What a way to kick off National Volunteering Week, with a massive 42 runners meeting up to sprinkle some good over Wandsworth - covering 6k and a knocking out a core blast in the process!

We had some excellent new faces join us for the first time this week. Please put your hands together and give a massive welcome to Tom, Chris, Gaby, Rhoanna, Chris and Katie! Also lovely to see Catriona from Hammersmith doing a nice bit of GG tourism at her first Wandsworth group run.

Well done to all those amazing people, including Beth, Helen, Jessie, Paul and Luke who turned up for their second run of the day, after going to the Mayor's Run to Do Good at City Hall earlier that day. Nice work!

Also don't forget that we have the monthly GoodGym social on Thursday in Farringdon - your chance to catch up on all the GG news, meet up with other GGers and see who won that all important Pun of the Month. And there's no need to wear your kit!

After all that cheering and news, we headed outside to do our warm up, increasing the level of work incrementally until we were breathing more heavily and our heart rates were up. We had a quick discussion on our fav films - Gladiator, Bridget Jones and even the Lion King all got a mention, before setting off to our task with Helen and Emily kindly backmarking.

Three kilometres later we arrived at the Rose Community Clubroom, a lovely community centre for local residents - and with a beaut view of the power station. It hosts music lessons for local kids, is home to a choir and other groups, and even has an outside pizza oven and barbeque which the neighbours can use. Waiting for us with brooms and cleaning equipment was Glenn, who manages the place, and we soon got into cleaning, weeding, sorting and shifting rubbish and outside furniture. Half an hour later the place was looking great, and we were rewarded with chocolate treats and water. Lucky us! Waving goodbye to Glenn we set off for a short run to the beautiful Battersea Park for our workout.

We started our fitness session with a plank race which engaged our cores to the max, before moving on to some tough but effective conditioning exercises including side planks switches, frog jumps, low squats and wide leg jumps. Then Chi took over for a serious abs blast designed to give us a core of steel. It featured scissor kicks, leg holds and ankle touches and put us all through our paces. Thanks Chi!

With a 3k run still ahead of us we set off back to the BAC, taking on that last hill with some real power. Next week we have got a cracking task finishing off the decorating of a lovely community café in a Wandsworth youth centre - you can sign up for it here. Expect more fun, more fitness and a lovely sense of having done some real good. Well done team!

It was a rainy old night in Wandsworth last night, but we had lots of great news to cheer us right up.

The first thing to put a smile on our faces was two lovely new runners joining us for their very first group run. Put your hands together for Oliver and for Jacqueline!

If you were inspired by the heroics of David and Rachael who both ran the London Marathon at the end of April, then now is your chance to do something about it! The VLM ballot is officially open so even if you're just toying with the idea of tackling the greatest race on earth then why not enter and see what happens?

Fresh off the back of this endeavour, Rachael showed there was no stopping her, and hit her giant 50th good deed last night - that's 50 times she has made Wandsworth a better place. Go Rachael!

If all that cheering has made you thirsty, then why not pop down to this month's GoodGym social which will take place in Penge on Thursday from 6:30pm. It's a great way to catch up with the GG news and meet other GGers from the different areas.

Last night we had not one, but two tasks for your delectation and pleasure - finishing up the cleaning ready for a festival focussed on mental health, and clearing a communal garden at local sheltered housing. After we warmed up - finding out at the same time what was the greatest biscuit (it was chocolate hobnobs of course) -we set off in one big group down to our first task. While Team One got stuck in with the cleaning, Team Two nipped down to the garden to meet Anthony and start digging.

This small but productive garden is for the residents, and is looked after by the lovely Anthony who has recently had surgery so needs a quick hand maintaining the site. It was flourishing with rhubarb, dill and gooseberries, which we carefully dug around, before Hannah found hidden treasure in the shape of four little potatoes. Score!

Job done we met up with Team One, who has been carefully scrubbing sinks and floors for the Sound Minds charity, and got stuck into our fitness session. We kicked off with squat fencing in a battle royale of competitions. It was a nailbiting tournament which came down to two final contenders - Matthew and Dave, our super visitor from Southwark. It was a close fought thing, but it was Dave who emerged victorious, and Matthew's supporters were fined with 10 burpees. We then partnered up, with one GGer giving the other fiendish/kind drills to do while they sprinted. You lot are tough!

After that it was a gentle trot back to the BAC, and a reminder that next week is bank holiday but we most definitely will be running, so sign up here for bank holiday fun and social!

All that is left is to bid our friend Nick a tearful goodbye as he leaves us for a new job overseas. We'll miss his friendly smile and awesome hair - thanks for all the laughs and the good deeds Nick!

It was a bright, bright, bright, bright sun-shining day in Wandsworth this evening and we made it evening brighter by using our runs to do some good in the local community this evening.

Before we set off we had a big round of applause for our new runners Jamie and Eve-Marie who joined us for their first ever GoodGym group runs this evening - give them a cheer Wandsworth. We also gave David a huge series of congratulations for completing the London Marathon YESTERDAY, and still making it to the run this evening - what a man! His account of the Marathon was something along the lines of : very warm, but a fantastic way to experience what London is all about, plus the support from spectators was great. We heard that the GoodGym support was immense and that everyone had a fab day out cheering - so well done to all those that supported too!

We had just a short run down to the task, for an arts for mental health charity called Sound Minds, however we had been told there was a lot to do, so we set off quickly and after just over 1 km we arrived to meet Paul. Paul told us all about the charity and the project we were helping with before assigning us to different tasks. They are setting up a space for use as a festival to showcase the arts for mental health and all that Sound Minds do - there will be bands playing in there, arts exhibitions, and lots of other great projects! Before this space can be used, they needed us to help clear it all out.

The Task: We split into groups to tackle different rooms and tasks to try and get done as much as we could in 45 mins. Some were cleaning windows inside and out, one group took on the basins in the bathroom (check out the comparison pics!), we formed a human chain to move leftover building materials down to the basement, a few people removed blu tac from the walls before giving the walls a good clean, plus we had people sweeping and hoovering! There was a LOT to do, but many hands make light work and we achieved a lot in just a short space of time.

Once the 45 mins was up, and the place was sparkling, we left Paul with a venue smelling of every cleaning product under the sun, and made our way back to base. Right at the end of the run we stopped briefly to go over some tips for hill sprints, such as an upright posture, landing with the front section of your foot, and pumping your arms. This quick chat was followed by a superb hill sprint, up our favourite hill, by everyone. Great work team!

We finished the evening with some much needed stretches.

Thanks for having me Wandsworth - Ana will be back next week - so come along to hear all about her holiday, and I'm sure she will have a fun fitness session up her sleeve!