FIFA fo fum, we shift the mud of an English garden

Last night in Wandsworth we said balls to the World Cup and England's first game, choosing instead to devote our time to helping out a community garden. What a lovely bunch of Monday marvels.

We even had a few great new runners for their very first GG experience - please give an huge cheer for Phil, Lucy, Arabella and Sarah. Welcome to the gang!

Yesterday a number of GoodGym runners took on the Adidas City Run to see how far they could run in an hour, with some excellent results. There were also huge PBs all round from Chris, Paul and Chi over the past week - fine work, gentlemen.

From Russia with (gardening) glove

After a quick warm up to get our muscles ready for the run ahead, we did a poll to find out our least loved food or drink. Liquorice and aniseed related horror such as ouzo topped the list, with fennel, cucumber and tomatoes, marzipan, and surprisingly, quavers, all making an appearance.

It was only a short run down to the community garden, so we mixed it up with a few conditioning exercises along the way, keeping the group together. Once we arrived at Doddington & Rollo Rooftop garden, a once derelict space on top of an old carpark that has been transformed into a blooming community garden, we found the volunteers waiting for us with a list of tasks.

It's a chard job, but somebody's got to do it

While the first group got stuck straight in with digging over the compost beds, one lucky lot got to pull up a load of chard and strip the plants of their delicious leaves - eating a fair bit along the way! There was also weeding to be done, and shifting heavy bags of compost, as well a plenty of digging. After half an hour of the usual winning combination of GG muscle and good cheer, we were done. Our reward was fresh fruit and herbs which we got to take away with us. Score!

It got a bit Messi

After a little jog over to Battersea Park, it was time for our fitness session, which started off with a plank challenge to the tune of ChaCha Slide. Don't be fooled by the perky lyrics, this wasn't an easy exercise, with several minutes of mountain climbers, plank holds and squat thrusts.

If that wasn't enough, it was on to a parlauf. In pairs we mixed up sprints and jogs in a competition to see who could complete the highest number of loops. This was tough, with only a short recovery time available between hard running, but it's a really good way to get a bit of speed work thrown into your workout.

We took the run home at a steady pace, tackling that last hill with some real power. A nice stretch later and we were done for the night. Well done team! Next week we're off to another different community garden where we'll have a list of jobs to cross off. Would be great to see you there! Sign up here for more Monday fun.