GoodGym X Earth Hour - Like (wood) chips that pass in the night

With the clocks soon to go back, blossom on the trees and the sun finally peeping through the clouds, GoodGym Wandsworth was ready to spring into action last night!

We kicked off the night with some news...

Give a big cheer for Olivia, Viv and Freyah who all came on their first group run last night!

RunUK are offering a free place in any of their upcoming runs if you volunteer at the Putney & Fulham half marathon on the 14th April - if you're keen just drop me a line

..before heading outside to do our warm up and discuss our fav things about Spring. We love all the flowers, Easter egg chocolate, lighter evenings and pub gardens, so, with a spring in our step we headed off for our task for the evening.

Following a huge delivery of woodchip, Paradise Cooperative garden had asked us to come and spread it out over the pathways . This organisation exists to connect food, nature and people through sustainable urban farming and community gardening. They combine participation, education and celebration in cultivating under-used land in Wandsworth.

So with just under 3k ahead of us, we set off for the garden, just opposite Wandsworth Prison, and arrived to find an enormoooous pile of woodchip waiting for us.

Collecting up buckets, wheelbarrows, spades and rakes, we set about the task in hand. Meanwhile, Ollie, Paul and James started a big job sorting piles of logs into two piles ready for use. All in all it was a fantastic upper body work out, and after 40 minutes of work, we stepped back to see what we had achieved. We had made huge headway with the paths, which now were almost entirely covered in neatly raked woodchip, while the logs were divided up into two massive piles. What took us just one hard working session would take just a couple of the regular volunteers a lot longer, so well done on some great effort, team.

With a canny little cut through provided by Hanna, we emerged at Wandsworth Comon, ready to for our fitness session, which this week involved one green and one red ball, and a whole lot of chaotic fun. We started by dividing up into two teams, and playing a burpee squat sprint race game which saw a dog run off with one of the balls, then followed that by a plank wave. The result was too close to call a winner. Except maybe the dog.

All that was left was a nice steady run back to base, and some stretches. Next week the task will be down at Doddington and Rollo roof garden, where there are many bags of compost to shift up to the community garden. Sign up here for all the details. Until then, happy running GoodGym!