We had lots of lovely new people this evening and indeed lots of lovely regulars, amounting to over 40 human beans that were kicking off their December in style with a monster GoodGym Lambeth session helping out our old friends at Vauxhall Foodbank. It's a 3.5km run each way and on arrival Alice had some Christmas tunes and mince pies waiting for us - nice!

The Foodbank helps families and individuals facing short term crisis. Unfortunately the number of people relying on foodbanks in the UK is rising and the festive season is also a time when many people are in additional need. This means it's a busy time for the staff and volunteers, so our help was needed to sort out their bumper supermarket collections. You may have been given a list at your local supermarket and asked to buy a tin of something to donate to your local foodbank. Vauxhall is no different and there were crates and crates of food to sort out into categories. This time there was an additional complication of also separating by use by date. It took a little while to get the system set up but then we were really cooking on gas.

Now we're really cooking on gas! Said Freyja, who was in charge of proceedings

Katie took half the group outside to do some beautiful fitness that everyone LOVED and one the crates started filling up it was time to get weighing. We ran back in three groups at three speeds, so everyone could get a comfortable pace going. As the 'in a hurry' group were getting ready to leave ANOTHER load of donations were delivered. So the team also helped to get these into the building.

Alice did her sums and it turns out we sorted nearly ONE TONNE of food, which was quite amazing. On return to base, we enjoyed our last Bake Off treats - Freyja's delish pistachio and chocolate cake. YUM!

Merry Christmas Vauxhall Foodbank - we love coming to visit you but at the same time, we hope that maybe next year there won't be so much need for your services. Now that's a Christmas wish we can all get behind.

For the KCL This Girl Can week, we had a 4.5km women-only run to the Fawcett Society to help them after their AGM, and to sort out donations they had collected for another charity, Red Box Project.

We started our evening with a warm up and everyone declaring what they liked most about being a woman. With answers ranging from "having a great reason to curl up on the sofa and eat ice cream" to "being strong and powerful" to "absolutely everything", we set off in good spirits along the river down to Vauxhall. We met Ben from the Fawcett Society, the UK's leading charity campaigning for gender equality and women's rights. He told us a bit about their charity, and also about their work with the Red Box Project.

After our introduction he took us up to their office where they had boxes of equipment leftover from their AGM that needed moving down to the basement (the perfect task for our strong women!), sanitary products that needed sorting so they could be sent to the Red Box Project for distribution to schools, and some other bits leftover from their AGM that needed sorting through. We quickly got to work and were finished with the tasks in no time - many hands make light work!

We took a few flyers about the Fawcett Society with us, and on our way back we stopped off at the busy Southbank Christmas Market and spread the word about all the great things the charity are campaigning for, handing out flyers to the public. Our evening wasn't done there though! The task might have been completed, but we still had a fitness session to get done. We did a quick leg blast, complete with jumping squats, power lunges and frog jumps, followed by some planking on the Southbank whilst admiring the Christmas lights.

The Fawcett Society have some London Landmarks Half-marathon places left, so if you'd like to do some fundraising for them, then get in touch and I will put you in contact with Ben!

This was a great celebration of women in sport, and supporting some fantastic charities in the process!