The runners of GoodGym King's were on fire last night as we ran a phenomenal 8km round trip to help the Sense Charity Shop on Walworth Road put up their Christmas decorations.

We welcomed three new runners last night for their first ever group run - Susie, Rianna, and Becky - give them a cheer everybody as they've all decided to start using their runs to do good!

We started our evening run with lots of apologies from me that the run was going to be longer than advertised (but everyone did so well with the running!), a warm up and some quick introductions. We found out that Michael's favourite Christmas decorations are the little baileys chocolates you can hang on the Christmas tree - I didn't know this was a thing and I definitely need some of these in my life.

The task: After a 4.4km (!!!) run there, we were greeted by Carolyn, who gave us the surprise task of putting up the charity shop's Christmas decorations! We were all ready to get stuck into cleaning the fascia, but quickly got into the festive spirit and hung baubles from the ceiling, a wreath in the window and bells along the shoe racks.

For our journey back we focussed on our breathing, to help balance the body when running and reduce the chance of stress on just one side - you can read more about breathing techniques in running here.

Everyone had an AMAZING run today and well done on logging so many kms on your Tuesday evening, and helping out at a fantastic charity - see you next week, when we will be heading to a lovely local nursery to help with some weeding. Plus we will squeeze in a festive fitness workout.

Clad in hats, gloves, and some rather natty new headtorches, a group of 10 intrepid runners did not let the bitter cold put them off last night.

We started off the night talking about the amazing Mission Possible this weekend, where teams of three will be taking on a mass volunteering effort, spreading good all over the city! Good luck everyone, see you in the pub afterwards...

Braving the cold, we stepped outside and dived straight into our warm ups whilst discussing who we would ask round for dinner. Charlie Brooker, Stephen Hawking, David Beckham and Alan Shearer were all lucky enough to score an invite.

The night's task was at the Waterman's Centre, and independent charity which aims to bring art to the local community. It was just under a 2.5k run, and we set off briskly. 20 speedy minutes later we were there, ready to get stuck in.

We were handed shears, bin liners and brooms, and tasked with the job of clearing leaves and cutting back the branches in the car park. It was quite a labour intensive job, which was good, because we needed to keep warm. Half an hour later and several bin bags later we were done. Or were we?

No, we were not. There was the small matter of hill sprints to do. Now, after talking about the possibility of hill sprints for several weeks, if not months, we had to take what we could get. The small incline in the carpark would have to do. In pairs we tackled five reps, keeping our chests high and taking care to pump our arms but to keep them at a 90 degree angle behind our body. You all looked like superstar athletes.

The run back was smattered with some lovely conditioning exercises, just to keep things exciting, and we stopped just short of the Town Hall to do our final bit of fitness. In two teams we assumed plank position, passing the golden satsuma along the line. When the satsuma got the end, somebody shouted 'burpee', and the whole team had to do said burpee, increasing by one each time. Team Jo, Michelle, Jeremy and Andy won the challenge and as their prize, took home the two fought-over satsumas. Lucky them.

During our stretches we realised we have only two runs left THIS YEAR. Let's make the most of them, starting with our penultimate one next week. Stay warm until then :)

With only 5 of us on the run this week, we got to know lots about each other and learned that Jack usually runs with GoodGym Wandsworth, Katie is leaving us soon to head back to the States, Siying has now done 5 good deeds with GoodGym, and Kelly might be looking for some running gloves if anyone has any suggestions?! We also chatted about the GoodGym Christmas Party which everyone is invited to on the 8th Dec.

We had a long and chilly run ahead of us tonight, but also a lovely task for this time of year, so we set off quickly and made our way 3km down the river to Tower Bridge.

The task: Now that it's almost December it's time to start thinking about all the Christmas and Winter events we want to start going to. That's what we were helping the community in Aldgate with by telling everyone about the Winter Fete they have taking place on Friday. It's open to all and will feature mulled wine and mince pies, so you can find out more here if you are interested in going along. We dropped flyers into all the cafes, pubs, bars, barbers & other shops we could see on our route around Tower Bridge and Liverpool Street, so hopefully some members of the local community will pick them up and pop along to the event on Friday.

Once finished headed back to King’s for some stretches in the warmth, and we were well prepped for some tasty dinners after smelling all the food when popping in and out of restaurants and cafes.

Really good running from everyone today, it was a long way for us! I'll see you next week, when we will be heading to south of the river to help at a charity shop.