Last night 35 runners joined forces in Wandsworth to kick off 2020 by doing something great for themselves and for their community. It's the best way to start the year!

• Welcome back to GoodGym everybody! If it was your first group run yesterday or you're racking up those good deeds, we have got a cracking year ahead of us. A big welcome to Helena who came along for her first session last night - give her a cheer! It was also lovely to see faces old and new, and to welcome runners from other areas too.

• If you need a bit of January inspiration to get out there when it's a bit cold and dark, then we have just the thing for you - the january challenge! This is where each area tries to do as many good deeds and as many miles as possible this month. So get yourself down to as many missions, community missions and group runs as possible and let's get cracking!

• In a great beginning to the year, we celebrated Lorna's 50th good deed! This means that lovely Lorna has supported her community in huge ways, and covered quite a few miles in the process. Way to go, Lorna!

We kicked off our first session with not one but two tasks. The choices were to do a litter sweep of Doddington estate, where the local people have been reporting a rubbish problem, or to run to a primary school garden in Battersea to help empty raised beds of soils for the children to use to plant fruit and veg.

While deciding on which task to go for, we headed outside and, after a warm up, did a survey on new year's resolutions. While some opted for not making one so they can't break it, there were quite a few people wanting to improve their timekeeping, eat fewer biscuits, eat more biscuits, a number of great running challenges, learning how to accept a compliment and being kinder to ourselves. Keep at it, GoodGym!

We split into two groups, with Chris leading his down to Doddington, where they picked up the litter pickers from the local community centre. They got straight onto filling black bin bags with as much litter as they could lay their hands on - with bottles caps, cig butts (they can take up to 10 years to decompose and in the meantime they release nasties into the environment) and other packaging. After a good sweep, and with 4 km under their belt, they ran over to reunite the groups.

Meanwhile the other runners had been working hard at the primary school. Our job was to empty the huge raised beds of soil so that they could be rebuilt for the children to plant fruit and veg. It's a big job, but dividing into two teams we tackled it with spades and muscle. It soon became clear there was a little bit of healthy competition between the groups, and I can report that while one group shifted a massive 22 bags of soil, the other managed a whopping 29! I'll leave you to figure out which team came out on top...

We all met up at a park round the corner where we knocked out a tabata session. Great to increasing aerobic capacity and raising our heart rates through short bursts of high intensity drills, we did two round of eight exercises featuring the dreaded frogs and power lunges. Great energy levels, team!

After a short run back to base, we finished off the night with stetches and some cookies to celebrate Lorna's milestone. Lovely to see you all again in 2020, GoodGym! Sign up here for more fun, doing good and getting fit next week. Until then, run happy!

With the final week of a massive ongoing task for us, it was great to see so many GoodGymers on board to make a real difference on a Monday evening!

*A very big welcome to Alice, Sophie, Celia, Jonny, Caroline, Bastian and Zak who all came along for their first run tonight. Give them a cheer!

Well done to all those who got out and raced this weekend, shout out to:

• Jo who wombled her way round a race at Wimbledon Common!

If you’re up for adding purpose to your Saturday run, why not check out

• this fun event in King George’s park in Wandsworth. This is a community mission, so you don’t have to be mission verified, and involves running (5k) or walking (2k) whilst picking up rubbish at the same time! Get that double endorphin hit of not only keeping fit but helping the local community. All equipment will be provided including gloves, rubbish bags and even a free Plogolution t-shirt!

Don’t forget that it’s the monthly GoodGym social this Thursday:

• Sign up here for all the details of the monthly GG knees up in central London

Parklife

After a warm up and a survey of our favourite comfort food (mac&cheese, chocolate, toasts, mash, roast dinner, crisps, grapes that are made into wine...all the good stuff!), we headed down for our final week at a Battersea community garden. As you all know by now, this space had been closed for eight years, but the decision has recently been made to open it up for the local people to use. But there has been an awful lot of work needed to make it a safe and welcoming place to use.

So after running to the Venue Community Centre to pick up tools, we made our way over to the garden to start the last of the final jobs. The big task for tonight was staining the benches and sanding the tables, so we got stuck straight in, as well as tackling loads of other jobs like litter picking, weeding, digging and cutting back bushes.

After 45 minutes of hard work, we called it a night, but not before taking a step back to see all we’d got done. The place is almost unrecognisable from the overgrown and unsafe space it was only a few weeks ago and almost ready for the local community to enjoy. Check out the before and after pics – what a job, people!

After dropping back the tools we jogged over to a little green space on the way back to the BAC to do our fitness session. It was the first Monday of the month, so it was time for our monthly core blast! So with a core triathlon to kick off, we then moved into various drills to really work those abs.

All that was left was a run back to base, and a nice stretch to cool down. Great work everybody. Next week we’re back to the Kambala estate to do some more planting of bulbs. Sign up here for all the details. Until then, run happy!