Lettuce be!

Loads to celebrate last night, not least lots of great new faces joining us for their first run! Please give a big GoodGym cheer to:

• Vanessa, Tina and Alice

As always, we got the weekly news done before we set off for our evening task:

• We have a community mission coming up this weekend helping put away chairs and equipment after the community day in Tooting where all profits go to St George's hospital. Sign up here to help out.

• But the best news of the night came in the shape of a double 100 milestone - that's right, we have not one but two new GoodGym centurions! After clocking up 100 good deeds, many community organisations helped, and a huge number of kilometres run, it was three cheers for the lovely Helen and Emily. Give them a high five when you see them next for all the amazing effort and commitment they've put in!

Summer runnin', happened so fast

After all that great news, a warm up and a poll where we discussed our favourite things about London (the parks, food, pubs and people came out on top!) we headed down to the Venue Community Centre.

The Venue is a busy centre managed by Hadas which is home to amazing organisations like Waste Not Want Not - the first project in Battersea which collects surplus food from nearby markets and distributes it through the local area - and many other community projects such as intergenerational art and support for children and parents.

So after a 2km run down there we arrived to find Hadas with a list of jobs including composting boxes of unusable lettuces, sanding benches, litter picking the outside area, clearing the overgrown plants and transporting compost to the roof garden.

Getting stuck straight in, there was lots to talk about while we worked. The brilliant weekend GoodGymers had enjoyed at Love Trails and Night of the 10000m PBs, how brilliant the flash new litter pickers are that even manage to do cig butts and cocktail sticks, and why cherries are the most expensive soft fruit (something to do with them having to be dried if they get wet on the tree? This is being verified for next week's run!). We even had the newly patented 'lettuce train' - thanks to Viv for her bright idea to get the heavy boxes up to the roof garden!

After 45 minutes of hard work we waved goodbye to Hadas and set off for a local green space to do our fitness session, which this week focussed on alternating core conditioning with exercises to get our heart rates up. That way we got a tough all over workout, whilst getting some strength work in too. Nice work team, especially Emily who soldiered on with a helium balloon tied to her waist, and all of the rest of you who had a very vocal and very young audience 'supporting' you!

You all faced the hill head on on the way back, with every single one of you running all the way to the top, which was fantastic. Next week we're back for more fun and fitness. Go on, get yourself signed up!