Monday is undoubtedly the best day of the week when GoodGym is involved and last night was no exception. We spent GoodGym Wandsworth’s 3rd birthday doing what we do best, running hard, working hard and celebrating our accomplishments as a team

New runners Lauren and Jo joined us for first time last night and I’d like to extend a huge GoodGym Wandsworth welcome to you both. Go ahead and give them both a cheer

NEWS

• Over the past 3 years GoodGym Wandsworth have complete 202 group runs, 306 missions and currently have 11 coach partnerships. In the last 12 months alone, we’ve completed 1969 good deeds. This represents a massive amount of support to the community. Each one of you should be proud of your contribution towards our success and the impact we’ve collectively made supporting our borough

• The GoodGym Olympics took place on Saturday with Captain Sophie leading the Wandsworth Warriors to a podium place for the 3rd year running. Our team of 11 athletes finishing in 3rd place with amazing performances from everyone who took part, you’ve all superstars! Other highlight from the day were the marching band complete with GoodGym anthem, flag parade, the bake off competition, the veg carving competition, temporary GG tattoos and pin the tail on the runner, to name a few. We’ve already started strategising for next year, watch this space...

• The next GG monthly long run is going to be a tour of the Docklands area, which takes place on the 25th August. There are 3 distance options, 26km, 16km, 10km, details and sign up here

• This months GG social will be held this Thursday the 8th August on the Southbank, if you would like to attend all details are here

• Have you heard the latest ‘Reasons to be cheerful’ podcast? It has no other than our very own Ivo Gormley as a guest and is definitely worth a listen, head here to listen now!

• 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

DO GOOD

Our tasks this week was at was at our local branch of the Salvation Army in Balham. The Salvation Army hold children and toddler's group on every Tuesday and Wednesday morning, which relies on voluntary help to keep going. They also have a garden space that is completely overrun with brambles. Both the toys and garden required some of our GoodGym magic

GET FIT

Not only was regular warm up area unavailable, but this week the Battersea Arts Centre was unexpectedly closed as well. With some quick thinking and rallying from the Wandsworth Taskforce we had WhatsApp messages, changing locations and car boots available for baggage, disaster averted, well done team!! After an alfresco briefing we warmed up using the pavement area outside BAC, working through a series of low impact drills, which was wrapped up with a quick birthday themed poll on everyone’s favourite type of cake. Shortly after we set off for the first leg of our run covering the first 2.5km of the night and arrived feeling fresh and raring to go

We were greeted at the Salvation Army by Andrew and after a short welcome brief got stuck in to our tasks. Our first task was washing toys for the children and toddler's group and it took no time for a production line of washing, drying, sorting and stacking to begin. Our second task was in their garden and car park area, where we tackled some unruly brambles in true GoodGym style

After 45 mins the toys were squeaky clean, organised and sorted for the next group of children to enjoy. The brambles were cut and bagged, a serious dent was made to the overrun garden and the car park was tidy and free from overhanging brambles. All that was left was a quick tidy and a thank you from Andrew, before setting off for our 2.5km uphill push to BAC. Great work team Wandsworth!!

CELEBRATION

The night didn’t finish there, as we headed from BAC over to Clapham Common for a picnic to reward all our efforts over the last 3 years and to celebrate how far this group has come in that time. What a great way to mark the occasion

I’d like to thank you for all for the awesome effort you’ve put in over the last couple of weeks, it’s been an absolute pleasure leading while Ana’s been away. You all make GoodGym so special and I’m very proud to be a part of and to have led this group

COMING UP

Next week Ana will be back after her time away and leading us for our task at the Doddington roof garden, sign up here

Happy Running!!

Loads to celebrate last night, not least lots of great new faces joining us for their first run! Please give a big GoodGym cheer to:

• Vanessa, Tina and Alice

As always, we got the weekly news done before we set off for our evening task:

• We have a community mission coming up this weekend helping put away chairs and equipment after the community day in Tooting where all profits go to St George's hospital. Sign up here to help out.

• But the best news of the night came in the shape of a double 100 milestone - that's right, we have not one but two new GoodGym centurions! After clocking up 100 good deeds, many community organisations helped, and a huge number of kilometres run, it was three cheers for the lovely Helen and Emily. Give them a high five when you see them next for all the amazing effort and commitment they've put in!

Summer runnin', happened so fast

After all that great news, a warm up and a poll where we discussed our favourite things about London (the parks, food, pubs and people came out on top!) we headed down to the Venue Community Centre.

The Venue is a busy centre managed by Hadas which is home to amazing organisations like Waste Not Want Not - the first project in Battersea which collects surplus food from nearby markets and distributes it through the local area - and many other community projects such as intergenerational art and support for children and parents.

So after a 2km run down there we arrived to find Hadas with a list of jobs including composting boxes of unusable lettuces, sanding benches, litter picking the outside area, clearing the overgrown plants and transporting compost to the roof garden.

Getting stuck straight in, there was lots to talk about while we worked. The brilliant weekend GoodGymers had enjoyed at Love Trails and Night of the 10000m PBs, how brilliant the flash new litter pickers are that even manage to do cig butts and cocktail sticks, and why cherries are the most expensive soft fruit (something to do with them having to be dried if they get wet on the tree? This is being verified for next week's run!). We even had the newly patented 'lettuce train' - thanks to Viv for her bright idea to get the heavy boxes up to the roof garden!

After 45 minutes of hard work we waved goodbye to Hadas and set off for a local green space to do our fitness session, which this week focussed on alternating core conditioning with exercises to get our heart rates up. That way we got a tough all over workout, whilst getting some strength work in too. Nice work team, especially Emily who soldiered on with a helium balloon tied to her waist, and all of the rest of you who had a very vocal and very young audience 'supporting' you!

You all faced the hill head on on the way back, with every single one of you running all the way to the top, which was fantastic. Next week we're back for more fun and fitness. Go on, get yourself signed up!

We had so much news to kick off the weekly run with last night, but firstly

• Give a massive GoodGym cheer to all these lovely new runners who came for their first group run last! Hello Hannah, Sina, Rafaella and Kate!

This week's roundup included:

• The monthly social! This Thursday, on tour in Brent. Here are all the details - come along for pun of the month, to hear about all the good everybody has been doing, running achievements and all things GoodGym

• Did you happen to catch the Guardian magazine this weekend? If not check it out here. We had a Guardian journalist along for a run with us a few weeks ago, and this was the lovely write up. Share it with everybody you know!

• There's nobody yet signed up for this community mission in Merton on Saturday - this is one you don't need to be DBS checked for but it will really help out a local school so if you are free why not check it out!

• Congratulations to Beth who organised an amazing park run takeover for Fulham Palace's 300th event! A brilliant 38 of you turned up to fill all the volunteer and pacing roles. Check out the run report here

Providence House

Last night's task was at local charity Providence House - this amazing organisation is putting on a program of summer activities for local young people aimed at combating antisocial behaviour and social isolation.

But before we could set off we did a warm up outside and a quick survey on the best things to put on a BBQ - you guys are all about the protein, but also recommended halloumi, asparagus, shrimp and aubergine. Delicious!

With just a short run to the charity, we soon arrived to find a very cheery welcome from the kids who were waving and singing from the window! We got a short talk about the brilliant work Providence House is doing. For the last 50 years, Providence House Youth Club has been passionate about improving the lives and outcomes for young people from North Battersea, and has created a strong sense of belonging and heritage and is open to all. They had hundreds of flyers printed to spread the word about the work they are doing, but as they rely on volunteers, asked us to help.

We set off straight away clutching at least 400 flyers and started distributing in the surrounding houses. This was a real testament to the fact that many hands make light work, as it took us less than half an hour to deliver the lot over the course of 4km. Amazing going team!

We then popped over to a local community space to do a conditioning session which featured glute bridges, planks, single leg squats and other strength exercises that all worked on the important muscle groups for runners and focused on our ABCs (agility, coordination and balance). This sort of strength workout helps prevent injuries, improve form, increase efficiency and generally helps turn you into a better runner - so do try and get in one conditioning session a week!

You can sign up here for more doing good and getting fit next week. Until then, run happy GoodGym!