While everybody else was taking shelter from the high winds, nippy temperatures and driving rain that storm Ciara brought with her, 21 water-resistant GoodGymers met to lend a hand at a community garden and knock out a drizzly 5km. Well done, storm troopers!

We delayed the inevitable moment we had to face the weather as long as possible with a run through of the news. In case you missed anything:

• On 17th May we’re doing a GG aid station at Hackney Half again this year. You can sign up to volunteer at our water station here. Aside from doing a lovely thing for your fellow runners, you will also be rewarded with a free place in the Asics 10k, the Oxford Half or the next Hackney half. They're not cheap so it's well worth it!

• Now that the January challenge is over, it's time for the Extraordinary Task award. The award will be given to a group or individual who showed extraordinary effort in doing good in their community. If you would like to nominate a task or a person, you have two more days to do so, and you can do it here

• The Big Six races have been announced - these are events happening all over the UK where, if you fancy it, you can join loads of other GGers. Loads of them are multi distance, all of them will be a lot of fun. Check out the details here.

We welcomed Lisa to her first group run - give her a cheer! - and then headed outside for our warm up. It was pretty chilly, but we were happy to see the rain had stopped. A little bit of GG magic right there! After getting our heart rates up and discussing the last film we had seen - all the new one including Star Wars, Uncut Gems, Little Women and some classics like the Matrix - we set off into the eye of the storm. Which actually wasn't that bad.

After 2.5km we arrived at Bramford Gardens. This little community garden in the middle of a green space in Wandsworth is run by Sha, a volunteer who dedicates her time and energy to growing plants and creating a healthy little ecosystem in the middle of a huge junction. Our jobs for the evening include picking the leaves out of the flowerbeds to let the plants breathe again, tidying up the twigs scattered by storm Ciara, sorting out the compost and doing a litter pick.

After half an hour of work we had stopped being able to feel our fingertips, we downed tools, and instead of doing the conditioning session we had originally planned, opted for a heart rate raising and body temp increasing tabata work out! It featured high knees, the dreaded frogs, lateral lunges, powers squats and much more. It was a high intensity, but worked well getting us warm again after our task.

We took a slightly shorter route back at only 2km, putting on a bit of speed at the end of the run. Next week I'm away so you'll be in Chris' more than capable hands and hopefully be put through your paces with a good old fitness session! You can sign up for the run here Until then, run happy, GoodGym!

We started off our run last night with some stats from our month of doing good to kick off 2020. You did an incredible job in Wandsworth, racking up a brilliant 188 good deeds, and covering a huge 1821 kilometers. Seriously impressive. As a whole, the numbers are even more amazing - the GoodGym community managed 8646 good deeds, and ran 98521 in the process. What an incredible wave of good happening across the country!

• Welcome to GoodGym Christina, Emily and Karen. It's all about getting fit and adding purpose to your run, and we're really happy you've joined us!

• Well done to all of you who got out there at the weekend, including Caroline who ran her first parkrun, and to Kate and Diego all spotted covering the miles at parkruns across London!

The Venue is a community centre we visit fairly regularly to support - it is run by Hadas, who organises the Waste Not Want Not , the first project in Battersea which collects surplus food from nearby markets and distributes it through local community . The community centre is run by volunteers, so we were happy to run the 2km down there to lend a hand.

Before we set off we did our weekly warm up, and also discussed the objects in our life that bring us joy. Top of the list were bikes, food, our beds and of course, cheese. What more could we need?

After a quick stop to knock out a wall sit, we arrived at the Venue and split into groups to tackle the jobs. While one team set about giving the community kitchen a deep clean, ready for another week of cooking for local people, a human chain was quickly formed to transport crates of mushrooms and compost to the roof garden around the corner. Meanwhile, several GGers got to work emptying the storage room to be able to fit in some beds which will be going to a refugee family. There was also a spot of tidying up to do outside the centre, as well as window washing and hoovering. What a lot of elbow grease!

With all the jobs ticked off it was time for our abs blast, and we kicked off with a core triathlon, before moving on to various planks and other abs focused moves. Great for keeping our form in good shape when we run and preventing injury, it's good to make this sort of conditioning part of your weekly training. Hello abs of steel!

We finished off the session with a run back to base, a bit of a hill sprint, and some nice stretching. Great work everybody! It was off to the pub for the monthly social for some of us - watch out for March's post-run fun on March 2nd, and in the meantime why not sign yourself up for next Monday's run here. Hopefully see you then. Until then, run happy!

12 tenacious & triumphant runners ran 5km to help make Sheaf Valley shine in preparations for Amphifest 2017 this weekend.

Photobombed!

After a brief brief and a group photo with an extra honorary member in the background we took stock of numbers and had DASHING DAVE as our back marker for the night before heading off into the drizzle to meet LOVELY LINDA at the sparkling STEEL CITY STEPS who greeted us with grabbers and bags and told us all about Amphifest this coming weekend.

We split into two teams and for 45mins picked every bit of litter we could find totaling 12 bags! Great job everyone!

After dumping our bags we used the surrounding area of the park for some great fitness including:

• Box Jumps up the Amphitheater

• Stair Sprints up the Steel City Steps

• Hill reps up the parks pathways

Everyone did a great job on the exercises putting in some great hard efforts which will pay dividends!

We took an alternative route back crossing GRAFFITI BRIDGE and finished with some stretching in front of our home of the SHOWROOM CINEMA

Extending our vocabulary...

Sticking around for a drink we extended our vocabulary, learning the definition of SNURGLING and reminiscing of the wonderful times of when THE ROCK was cooking and wanting all to smell his culinary delights.

Thanks so much to all who came out on the drizzly eve to help the local community prepare for this weekends festival!

Happy Running!

Tom :)