A brilliant 36 runners met up tonight in Wandsworth to lend a hand at a local community garden, do an intense fitness session and get a run in - what better way to spend a Monday evening?

** Welcome to the group Mia, Bethany and Sandra - give them a cheer, GoodGym!**

• Don't forget to look out for the Fareshare, a food poverty charity, and GoodGym community missions like this one happening in Wimbledon

• Well done to Oliver for doing the Valencia half marathon, and to Emily and Stephen for getting out at the league races to cross country on Saturday. Great running!

• Lovely to see so many of you from different areas coming along to visit us in Wandsworth - everyone is always super welcome here!

After a warm up outside where we shared our middle names (except for the three of us who didn't have one...jealous!) we set of for Christchurch community garden. This space for local people has recently started to be looked after by a friends group. After some antisocial behaviour making it less than welcoming they wanted to make it a garden for everybody. Currently they have a big old leafy problem that needed some attention from GoodGym!

It was a short run down there so we took it at a good clip, stopping only to do some toe taps and one legged lunges on the way. We found Nigel, a memebr of the Friends group, waiting for us with tools, gloves and bin bags and we set to it.

After promising it wouldn't be too big a job I had to make my apologies, as it turned out to be a bigger task than anticipated, but essential as the leaves are stopping the grass and other plants growing as well as being a slippy hazard for people using the garden. We got stuck straight in piling the leaves into bags, raking, sweeping and using some interesting stick-based techniques. It worked though, and just half an hour later we had collected an impressive 53 bags! Many hands really do make light work....

After piling up the bags ready for collecting, we nipped over to the football pitches to do our work out, which tonight was tabata. This tough session is divided up into 20 second segments with 10 seconds recovery and is a very efficient workout in a short amount of time. We smashed out two rounds of 4 minutes, featuring power lunges and squats, mountain climbers, tuck jumps and more in cardio blasts. All that was left was a run back to base, that tough old hill, and a few stretches. Great work everybody! Next week we will be spreading the word about a free Christmas lunch for the elderly in Battersea so that as few people as possible are alone on the day itself. Until then, run happy!

After a drizzly old day in Wandsworth, it was great to see GoodGym runners bringing the cheer to our Monday group run last night!

• It was the first group run for Beth, Rob, Ellen and Ariane - give them a cheer for being ace!

• On 21st September we are having GoodGym's first ever #SuperSaturday! We will be attempting to have the biggest number of community missions happening across the UK than ever before. There will be a mission going on in every area, and in Wandsworth we will be going to help create a learning space at a Tooting School. You can sign up here to get involved.

After a warm up where we did some coordination and heart raising exercises, we set off for the Kambala estate to do various jobs for the Kambala Cares. This great project is run by residents to improve the life for local people, has strong links in the community and supports local businesses, charitable organisations and community projects to benefit and people in the area. They are a non-profit organisation, run solely by volunteers, and led by Donna who met us after a 2km run with various jobs to do.

While Hanna's team got involved sorting the plants in the secret garden and were soon surrounded by wafts of lavender from the herb beds, the second team were hard at work sweeping and litter picking in the streets around the estate - a slightly less fragrant task given the dog poop - while the third group got stuck into weeding the raised beds. As well as lots of weeds and rubbish, they also discovered other treasure, including a whole bike wheel!

After 40 minutes of hard work we downed tools and headed over to the local park to do fitness. In the spirit of some much needed democracy at the moment, we took a vote between a speed and pace session or a core blast. It was abs that one (just) so we got straight on with sets of 45 seconds ab exercises with a 15 second break in between them, and finishing off with a plank minute. It was hard work, but given how much a strong core benefits your running form and protects against injuries, is an important part of our training. Great effort everybody!

Next week we have a special run as part of the UK wide celebrations for GoodGym's 10th birthday. We've got a great task at a Balham based charity building cots for disadvantaged families, then we'll be having a social after the run. Go on, sign up here to do good and have even more fun than usual!

What a start to the week, perfect weather, great company and a tonne of hard work completed in the name of GoodGym!!

3 new runners joined us this evening and I’d like to offer a huge GoodGym Wandsworth welcome to Ellen, Kimberley and Melanie, go ahead and give them a cheer

NEWS

There's lots going on at GoodGym through August, here’s a recap of last nights news

• The GoodGym Olympics are on Saturday 3rd August and team Wandsworth are aiming to better last year's silver medal. Whether you’re competing or would like to come down and support, it would be great to have as many GG Wandsworth faces there as possible, details here

• For those that cannot make it to the GG Olympics, there is an Olympics National Race which you can get involved in via Strava, all details for getting involved are here

• Next Monday, 5th August is GoodGym Wandsworth’s 3rd Birthday and we’ll be celebrating after next week’s group run with a picnic on Clapham Common

• Anyone looking for a race? The next GoodGym race team event is the Bath 2 Tunnels race which is coming up on the 18th August. The race also coincides with the GG West Summer party, details and sign up here

• 2 new areas will be joining the GG family in August. Exeter starts on Tuesday 20th August and Trafford on Wednesday 21st August

• If anyone has any tales of inspiration from Team GB athletes and would like to share them, please email rebecca@goodgym.org and tell us who inspired you the most and why

DO GOOD

This week’s task was helping at a local charity called Leonard Cheshire Disability, who work to support individuals to live, learn and work independently whatever their ability

So, with building work in progress outside BAC our usual warm up area was unavailable. We relocated to a small car park opposite and went though some low impact warm up drills. Our warm up was cut slightly short when we were interrupted by a slightly disgruntled neighbour who took exception to us being there. With that we swiftly set off for the first leg of our run. We covered the first 1.5km of the night in good time and even managed some wall squats along the way

On arrival we headed to the back entrance of the centre and were greeted by a huge teddy bear guarding the gate. Once inside, our tasks included washing the mobility buses, weeding the car park area, cleaning the windows, a general tidy of the garden area, clearing plant pots at the front of the building and replacing old with new plants. We quickly split into 5 smaller groups and 40 mins later we’d satisfyingly ticked every item off our task list, leaving the buses gleaming, the garden raked and tidy, the new plants potted, the front area weeded and windows shining. Great work everyone!

GET FIT

After a quick tidy up, we jogged a short 0.5km distance over to Battersea Park, where we completed our fitness session.

This week’s fitness required 3 teams, each working through either a run, a core exercise and a body weight exercise then rotation through each of the 3 stations to complete a round. The soundtrack for our workout was provided by some quite interesting park users and 5 rounds and 15 sets later, all that was left was our 2km journey back to BAC, with a final set of wall/fence squats on the way

The night was capped off with a sprint up our favourite hill and Strava segment. Well done to everyone for that final push at the end and great work on the technical running points!

So, we completed our tasks, ran a total distance of 4km, completed a tough fitness session and a hill sprint. Amazing work all round team Wandsworth!!

COMING UP

Next week we head to the Salvation Army in Balham, to help with various tasks, as well as our 3rd birthday celebrations which is not to be missed, sign up here

Have a great week and thank you for all you hard work!

Happy Running!!

It was GoodGym Monday Magic last night in Wandsworth as 48 runners covered just under 5km, helped out at a residential home for hearing impaired, talked about our happy places and did a mexican squat wave to the sound of bagpipes!

A big GoodGym Wandsworth welcome to all our first time runners tonight - put your hands together for:

• Ali, Joanna, Rachael, Steve and Tal!

The night began with some bits of news, including

• Cheering Helen after her epic 80 mile night ride from London to Eastbourne and still found it in her legs to come along to GoodGym!

• And all the parkrunners smashing that 5k across the city

• Fancy a lovely trail run in a National Trust park? Then check out this event in Morden Hall Park this Saturday. It's even free!

• If you fancy a free timed 10k from Chiswick Bridge, then check out this race which is held every last Sunday of the month. There are even spot prizes!

We then crowded into the nearby carpark to do our warm up while our normal area is having something complicated done to it, and got our heart rates up ready for the run ahead. We also had a discussion about our happy places - there are a lot of nature lovers among you - the forest, by water, the beach and gardens were very popular. As were beds, Tooting Lido and the pub!

After a very warm run to Harding House, a specialist care home in Wandsworth that provides 24-hour support to deaf and/or deafblind men and women over the age of 18. The people they support have a range of diverse and sometimes complex needs, including learning and physical disabilities, mental ill-health and low emotional confidence, and they have a big garden to enjoy which was looking a bit overgrown.

With such a huge number of us, we got started with all the jobs including cutting back bushes, weeding, sorting sheds and watering, and it didn't take long for the place to look a lot more welcoming. So after 25 minutes of work, we waved goodbye and headed over to Wandsworth Common for our fitness session.

Because it was sunny, and I'm not going to see your lovely faces for a couple of weeks, it was running games week, which started off with a truly epic game of British Bulldog. It was good natured and gentle but very real carnage out there on that common, which saw a few individuals battle it through to the final stage with Alexander M very almost making it to the finish line! Next up was Squat Squat Goose, with Matt valiantly sprinting but just missing his spot not once but twice! Finally we attempted a huge multiplying group squat which finished in an enormous squatting mexican wave - check out the video here! It was doing good and having fun from start to finish...

Next week run leader Chris is leading you guys down to wash mobility buses and other jobs at the brilliant Leonard Cheshire disability charity. Sign up here to get your weekly dose of doing good and getting fit! I'm looking forward to getting back to you in a couple of weeks time. Until then, have fun, do good and run happy everyone!