With the sun out, a great task ahead of us, and some lovely new runners, last night GoodGym really found its happy pace!

Team, show some Wandsworth love to Elle, Timothy, Oli, Matthew, Stephanie, Madison and Beth!

After our weekly round up, which featured a round of applause for Morag, Chris and Paul (in absentia) for some great racing over the weekend in London and Swansea and a reminder that the Goodgym Olympics is THIS SATURDAY! Have a look here for all the details and do come along to cheer on the Wandsworth team and for the social afterwards even if you're not competing!

It was hot, hot, hot last night, but we still needed to warm up our muscles ready for the 6k run ahead of us, so we headed outside to begin with lunges, squats, fast feet and other dynamic exercises. With our heart rates up, we were ready to head to our task, but not before finding out everybody's worst habit. Now, there were several of us who are terrible at time management, one naughty tupperware misuser, those who constantly hit snooze and don't empty the bins on time, but by far and away our biggest collective bad habit is biting our nails! If that's as bad as it gets, I think we're alright, Wandsworth.

Our task tonight was at the beautiful Paradise cooperative garden, right opposite Wandsworth prison. This once abandoned piece of land was taken over by a charitable organisation, and the hard work of their volunteers has transformed it into a beautiful small-holding including an orchard, poly-tunnels, raised vegetable beds, a fish-pond, bush-craft area and community celebration area with pizza oven and running water. The place is much loved by the community but relies on volunteers to keep it running, which is where we came in.

It was a warm and sunny run to the site, and we stopped along the way to knock out a few wall sits and one legged squats. Once we arrived we split up into three groups to tackle the list of jobs. While the first team started immediately on spreading the wood chip all over the pathways, the second took on the massive watering job on the beautiful raised beds. The third group's job was to weed all the areas around the plants, and just half an hour later the place looked so much tidier, well-hydrated and re-chipped.

After a little jog over to the common we started on our short but not-so-sweet fitness session. Our pyramid workout involved doing a series of different exercises in decreasing reps until we reached one sprint, before having a little breather and working our way back up again. Short bursts of high energy like this is great for increasing our aerobic capacity and burning calories.

We finished off the evening with a nice steady run back home (downhill until that last stretch) ending up hot, sweaty but having worked hard both for ourselves and our local community. Way to go! Sign up here for next week's run when we'll be lending a hand in Battersea Library's outside area.

It was a beautiful night in Wandsworth last night, and with a huge 42 runners and a massive job to do we were pumped and ready to do some good!

We had some great new runners join the GG Wandsworth fam, which always gets the evening off to a happy start! Hello and a very big welcome to Rachel, Olivia and Olivia.

Before we set off we had a quick chat about the Endure 24 race that had happened over the last weekend and that a number of GoodGym runners had smashed - if you're inspired why not check out the next race trip to East Farm on the August bank holiday. There are a number of race distances to choose for, so there's something for everybody. All the details are here so why not check it out.

No Pain(t) No gain

Our Monday job was down at the amazing Caius House, a youth centre in Wandsworth. We've been helping to set up a community café, The Grub Club, an organisation that helps provide food and nutrition advice to local disadvantaged young kids. It was a quick mile run away, so we kicked off with a little warm up that featured progressive squats, fast feet and jumps. We also discussed who we would choose to take on a road trip, if we could choose anybody. Looks like David Attenborough is going to be very busy over the next few months, but the Obamas (and Trump!), the new Royal Couple (on separate trips!) and a few of us in the group will also need to pack a bag....

With Andrew back marking we made it down to Caius House in no time at all, stopping for a few toe taps and squats along the way, and found Aisling waiting for us with paint pots, rollers and a list of jobs. We split up into groups to tackle furniture sanding and treating, and lot of different paint jobs around the room. With colour now being added and the final touches really coming together, it is clear that this place is going to look fantastic. If you want to find out more about the sort of amazing things the Grub Club are doing, have a look here. After half an hour we had made some real progress, but there are still some jobs to be done, so we'll be back! If only there were more hours in the day...

We said our goodbyes, and headed over for a local park where we got stuck into our fitness session, which was circuits with a difference. The idea was that we could choose between three different levels of difficulty with each station, while a control group knocked out 40 jumping jacks and a sprint before each group could move on. It was a tough one last night, but you guys worked hard and really nailed it. Way to go, GoodGym!

There was just a short run and a little (!) hill ahead of us before we could call it a night, so in pairs we set off to really attack that last sprint. A few stretches later and we were done. Nice work, team. If you fancy a good upper body workout shifting bags of compost up the stairs to a rooftop community garden next week (and why wouldn't you?) then sign up here for another night of GoodGym fun!

What a way to kick off National Volunteering Week, with a massive 42 runners meeting up to sprinkle some good over Wandsworth - covering 6k and a knocking out a core blast in the process!

We had some excellent new faces join us for the first time this week. Please put your hands together and give a massive welcome to Tom, Chris, Gaby, Rhoanna, Chris and Katie! Also lovely to see Catriona from Hammersmith doing a nice bit of GG tourism at her first Wandsworth group run.

Well done to all those amazing people, including Beth, Helen, Jessie, Paul and Luke who turned up for their second run of the day, after going to the Mayor's Run to Do Good at City Hall earlier that day. Nice work!

Also don't forget that we have the monthly GoodGym social on Thursday in Farringdon - your chance to catch up on all the GG news, meet up with other GGers and see who won that all important Pun of the Month. And there's no need to wear your kit!

After all that cheering and news, we headed outside to do our warm up, increasing the level of work incrementally until we were breathing more heavily and our heart rates were up. We had a quick discussion on our fav films - Gladiator, Bridget Jones and even the Lion King all got a mention, before setting off to our task with Helen and Emily kindly backmarking.

Three kilometres later we arrived at the Rose Community Clubroom, a lovely community centre for local residents - and with a beaut view of the power station. It hosts music lessons for local kids, is home to a choir and other groups, and even has an outside pizza oven and barbeque which the neighbours can use. Waiting for us with brooms and cleaning equipment was Glenn, who manages the place, and we soon got into cleaning, weeding, sorting and shifting rubbish and outside furniture. Half an hour later the place was looking great, and we were rewarded with chocolate treats and water. Lucky us! Waving goodbye to Glenn we set off for a short run to the beautiful Battersea Park for our workout.

We started our fitness session with a plank race which engaged our cores to the max, before moving on to some tough but effective conditioning exercises including side planks switches, frog jumps, low squats and wide leg jumps. Then Chi took over for a serious abs blast designed to give us a core of steel. It featured scissor kicks, leg holds and ankle touches and put us all through our paces. Thanks Chi!

With a 3k run still ahead of us we set off back to the BAC, taking on that last hill with some real power. Next week we have got a cracking task finishing off the decorating of a lovely community café in a Wandsworth youth centre - you can sign up for it here. Expect more fun, more fitness and a lovely sense of having done some real good. Well done team!

We started off our group run in Wandsworth with even more good things to celebrate than usual, kicking off with a load of lovely new faces joining us for their very first GoodGym run. A massive welcome to Egle, James, Hanna, Letizia and Ozge!

We also gave a huge round of applause for all the many racers who took to the streets of Bucharest last week to represent GoodGym internationally! So many of you put in some great effort on the various courses, and we're all very proud of you. A big well done to all those who raced elsewhere, including the Hackney 5k and half marathon.

There was a could of fantastic achievements to celebrate, as Ella did her 50th good deed last night, earning her black tshirt, and Frances hit her 100th and got her wings. You guys are wonderful, and have shown brilliant commitment and energy to do good in Wandsworth and beyond.

With 36 brilliants runners ready to spread a wave of good across Wandsworth last night, we had two community tasks ready to be tackled. We had been asked by a church in Balham if we could go along and help empty out their huge basement so that it could be used for something that would benefit local residents, while the other group, led by speedy Beth, were also going to head back to the amazing Grub Club to help them set up a community café that would help provide food and nutrition advice to disadvantaged families. But first a warm up!

Heading outside we kicked off with some dynamic stretches, lots of fast feet and knee drives before discussing what were our favourite attributes in our friends. Answers included kindness, a sense of adventure, the ability to drink lots of wine, a sense of humour and being rich!

After the warm up we split the group into two - one to take on the longer run to the church, the other to do a short but nippy run down to Caius House. My group opted for the slightly longer run, and headed off in the direction of Balham (along with a much-derided paper map!), where, two miles later we found Robert, the vicar, waiting for us with a huge skip and a full basement We got straight to it, forming a human chain and tackling the heaviest items first. out came beautiful stained glass doors, parts of benches, panes of the heaviest glass in the world (which are pretty dramatic when they smash!), netball hoops, old chairs and much more. It turned out to be a great upper body work out, and increasingly covered in dust, we worked for half an hour until the skip had reached overflowing point. We were rewarded with fruit and water (thanks St Mary's!) and set off on a speedy run back to the common where Chi had discovered a Strava segment and a few of us split off to race the clock and get GoodGym up the rankings! Great speed work everyone.

There was just a last push back to the BAC to meet up with the other group and hear about all the good they had been doing.

Over to Beth for her take on last night's fun at Caius House and the new Grub Club there:

Half of the group ran a short but brisk mile to help set-up The Glub Club at Caius House Youth Centre. Once we arrived we were met by Aisling who briefly explained the vision of The Glub Club; community is at the core of The Grub Club and it is a wonderful initiative that supports and engages families with nutrition advice and cooking skills. Following on from last week’s prep work this week the task was to paint the sanded down furniture and the walls of the café. There were no 'moaning Lisa's' about the prospect of painting instead in true Changing Rooms fashion, lots of 'Carol Smillie's'. The group efficiently split into three painting teams: Team Furniture, Team Magnolia and Team White; everyone picked-up either a roller or paint brush and enthusiastically got stuck in – possibly a touch too enthusiastically as within minutes Jessie had splashed her black GG t-shirt with white paint, and by the end of the task most had either their hands or clothing covered in paint, or both in Lewis’ case!...but everyone stylishly brushed it off and rolled with it.

After a fun-filled 30 minutes of painting to some classic 90's hits (Backstreet Boys and painting, what's not to love?!) there was a marked difference from when we had arrived, the chairs were now all painted white and the café walls had a nice coat of either magnolia or white – although much to the disappointment of many we didn’t have enough time to finish the tops of the walls. We all downed painting tools and began the tidy-up which was quickly done, quite possibly due to the lure of treats awaiting the group once they had finished – a fruit smoothie, berries, cereal bars and popcorn had all been laid out, what a treat!

We had a brief final chat with Aisling about when The Grub Club was planning to launch before we both said our thank yous and goodbyes (until we return on the 11th June!). Following a quick headcount to ensure no-one had been lost or got too attached to ensuring the walls were completely painted, we all headed off on the short mile run back to base to meet up with the other group.

We beat the other group back so much to everyone’s excitement they were treated to 30 seconds of either wall-sits or step-ups followed by a 30 second rest. Sadly/luckily (delete as appropriate!) within a few minutes the other group appeared and we all began the cool down and stretch together.

As the two groups reunited back at the BAC, all that was left to do was bid a sad farewell to lovely Hannah who will be leaving us in Wandsworth, but hopefully not the GoodGym family - well done for all the time you've put into doing good Hannah, we'll miss you! Theres was also the matter of Matthew's birthday (congratulations Matthew!), and we used what lung capacity we had left to sing him a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday, and no doubt startling a few passers-by as we did!

Next week it's the second of our Monday bank holidays, but if you're worried about missing out on your Goodgym fix then good news - we're still running as normal! We'll even have a little social afterwards to celebrate. Sign up here - see you then!

The sun was out, the beer gardens were buzzing, bank holiday was in full swing. But that didn't stop 20 wonderful runners joining forces in Wandsworth to do some good.

Ladies and gents of Goodgym, please give a massive cheer to Chris, Jaillin, Demelza, Adam and Tim who all came for their first ever group run tonight. Great to have you join us!

And while you're in a celebratory mood, why not say well done to Morag and Beth who both smashed an extremely hilly and scorchingly hot Crystal Palace 10k on Sunday, and to Alyx who has had two consecutive weeks of 5k PBs - way to go ladies!

It was a beautiful evening for a run last night, so we kicked off with a warm up testing our fast feet and coordination skills all while doing a poll to find out the best pizza topping. Wandsworth has fancy taste, with goat's cheese, caramelised onions, artichoke and all the vegetables proving popular. Of course we had no choice but to penalise the Hawaiian voters with a few jumping jacks.

Our task last night was at the Venue, a community centre in Battersea which hosts surplus food events, has a kitchen for making food for the homeless and loads of other great things aimed at bringing local people together. It was a short run of 2k down to the centre, so we arrived in no time at all to find Hadas, who runs the place, waiting for us with cleaning equipment.

There were loads of jobs to do, including sorting the kitchen, toilets, windows and outside area, as well as an epic hoovering job which Frances bravely took on. It's a big place which Hadas alone manages, so she relies on volunteers to keep it clean and running smoothly, and 40 minutes later the place was sparkling thanks to some GoodGym muscle! Great job everyone.

We stepped outside for our fitness session, kicking off with a quick round of burpees. Then came the quad-busting squat song where we all felt the burn, before a quick round of squatshot, which saw Team Up victorious. Half way home we stopped briefly for three rounds of core triathlon, before tackling that last hill.

Well done team, what a way to spend a bank holiday. Next week we've got a fantastic task setting up a community cafe, so sign up here to good and get fit.

It was a rainy old night in Wandsworth last night, but we had lots of great news to cheer us right up.

The first thing to put a smile on our faces was two lovely new runners joining us for their very first group run. Put your hands together for Oliver and for Jacqueline!

If you were inspired by the heroics of David and Rachael who both ran the London Marathon at the end of April, then now is your chance to do something about it! The VLM ballot is officially open so even if you're just toying with the idea of tackling the greatest race on earth then why not enter and see what happens?

Fresh off the back of this endeavour, Rachael showed there was no stopping her, and hit her giant 50th good deed last night - that's 50 times she has made Wandsworth a better place. Go Rachael!

If all that cheering has made you thirsty, then why not pop down to this month's GoodGym social which will take place in Penge on Thursday from 6:30pm. It's a great way to catch up with the GG news and meet other GGers from the different areas.

Last night we had not one, but two tasks for your delectation and pleasure - finishing up the cleaning ready for a festival focussed on mental health, and clearing a communal garden at local sheltered housing. After we warmed up - finding out at the same time what was the greatest biscuit (it was chocolate hobnobs of course) -we set off in one big group down to our first task. While Team One got stuck in with the cleaning, Team Two nipped down to the garden to meet Anthony and start digging.

This small but productive garden is for the residents, and is looked after by the lovely Anthony who has recently had surgery so needs a quick hand maintaining the site. It was flourishing with rhubarb, dill and gooseberries, which we carefully dug around, before Hannah found hidden treasure in the shape of four little potatoes. Score!

Job done we met up with Team One, who has been carefully scrubbing sinks and floors for the Sound Minds charity, and got stuck into our fitness session. We kicked off with squat fencing in a battle royale of competitions. It was a nailbiting tournament which came down to two final contenders - Matthew and Dave, our super visitor from Southwark. It was a close fought thing, but it was Dave who emerged victorious, and Matthew's supporters were fined with 10 burpees. We then partnered up, with one GGer giving the other fiendish/kind drills to do while they sprinted. You lot are tough!

After that it was a gentle trot back to the BAC, and a reminder that next week is bank holiday but we most definitely will be running, so sign up here for bank holiday fun and social!

All that is left is to bid our friend Nick a tearful goodbye as he leaves us for a new job overseas. We'll miss his friendly smile and awesome hair - thanks for all the laughs and the good deeds Nick!

It was a bright, bright, bright, bright sun-shining day in Wandsworth this evening and we made it evening brighter by using our runs to do some good in the local community this evening.

Before we set off we had a big round of applause for our new runners Jamie and Eve-Marie who joined us for their first ever GoodGym group runs this evening - give them a cheer Wandsworth. We also gave David a huge series of congratulations for completing the London Marathon YESTERDAY, and still making it to the run this evening - what a man! His account of the Marathon was something along the lines of : very warm, but a fantastic way to experience what London is all about, plus the support from spectators was great. We heard that the GoodGym support was immense and that everyone had a fab day out cheering - so well done to all those that supported too!

We had just a short run down to the task, for an arts for mental health charity called Sound Minds, however we had been told there was a lot to do, so we set off quickly and after just over 1 km we arrived to meet Paul. Paul told us all about the charity and the project we were helping with before assigning us to different tasks. They are setting up a space for use as a festival to showcase the arts for mental health and all that Sound Minds do - there will be bands playing in there, arts exhibitions, and lots of other great projects! Before this space can be used, they needed us to help clear it all out.

The Task: We split into groups to tackle different rooms and tasks to try and get done as much as we could in 45 mins. Some were cleaning windows inside and out, one group took on the basins in the bathroom (check out the comparison pics!), we formed a human chain to move leftover building materials down to the basement, a few people removed blu tac from the walls before giving the walls a good clean, plus we had people sweeping and hoovering! There was a LOT to do, but many hands make light work and we achieved a lot in just a short space of time.

Once the 45 mins was up, and the place was sparkling, we left Paul with a venue smelling of every cleaning product under the sun, and made our way back to base. Right at the end of the run we stopped briefly to go over some tips for hill sprints, such as an upright posture, landing with the front section of your foot, and pumping your arms. This quick chat was followed by a superb hill sprint, up our favourite hill, by everyone. Great work team!

We finished the evening with some much needed stretches.

Thanks for having me Wandsworth - Ana will be back next week - so come along to hear all about her holiday, and I'm sure she will have a fun fitness session up her sleeve!

The sun was shining down on us for our entire Monday evening run, so everyone in Wandsworth could see all the good we were doing as we ran about 5km and helped at Paradise Gardens by spreading some woodchip on their paths.

Before heading out we welcomed Eilidh for her first ever Group Run - give her a cheer for using her run to do some good in the local community for the first time! We also heard about the GoodGym London Marathon Cheering that's happening this weekend. It looks like we will mainly be based on Embankment outside Somerset House, so come and join us to soak up the amazing atmosphere of this phenomenal race!

It was Ana's birthday today (hence why Alyx led the run instead), so after a quick warm up and introductions (that revealed we're all a happy, but apparently forever hungry, group of people) we filmed a short happy birthday message for her, and then off we set.

Arriving in speedy time, we met Rosie at the Paradise Gardens and she showed us where the woodchip pile and all the tools were. We've been here a couple of times now, so lots of us knew exactly what to do and we got stuck in straight away. One group piled woodchip into wheelbarrows and buckets, with another group ferrying these back and forth to the paths that needed a top up. On the paths there were a couple of teams armed with rakes, ready to spread the woodchip for an even layering. As there were so many of us there were still some hands with no work to do, so we found some bags and litter pickers and managed to do a sweep of the outskirts of the Gardens, collecting litter as we went. In what seemed like no time at all, the task was complete. I think we are getting too good at spreading woodchip and creating paths these days - thus we should set up some king of university for it!

Cracking job Wandsworth crew!

It seemed like all the hardwork was over, but we stopped on Wandsworth Common for a fitness session on the way back, and boy it was a killer one! We split up into pairs, and while one person was practicing their sprints, the other was doing a core based exercise to work on their running posture, and then they swapped. We finished off with a wheelbarrow race with some very speedy times indeed and then headed back to the BAC.

Andrew and Jamie did a fabulous job of back marking for the whole run - so please give them a cheer everybody!

We waved goodbye to Sophie (for now), who is going away on a traveling adventure, but she promises she'll be back.

Join us next week when we are cleaning a building before the rooms are filled with art produced by the local community for an Arts for Mental Health project. Alyx will be leading again, but she promises you'll have Ana back the following week!

Great to see the GoodGym gang out in force last night, doing good and working hard despite the drizzle in Wandsworth. We had so many reasons to be cheerful last night, including having some great new people come for their very first GoodGym run. Say hello to Rosie, Ellen, Katie and Alice and give them a cheer!

Lots of exciting things coming up, starting with a lovely long training run this Saturday. There are two groups going from Cheshunt leaving at 10:25 at two different speeds. 9-10 miles will be followed by pizza so sign up here to start your weekend right.

If you're doing the London Marathon don't forget to put your name down on the spreadsheet so we know to cheer for you. Speaking of cheering, if you're up for giving team GoodGym and all the other amazing runners your support on the day, details of our cheering stations are here.

We talked about volunteering at the upcoming Hackney Half, for which you will be rewarded with a shiny free place at future races. You can sign up on the virgin sport volunteer portal here, then let Alyx know on alyx@goodgym.org so she can add you to the GG water station. You don't need to select a role when signing up.

It was a special milestone run for one of our runners last night - give Sophie a cheer for reaching that magic 100 mark. That shows an awful lot of dedication to making Wandsworth a better and kinder place - well done Sophie!

We had a big task at the beautiful Doddington & Rollo rooftop community garden last night. This special place was once a disused carpark roof before it was taken on by a bunch of volunteers and run for the use of all the local residents who don't have access to a garden themselves.

Before we set off we did a quick warm up, and a Dog v Cat debate. There was one abstention, several who voted for both, but the overwhelming result was Team Dog. They do make very good running companions after all.

After a short run down to the garden, stopping along the way for a quick superman competition, we arrived at the garden and got stuck straight into the jobs. While one team got cracking shifting several dozen heavy bags of compost up the stairs and across the garden, another group took several fruit trees to plant elsewhere on the estate. There were also weeding and mulching jobs to do, and before long we were a hive of activity. Great work everyone!

If you can't get enough of the green stuff, don't forget that they're hosting a big dig event here at the end of April, during which you will be fed a fine free lunch.

Jobs done, it was starting to rain harder, so we took ourselves off to the square next door to tackle a tough tabata session. The idea behind it is that, with 20 seconds of high intensity work followed by 10 seconds of recovery, your body burns fat and increases anaerobic and aerobic capacity in a short window of time. 10 minutes later we had worked hard, and split up into two groups to run home.

Lovely running last night, and a big pat on the back for the top effort you put into a huge task. Next week I won't be there but you will be led by King's trainer extraordinaire Alyx for the coming couple of runs - don't miss out on some fun tasks by signing up here.

Last night we started our run with a super positive vibe by finding out all the things we like best about ourselves. A few of our favourite things included our little fingers, feet, cooking skills, singing voices, legs and the ability to take the mick out of Lewis. Lovely stuff.

We had some great new faces along for their first ever GoodGym run last night - everybody give a cheer for Simon and for Mark!

And while you're there, why not extend that cheer to David, who took on the Inverness Half marathon on Sunday (and still made it to GoodGym last night - amazing) and to Simon who smashed the Milton Keynes 10k in a great time.

Our job last night was for the wonderful Scope charity. This organisation exists to make our society a place where disabled people have the same opportunities as everyone else by providing ongoing support. They have a shop in Clapham Junction and are on the look out for more donations and volunteers with their campaign 'The Great Donate'. Our job was to deliver a few hundred bags so that people could easily donate, and some information on how to get more involved.

Clutching our pile of leaflets and bags we set off, dividing up into two teams and taking on one half of the street each. We're pretty well practised at this method now, and it only took around half an hour of running to get the whole lot delivered. Hopefully the shop will be inundated with lovely donations. Great running, team.

With the job done, we headed over to Battersea Park to do our fitness session. In groups of around six, we tackled a series of different stations, keeping count of the number of reps for each exercise. Each drill was separated by a short recovery run, and at the end, the winning team had an incredible 192 reps! After a short jog to the benches, we finished off the night with an upper body and core workout before heading back to the BAC. Half a mile from the end we divided up into the sexy and steady group and the speedy group, but we all had to tackle that last little chinscraper of a hill before reaching the BAC for stretches.

Well done everybody! Next week we're washing the mobility busses for a disability charity in Battersea. Keep your fingers crossed for a nice dry evening, and sign up here. Have a brilliant week of running, team.