A brilliant 36 runners met up tonight in Wandsworth to lend a hand at a local community garden, do an intense fitness session and get a run in - what better way to spend a Monday evening?

** Welcome to the group Mia, Bethany and Sandra - give them a cheer, GoodGym!**

• Don't forget to look out for the Fareshare, a food poverty charity, and GoodGym community missions like this one happening in Wimbledon

• Well done to Oliver for doing the Valencia half marathon, and to Emily and Stephen for getting out at the league races to cross country on Saturday. Great running!

• Lovely to see so many of you from different areas coming along to visit us in Wandsworth - everyone is always super welcome here!

After a warm up outside where we shared our middle names (except for the three of us who didn't have one...jealous!) we set of for Christchurch community garden. This space for local people has recently started to be looked after by a friends group. After some antisocial behaviour making it less than welcoming they wanted to make it a garden for everybody. Currently they have a big old leafy problem that needed some attention from GoodGym!

It was a short run down there so we took it at a good clip, stopping only to do some toe taps and one legged lunges on the way. We found Nigel, a memebr of the Friends group, waiting for us with tools, gloves and bin bags and we set to it.

After promising it wouldn't be too big a job I had to make my apologies, as it turned out to be a bigger task than anticipated, but essential as the leaves are stopping the grass and other plants growing as well as being a slippy hazard for people using the garden. We got stuck straight in piling the leaves into bags, raking, sweeping and using some interesting stick-based techniques. It worked though, and just half an hour later we had collected an impressive 53 bags! Many hands really do make light work....

After piling up the bags ready for collecting, we nipped over to the football pitches to do our work out, which tonight was tabata. This tough session is divided up into 20 second segments with 10 seconds recovery and is a very efficient workout in a short amount of time. We smashed out two rounds of 4 minutes, featuring power lunges and squats, mountain climbers, tuck jumps and more in cardio blasts. All that was left was a run back to base, that tough old hill, and a few stretches. Great work everybody! Next week we will be spreading the word about a free Christmas lunch for the elderly in Battersea so that as few people as possible are alone on the day itself. Until then, run happy!

We had plenty to lift our spirits in Wandsworth last night, as we did gourd and got fit at our special Halloween run!

Welcome to your first group run Jasmine and Emma! Give them a cheer, Goodgym.

A big well done to

Jo for doing the Chicago marathon and the Great South Run, and to James for his first half marathon in Germany. Great running!

Don't forget an important date for your diary:

It's the GoodGym Christmas party! Sign up here for all the details of the big bash on the 6th December.

After catching up on all the week's news, and with quite a few brilliant costumes on display, we headed outside to do our warm up. We had some Halloween themed moves - the pumpkin (touch the floor), the witch (tuck jump) and ghost (jump up) - and we discussed what scared us. It was an interesting mix of answers, which ranged from Trump, running in the cold and horses, to open water, buttons ('koumpounophobia' apparently) and kittens!

If you've got it, haunt it

After a mile run to our task, we arrived at Eden Community Garden. This beautiful space is for local people of all backgrounds to enjoy and it is also used to preserve bee habitats and make honey. It also happened to be part of a site where people who died from the plague and roundheads were buried - so a very fitting job to be helping with at Halloween!

We were met by Benny who told us about the history of the garden and how it is used by the community, and gave us some jobs to do. The main one was moving wood from the garden into the graveyard to build a big bonfire for the church's fireworks night on Saturday, while there was also compost shoveling and leaf raking to do as well.

Everybody got right to work, and before long there was enormous bonfire ready for the community event (if you would like to go along to enjoy the results on Saturday then check out the details here: https://www.stpaulsclapham.org/links), so after a team photo we waved goodbye and headed to the common for our spooky fitness session.

We divided up into teams, and competed against eachother for a treat or a trick. While the treats were sweet and chocolatey and were earned through relays and other challenges, the tricks varied from burpees, press ups and squat jumps. The spooktacular night was finished off with a run back to base, some stretches and a post-GG social meal. Fa-boo-lous!

Next week we've got more of the same, but with fewer bad Halloween puns. Sign up here for more doing good and getting fit. Until then, run happy!