Things we found out last night:

1. GoodGym Wandsworth love plastic ponchos. They even customise them to maximise efficiency when painting, and to flatter the figure. Check out the photos of Will modelling this winning Autumn ’16 look.
2. Runners have a natural flair for carpentry, specifically sanding, and a head for heights atop stepladders.
3. There will be no playlist that satisfies all GoodGym tastes although the most requested is, unpredictably, Britney.
4. GoodGymers mostly keep inside the lines when painting, even if it’s in the Gents’ loo.
5. Tom is good at history, and knew that London was once the capital city of six countries during WW2 (Poland, Belgium, Holland, Norway, France and England) thereby solving this week CoRUNdrum.
6. GoodGym Wandsworth love holding squats, and want to do lots and lots more.

OK, that last one might not be true, but the others are definitely FACT.

The night of the many discoveries began when we met at our home, the Battersea Arts Centre, and welcomed some ace new people. Hello Zhiqi He, Gemma, Tina and Penny – lovely to meet you all.

It was on to our heroes next, with David taking an early start in the good deeds leader board, having kicked off the month with an amazing double mission last week – way to go. Hat tip to Jack, Kylee and Matthew who are all racking up some impressive mileage in October.

It was off then to Omnibus to do some painting of walls and sanding of benches. The first group was dispatched to give the theatre walls a good lick of paint. The lucky ones were given rollers, the not so fortunate had somewhat smaller tools, but all tackled the task with characteristic finesse. The sanders braved the cold, and took to the benches outside the building and left them looking as smooth as our sprinting technique.

We’ll be back at the Omnibus theatre to finish the job in a couple of weeks, so we took to the common to smash a tough fitness session. We buddied up and there were a series of fiendish exercises to do while each twosome completed a sprint. The combination of conditioning and cardio is such an effective one - not letting your heart rate drop between exercises is brilliant for increasing stamina and fitness levels. The most hated station was the back to back squat holds, which is fantastic for your glutes and quads. Impressively, not one pair toppled over despite some noticeable differences in height (good job Dave and Sophie!).

It was a nippy run back to our starting point, with Tom, Luca and Matthew leading the way. Shout out to the lovely Sinead who proved her commitment to GG Wandsworth last night by taking a slightly circuitous route from central London via Croydon to be with us. So great to see so many of you last night on the run. You are all making Wandsworth a better and happier place to live. You are also working hard and getting fit. And we all know what that means – more biscuits. Sign up for next week’s run here, runners:

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/do-good-and-get-fit-in-wandsworth

It was set to be Wandsworth's longest run yet, with a meaty 5k run down to the task and the same again on the return leg. But that did not put off the 23 runners who met last night to help out the wonderful Work and Play Scrapstore.

This charity has, for the past 30 years, promoted the re-use of materials for environmental, community and artistic benefit and donated clean and re-useable waste materials otherwise destined for incineration or landfill to schools, charities, community groups, arts organisations, students and families.

There were a few new faces who bravely took on the challenge of a longer run – huge hellos to the lovely Leanna and James, and welcome Dennis, our ace visitor from Tower Hamlets!

This week’s tough CoRUNdrum comes courtesy of Will, who kindly sent a set of three quiz questions in advance of the run. Thanks Will. Which is the only underground station that shares no letters with the word ‘underground’. Tricksy! But it was clever Danni who nailed the answer a mere mile into the run, with the correct answer – Balham. Go Danni!

With a good downhill section on the outward leg, we arrived at the charity to be met by the lovely Rachel, who led the team into an Aladdin’s cave of brightly coloured materials, glitter, fake fur, baubles, boas and beads. This was our most beautiful task venue yet, and the team quickly dispersed into the warren of shelves and different rooms to tackle the tasks. The painting crew led by our very own Van Gogh Jordan set off to paint a bare room (check out the before and after shots!), while other small teams stacked rolls of material, scrapped carpet samples, sorted bottle tops, cut swathes of paper, trampled boxes and sorted fabric swatches.

The minutes flew by, and before long, our allotted time had passed and we set off into the night. Shout out to Jack and David who joined us despite having run the gruelling Cardiff half marathon the day before. What a heroic effort. Well done to everybody that completed the race, you make GoodGym proud!

Back at the Battersea Arts Centre, over 10 kilometres completed, we celebrated like only runners know how. With cake. The mega-talented Sally made a fluffy and delicious lemon cake in honour of our birthday girls this week – huge happy birthdays to Sarah and Kylee!

Next week we are transforming the Omnibus theatre with an epic paint job. Come and join the fun by signing up here:

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/painting-the-omnibus-theatre