 31 good deeds, and 126 kilometres run, but we have set our own area goal at 100 good deeds and 1200 km so we can't afford to rest on our laurels! I can't wait to see what we can achieve.

Next week we're going back to hopefully finish off the job - hope to see you there.

Happy new year GoodGym!