A cracking team of 35 runners met last night to tackle a new task, and take on a tough time trial. What a way to spend a Monday evening.

It all started at the BAC, where we first welcomed some lovely new runners in the shape of Helen, Tessa and Emma - give these GoodGymers a big cheer, everybody!

We also had a fantastic week of running to celebrate. Well done to - deep breath - Paul and Chris, who both smashed the Hampton Court Half yesterday, Helen, Emily, Paul, Davinder, Morag, Luke, Jessie and John who all spent a very romantic Valentine's Day racing either 5k or 10k (with all the ladies recording PBs!), to Rachel, who ran a very solid time in a half marathon on Sunday, as did Brian in the Wokingham half. Fantastic racing guys, you really are doing yourselves and GoodGym a credit.

We also had a special milestone tonight - one that we shall celebrate properly next week. A massive congratulations to the lovely Alyx who ran her 100th good deed last night, and got her wings. What a star.

We kicked off the run with a warm up and went round the group finding out what we each would take as our inanimate luxury to a desert island. Only one of us would pack our running shoes (GUYS!), but musical instruments were top of the list, followed by a lifetime supply of chocolate, wine, gin and books. Sounds rather lovely.

Our task tonight was just over a mile away, at the Leonard Cheshire centre. This amazing charity supports disabled people in the community, helping them to fulfil their potential and live the lives they choose. It is of invaluable support to local people, offering the opportunity to live independently, to contribute and participate fully in society.

We arrived after a speedy run down there, and immediately divided up into groups of three to tackle the list of jobs. They included several painting tasks, rubbish clearing, garden sorting and washing windows, and after a few minutes organising ourselves we jumped to it.

Just under an hour later we were done, and with a light decoration of red paint (nicely matching our GG tshirts) we jogged over to Battersea Park to do our fitness session. It was a tough one tonight, but everybody gave it their all. We marked out the route of a nice flat time trial, and talked about a few technical points to help us run efficiently. The idea of pushing yourself on the same time trial regularly is that you can get yourself a nice benchmark, and then monitor your progress effectively. Speed training is also a fantastic way to improve your running, practice pacing and get fitter.

Everybody smashed the run, all crossing the line in very respectable times indeed. Keep those arms pumping, people! Don't forget, it's all about the pocket to socket...

A short run back and that hill , and all that as left to round off another great Monday was a quick stretch. Sign up for some more GG fun, same time, same place next week. Nice one, team.

The start of the week, much like Pancake Day, just creped up on us - but in Wandsworth that is the best day of the week! And it was made even better last night at our GoodGym run with some lovely GG tourism from Barnet, Lewisham and Lambeth and with four excellent runners making their GoodGym debut! Welcome to the gang Halina, Vanessa and Katherine. Give them a cheer, team!

We also had ace Anji, trainer for the newest GoodGym area, Newcastle, choose Wandsworth for her first every GoodGym run which is pretty excellent. Watch this space for news from our most northerly group!

It was a big well done for David, who ran his way to a new half marathon PB in Worthing at the weekend, and we had a fantastic milestone to celebrate as Matthew officially got his wings with his 100th good deed. Way to go!

If you needed any more inspiration after all that running and do gooding news, we had Stephen from Lewisham share his inspirational story, telling us how he has gone from being new to London and able to run for five minutes, to completing two marathons and making a whole new group of good friends. Lovely stuff!

Heading outside for our warm up we marked Pancake Day by naming our favourite toppings. Nutella hit the top spot, with the classic lemon and sugar following not far behind, with more exotic ingredients including bacon and maple syrup and apricot jam.

Hungrier, we set off for our run, which was probably one of the shortest ever at only half a mile. Our task tonight was at Providence House, an amazing youth club which aims to support young people as individuals, to provide a safe and nurturing environment and is open to everybody without discrimination or judgment. If you want to get more involved with this brilliant organisation by volunteering more or in any other way, they are always looking for help so drop the lovely Nina a note at Nina.providencehouse@gmail.com. For last night though, our job was to give the place a massive clean. The incredibly organised Nina had prepared an extensive list of jobs which included mopping and sweeping allt he halls, cleaning up outside, giving the kitchen and media room a good seeing to, and clearing a cupboard for a new fridge which will store food that would otherwise be wasted. Phew!

We were kindly loaned the use of the sports hall for our fitness session and so avoided the cold and mud (this time!), and so as soon as we had finished all the jobs, we got stuck into a mammoth circuits session followed by a few core exercises thrown in for good measure. Waving goodbye to Providence House we could have called it a night there, but instead decided to smash out a few hill reps, concentrating on a couple of technical form points. That was us well and truly done, but not with out a few stretches. All the fun must have gone to my head as I gave you a bit of misinformation for next week - we're not actually going to a school, but to a disability centre to help sort out their outside areas and wash windows. You'll still need your head torches, so bring them along if you can and sign up here. Enjoy those pancakes, people!

oh well hello there...you all really decided that February was where you wanted to start the year off! A massive FIFTY SIX of you turned up to the Square Pig in Holborn...good job I booked that area for...er...thirty! Anyway, what I really mean to say is thank you, not worth doing this without you all :)

To the report...

Heroes

• Topping the charts for January, like the keen bean we know she is Egg Cameron managed 25 good deeds last month - what a legend! Check out the rest of the heroes here or on the photo above!

• People are amazing and January was a month for amazing people. 28 earned their black tshirts for 50 good deeds and 5 earned their wings for 100 good deeds. Give these lot a cheer: Clo, Michael (apologies to Michael who missed a shout out on the night!), Sarah, Sarah K, Stephen! Finally we had a few who reached even bigger milestones - Matt, Steph and Adele who hit 200 good deeds and Paul Becker who passed 300!!! Amazing - congrats and so much respect to you all!

• Finally the area heroes! So we've got a bit of an issue as I've realised that Bristol have a Saturday run that mean they're always topping the attendance charts...well done those areas that have beaten them previously. I may look into rectifying this or just let it be more even impetus for you to get the runners to your areas! So congrats to GG Bristol with 313 attendances in January and congrats to GG Southwark who had a whopping 48 new runners in January - amazing!

January Challenge

• So results are in - we had two challenges: 5000 good deeds and 50,000km. We did amazingly well and everyone deserves a huge pat on the back. Distance we totally smashed with a recorded 68,218km, we probably ran more as many of you don't use run trackers - utterly incredible - that's further than London to Sydney and back twice! Deeds, well we fell a little short recording 4640 but it's bigger than any other month we've had before and massively bigger. Well done all of you and keep it up!

• In the divisional competition you can see how you did here but congrats to GG Bristol who had the most good deeds overall with 382 and GG Lewisham who topped distances with 4363km. Well done all!

(At time of social the figures were correct)

News

• The biggest news from January surrounded someone for whom there are frankly no superlatives left. I don't really know what to type but show some love to Beth Hoskins who last month was recognised by the Prime Minister as a Point of Light. Amazing! Congrats and can you stop it now ;) only joking keep doing what you're doing - you're an inspiration to us all.

• We have some new trainer announcements - from the 12th February Pritesh Mistry(yes that is me) will be leading GG Brent and Laura Williams takes over at GG Tower Hamlets. From 14th February Lucy Jeczalik takes over at GG Southwark. Go support them when you can (mainly me please)!

• We'll have new areas opening in Waltham Forest, Kingston, Liverpool, Newcastle and Portsmouth - do let people you know in those areas about how awesome GG is and how they can and should get involved.

Races

Well it was a race themed social but it probably didn't feel like we talked races that much. I know that lots of you know about them but just an FYI on the Big Six and Europe trip below. I'll continue to bring the races QR code sheet to the social so you can scan and find out more then.

• Colchester Half Marathon - 25 March

• Great Welsh Half and Full Marathon - 15 April

• Euro Trip - Bucharest - 12 - 15 May

• ** Lakeland Trails** - 03 June

• WSR East Farm - 25 - 27 August

• Rutland Marathon - 16 September

• Yorkshire Marathon - 14 October

Please note that all races offer options on distances aside from Colchester which is a half marathon only. Click through for details.

• Don't forget GoodGym Race Team. The UKA affiliated run club - join up before 31st March to maximise your membership. It's £25 for the year and you get a GG running singlet, £2 off at all races and in London you can enter the cross country running team too!

Guest Speaker

Big big thank you to Stephen Corry who spoke so passionately about how GG Lewisham had grown to be a second family to him after his move from Ireland and how he's gone from no races ever to running four marathons this year! Amazing. I hear on the grapevine that he'll be writing an article based on the speech for the GoodGym websites. Keep an eye out on the stories page for that!

Interational Pun of the Month...and YEAR!!!

What can I say - the competition grows stronger and stronger, the voting is more and more frenzied and you lot don't have complain a lot about things still! Anyway... here we go... It was a strong field this month, 5 of the 10 puns hit double figures for votes but... taking it... with 20 out of 101 votes, the winner... of Internationa Pun of the Month for January is...

Rake me up before you go go from GG Wandsworth

Congrats to GG Wandsworth - that is three months on the bounce - wow! Time for us to up our game, or vote more tactically...

Now to International Pun of the Year... this was the crème de la crème of 2017, twelve absolute monsters...the winner, you just can't keep a good area down... but taking it by one from March with 11 out of 75 votes, 2017s pun to rule all puns is...

Adjustin' Timber-ache from GG Bristol

Well done GG Bristol - that was a monster!

The reports aren't getting any shorter are they? Oh well, thanks as ever to all of you that vote and come along and are involved - there'd be no social without you. Thanks for humouring me with the QR codes, I'll bring both pun and races along next month where hopefully you'll have more room to check them out!

I'm pleased to announce that we now have a full line-up of socials for this year - check the info in the photos. Next Month we are back on tour, I'm delighted to say that GG Greenwich are hosting, 8th March at the Greenwich Tavern from 6.30pm... you can find all the details here. Hope to see plenty of you there!

Thanks so much and as ever do send me any feedback (other than "get a bigger room")!

Cheers, Pritesh

p.s. Thanks, as ever, to John for additional photos.

p.p.s. Don't forget the unofficial goodgym facebook group - we chat all things running, socials and everything else you might expect from the burgeoning GoodGym community. You can join here but please don't forget to answer the question about your area or we won't accept you!

It was a freezing night in Wandsworth yesterday, but still 29 runners turned up to clear a rubbish-strewn area next to a beautiful community garden, run over 5k, tackle a fitness session, and wave goodbye to one of our longest-running members, Jack.

But first, some much-deserved cheering. Hello and welcome to Emily who joined us for her very first run! Great stuff. Well done to Paul 'the machine' Gray who continued his racing streak at the Olympic Park, to Tom and Emily who both smashed London races, and to Brian, who did a 10k in Marrakesh - amazing!

We had a quick reminder that this month's GoodGym social is happening in Holborn on Thursday at 6:30 (see you there I hope!), before heading outside to warm up.

During some much needed exercises to get our temperature up, we honoured our outgoing task force member Jack, by listing our favourite things about him. By far his friendliness and lovely smile topped our Jack-list, with his love of a party and dance move of choice also making the cut. Our alternative poll question was to find out what we'd win medals for if our chosen activity was an Olympic sport. It would be golds across the board for procrastinating, sitting on the sofa, playing Temple Run on our phones and slamdunking things in the litter bins. All very useful skills, team.

Our run tonight was to Paradise Cooperative garden, an amazing space just outside Wandsworth prison. It was once an overgrown and derelict site but volunteers have turned it into a gorgeous farm used for education, participation and bringing the community together (just don't ask about the pigs!). Sadly, next to this beautiful space is a much-neglected car park for families visiting people in the prison opposite, so our job tonight was to clear it of litter.

Armed with binbags, litter pickers and gloves, we set to work, finding treasures such as handcuffs, a fiver and an old mattress. Before long the space was clear, so we set off to do our fitness session in Spencer Park.

Dividing up into groups of five, we tackled sprints, side planks, plank high fives, squats, skaters and so much more. That didn't stop us making good time on the run back. Perhaps we just wanted to get out of the cold, perhaps it was the thought of drinks at the bar for Jack's farewell (sniff sniff), but before we knew it was time to stretch and get in the warmth of the BAC. Great work everyone, same again next week?

What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?

This was the question we asked ourselves during our warm up last night, and we got some real corkers. Some were wise - never judge yourself by others' standards, always try your best, smile at everybody, be kind, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all, regret nothing. Some were more practical - always wear underwear, pay your TV licence by direct debit and never eat yellow snow. Words to live by. Perhaps the best was from Paul, who advises us all to come to GoodGym.

Before that we had a great start to the evening welcoming Alex, Phoebe, Andy, Phoebe, Hannah and Bronwen. Great to have you run with us - give them a cheer GoodGym!

It had been a fabulous weekend of running from the Wandsworth crew. Put your hands together for Paul, Hannah, Emily and Daniel who all took on a 10k race in Hyde Park, while Morgan and Amy smashed the hilly Crystal Palace 10k. Loads of you took on missions to make other peoples' lives better, while parkruns were also really well attended. If you're new to parkrun they are free, timed 5k runs on Saturday morning at 9am across the country. Great for improving those times and fitness, and you'll always see a GoodGymer there!

Our task tonight was at Harding House, a residential home for deaf people with learning difficulties in Wandsworth. They have a beautiful big garden for the residents to enjoy, but it needed a bit of love. So after 1.7kms of quick running we found ourselves with spades, forks, bin bags and gloves, ready to tackle the space. After half an hour of hard work the place was looking much tidier, with the beds dug over, weeds eliminated, tiny fences restored and patio swept.

Just across the road Wandsworth common was the perfect spot for our fitness session. Tonight we were taking on Tabata, a series of hard exercises for 20 seconds a time, with a 10 second rest in between each set. The idea with this workout is that intense exercise over a short period of time increases your heart and metabolic rate so your body continues to burn fat after you've stopped working, it ups your aerobic endurance and is an efficient session if you've only got a short window of time. It was certainly tough, with frog jumps, side planks, mountain climbers and lunges featuring heavily. But 12 minutes later we were done, with only a short run home left ahead of us.

Finishing off the night with our Wandsworth tunnel of joy, we stretched it out and discussed our mission this weekend (which is open to everyone, whether or not you're mission verified). Next week we've got more doing good and getting fit, so sign up here!

We're over half way through our January challenge team, and we've still got a way to go - although we're smashing the distance, with 118 out of 241 good deeds done, we're just under half way there. If you needed any more encouragement to get out there and do good, then this is it! Also, if you have any friends who are interested in getting into GoodGym, but not sure what it's all about, then point them towards our starter session on Thursday. Everybody's welcome!

It's been a very busy week in Wandsworth, with some great park run performances. Paul raced 10k at Dorney Lake, while a few other Wandsworthers did the monthly long run that GoodGym is putting on in the run up to the London marathon. If you're interested in the next one, which starts from Ealing on the 11th February then do sign up - everybody is welcome! There are also a couple of races coming up on the 4th March; the Big Half and Herne Hill Harrier's 10k. Let me know if you're interested in either.

We had some very special guests last night in the shape of Peter from Enable and Wandsworth Council, and Peter Garrido from Sky Sports. Last year GoodGym Wandsworth had the honour of winning a prize at the Active Wandsworth awards, and the guys came down to take a little video of us at work.

As we warmed up outside we had a quick chat about what motivates us to run. For loads of us it was to support mental health, for others it was to see friends and make us feel good, and for some it was the thought of those medals that gets us out the door.

It was a very short run to our task tonight at the amazing Devas Club, an organisation that supports the youth of Wandsworth's physical and mental health. So after a quick run up to the common we had a few minutes of interval file running to really warm up before heading back to the centre. Our job there was to move a load of furniture from the building into the skip they had brought in fr the job. After only 20 minutes of lifting and shifting, the skip was full and the place was looking a lot tidier. Well done team, it would have been massively time consuming and hard work for the volunteers at the centre, who were able to focus their time on the young people instead, while we managed to get it done in no time at all. The power of the many!

Job done, we smashed through a very quick pyramid of exercises, looking mainly at glutes and our lower body, before running back up to the common to do a session on ABCs (agility, balance and coordination) plus some sprinting. Of course, we couldn't finish off the night with a neglected core, and everybody put in a solid minute of plank. Fantastic job.

A quick run downhill (for a change) to our starting point, with a Wandsworth finish and a nice few stretches saw the end of the night. And a great one it was too! Well done everybody for all the hard work. Next week we're off to help out a residential home for deaf people, sign up for more GoodGym fun here.