Energy levels were high last night, great to see so many of you for 5k and a big task in Wandsworth!

Here come the headlines

• A massive GoodGym welcome to Abi, Mercedes, Lauren and Hannah who all came for their first group run last night - great to have you join us ladies!

• So nice to see GoodGymers from lots of different areas paying us a visit, from Lambeth to Stockport, it's lovely to have you visit us!

• Last night Danny told us about some great volunteering opportunities. If you volunteer for either the Adidas City Runs or the Hackney Half not only will you have a fun day out and be a great support to runners, but you'll also get some nice freebies including free entry to a future race and a tshirt. What's not to love!

• The Capital Ring is a fantastic series of linking routes around the entirety of Central London and this Sunday you can run one stage of it with GoodGym. The long run starts near Wimbledon Park tube station at 10.30 am for a total run distance of 13 miles at an average pace: 9.30-10 minute/miles or 6 minute/kilometer approximately. The short route meet up point is near Richmond Bridge at 11.40-11.50 am (total distance 7 miles) - sign up here for all the details

With a bumper week of news out the way, we headed outside to do our warm up and get on the road. So after a series of high knees, some lunges, fast feet and tuck jumps, we finished our heart rate raising exercises with a snack based poll - savoury snacks came out on top, with cheese, humous and crisps all firm favourites. Good to have the important stuff cleared up.

Our job last night was at the Salvation Army in Balham - their HQ here is enormous and needed a bit of love. This organisation has been very active with the homeless population in Wandsworth, especially supporting refugees, and run a lot of their operations out of the Balham branch. So after a 2.5 km run there, stopping along the way for some tricep dips and squats, we arrived to find Ailsa waiting for us with paint brushes, sandpaper, secateurs and a long list of jobs.

The first group set off to tackle a huge bramble problem ( and I mean seriously huge...check out the pics), while another large section went upstairs to paint the meeting room. There were also several doors to sand and paint, and a few jobs in the charity shop to tackle as well. So while I pogo-ed around the building, everybody got stuck straight in, working hard to hit the 40 minute deadline. It was a blur of activity, so well done everybody for all the efforts!

Sadly this meant we had no time left for a proper fitness session, but we stopped along the way for a quick plank pit stop and then finished off the run with a good old stretch down. Great work everybody! Next week we're helping out a community garden with a big leaf pick up, so bring gloves and a head torch if you have them, and I'll see you there for the return of the fitness session special! Sign up here for all the details.

Last night 39 runners turned Blue Monday GoodGym Red, running 4k to dig over an outdoor learning space at a local school, to take on a fitness session and to beat the January blues!

Good News

A huge welcome to Hugh, Roisin, Caitlin and Hazel who all came for their first group run tonight - give them a cheer when you see them!

GoodGym has some £10 community entry places for the Big Half happening in London on Sunday 10th March. If you're interested please email bighalf@goodgym.org. Deadline for applications is Wednesday 30th January. Names will be drawn at random from those who want a place. It's a great race, and very well organised, so if you're after a goos half marathon, whether it be your first or if you're chasing that PB, then why not give it a go.

We're getting closer and closer to that January challenge target! We've done a massive 168 good deeds out of a target of 220, and have 1192 kilometres under our belt out of a target of 3000km. There's still a little way to go, but well done for being part of the massive wave of good happening across the country at the moment!

A big round of applause went to Sarah who reached that magic milestone - 100 good deeds. That's a huge amount of digging, cleaning, planting, sorting, and general good-doing and who knows how many planks! Brilliant.

We dug our task last night

After all that good news we were ready to head outside for our warm up, and kicked off our third run of 2019 with some high knees, heel flicks, fast feet and, given that it was rubbish old Blue Monday, a discussion about what makes us feel happy. Food, hugs, rest, burritos, our friends, wine, books and of course GoodGym were all sources of joy for us!

Our job last night was at Chirstchurch school, a local primary school which has an enormous project they are undertaking. So after a speedy 1.5 km run down the hill stopping only to do some toe taps to keep our heart rates and body temperatures up, we arrived to find Barry the site manager with a whole load of spades and a big job for us.

The learning space is going to be for all the kids and visitors, and will feature hives, composting, teaching areas and lots of other fun elements, but the area first needs to be prepped for such a large endeavour. They've raised the money for this incredible project themselves, but need a hand from volunteers, and GoodGym is always happy to help out! So after putting on gloves and grabbing tools, we got stuck in digging over the soil, picking out stones for repurposing elsewhere and getting rid of weeds. After 40 minutes of work we called it a night - but we'll be back soon to help with the next stage!

We nipped across the road for our fitness session, which started with a game of clusters, and then moved on to a more intense workout which featured repeated inchworms, vertical jumps, shuffles, plank knee taps and more. Conditioning is important to protect against injury, increase strength and improve overall fitness, so well done on working hard last night.

All that was left was a quick run home and that last hill, before stretches and lots and lots of cake. Nice work everyone! Next week we have a great new (indoor!) task and a choice of two runs. What are you waiting for, sign up here!.

We also have the first of our monthly socials coming up soon - check out the details here and sign up!

It was a double mission day today with a fantastic turnout on the bank of the River Thames in Kingston.

We were joined by familiar faces and new friends on this multi-borough mission! Mark and Rachel joined us from Wandsworth on their second Good Deeds with GoodGym. Dave came from Lambeth, Holly, Jon, Kate and Laura joined us from Richmond. It was quite the plogging party!!

We divided and conquered to cover as much of the tow path as possible. On initial inspection it looked like the path was already picked clean with very little rubbish for us to pick up, but as we headed further "in land" we found a treasure trove of trash.

In litter-ally 30 minutes we collected 5 large sacks of rubbish, our finds included hundreds of cigarette butts, a stella glass, pizza boxes, a burnt out gas canister, a mobile phone and a large kitchen knife!?!

Jon, Holly and Kate doubled up our good deeds by taking the knife to the police station to ensure it was safely disposed of and as the sun set we all headed home leaving a litter free path for everyone to enjoy!