Lovely to see blue skies, new faces, and some GoodGym tourism at our Monday group last night.

• Let's give a huge cheer to Zuhaib and Jess who both came along for their first GG session - welcome to the group!

We started off with lots of bits of news...

• If you're wondering about GoodGym and the Coronavirus, have a look a look at our advice to runners here

• A huge well done to all your mission runners this weekend, you are community heroes. If you're looking for something this weekend, then check out this great River Wandle clear up on Sunday.

  • Social time - the monthly GoodGym social is BACK! If you haven't been to one before then it's a great chance to meet other GGers from different groups, find out what's been going on, and generally have a good old knees up! All the details are here.

After all that, we were ready to hit the road, but not before a warm up outside, and a quick poll to find out where in the world would be our dream running location. The places we chose were seriously exotic - Paraguay, Peru, all the mountains, by the sea, California....basically anywhere with a bit of sun. Roll on summer!

We had a new task location last night at a local school, so after a couple of kms we arrived to find headteacher Jane waiting for us with our job for the evening. We were delighted to find that it was indoors!

The school is over 130 years old, and has more than 700 children, so Jane asked us to help with a good clean down of all the woodwork. They were super prepared for us, with loads of bowls or soapy water, and with several floors and many classrooms to tackle, we got straight on with it.

We oohed and aahed over the tiny furniture, little bowls of fruit and cute kids paintings as we worked, and Frances, who had come to drama classes at the school when she was a kid, even offered to reprise her award-winning role as tin man. It was just Oscar season after all!

After half an hour of elbow grease we had scrubbed, washed, wiped and disinfected, and we all regrouped in the staff room, which felt like we'd been a bit naughty, for a group photo.

A short jog to the common later, it was time for fitness and this week we took on a twist on tabata. Usually this is short bursts of different exercises with 10 second breaks designed to raise our heart rates and increase aerobic capacity. We decided to incorporate a speed session into this as well, so switched up 20 seconds of sprinting with short rests and did it eight times over. Everyone put in max effort, which was great to see. Nice work team.

All that was left was a lovely downhill run back to base and some stretching. Fancy some more next week? I hope so, because we have got a great task shifting bags of compost up to a rooftop garden. You can sign up for more Monday fun here, and until then, run happy GoodGym!

It's a busy old week in GoodGym land, which kicked off with our lovely group run last night - we even got to welcome two new runners to the group. Shout out to Abbie and Stacey who joined us for their very first session last night. Welcome!

Before we could get going helping the community, we had lots of news to share. Here's a quick recap!

• There's a great community mission coming up on Saturday, and you can even get a parkrun in beforehand if you want! A community association really needs a hand moving mulch for their tree planting day on Saturday, as their members can't manage the physical activity very easily. Here's your chance to be a community hero, get a good workout, and help change our public spaces for the better. There are even tea and biscuits on offer - what's not to love?! Sign up here.

• Don't forget that next Monday is the weekly GoodGym social. 2-4-1 burgers at the Four Thieves immediately after the run, don't miss out! Sign up and details are here

• If you missed out on the sign up to volunteer at the Hackney Half on 17th May, then don't worry, they've added another aid station. You get a free future race place for your trouble, and it's lovely day out cheering on other runners. Have a look at the link here.

• Good luck to all the Big Halfers this weekend - run well and enjoy!

Ahead of pancake today today we discussed our favourite toppings after our warm up. There were a few savoury choices such as ricotta and spinach and chicken, but nutella, bananas, maple syrup and of course the classic lemon and honey were the real crowd pleasers.

Full of thoughts of pancakey joy we set off on the short run to providence House to meet with Esther, who runs the youth programs at this great organisation. For the last 50 years Providence House Youth Club has been passionate about improving the lives of young people in Battersea and one of their key goals is to provide a sense of community and identity, offering an alternative to anti-social behaviour and social isolation.

The charity is putting on a performance by its young people celebrating an evening of emerging young talent and showing that anything is possible. (If you're interested, you can get your tickets here - it's set to be a great night of young talent including bands, dancers, solo singer and rappers). They needed a hand spreading the word to get as many people as possible buying tickets, and asked us to help by delivering leaflets locally.

We got straight to it, starting in the Winstanley estate near PH, and making our way through the streets dropping leaflets through letterboxes as we went. Esther had told us she had about 500 ready for us, and it was amazing to see how quickly you guys delivered the lot. That is definitely energy very well spent!

We got rid of our last few at Kambala and then ran steadily over to the park where we did our fitness for the evening. This session focused on high intensity sprints, sandwiched between conditioning exercises that centred on arms and core. There were some serious effort going on, and it was very impressive to watch! Well done team.

All that was left of our Monday night GoodGym was to take a gentle run back to base, and stretch it out. Next we have a new task location to looks forward to, hope to see you there. Have a great week everyone, and run happy!

2 Storms in 2 weeks has made for some horrendous ruining conditions recently, but storm Dennis was definitely not enough to put off the team from GoodGym Wandsworth, especially with the prospect off some great company, putting in a tonne of hard work and helping a good cause!!

We had 6 new runners join us this evening and I’d like to offer a huge GoodGym Wandsworth welcome to Helena, Ece, David, Galabina, Rosie & Emily, go ahead and give them a cheer

NEWS

There’s lots coming up at GoodGym, here’s a recap of this week’s news,

The GoodGym Shindig

The shindig is a getaway where runners from all GoodGym areas come together for a weekend of running, socialising and chatting all things GoodGym. The shindig is being held from the 7th till the 9th of August. If you are interested in attending register here

The Big Half

The Big Half Marathon is taking place in London on the 1st March, with a number of GoodGym runners already signed up to take place. If you missed out on a chance to run, you can still get involved by signing up to volunteer

There is also a social after the event taking place in the London Bridge area

The 2020 Big Six races

The big 6 races for this year have been announced and the details are now up on the race team page. There are an array of distances and locations to choose from and you'll get to meet other GoodGym members from all over the country

Community mission

On the 29th February we have a community mission helping out around Fulham Palace Gardens. So, if you’d like a chance at a post ParkRun community mission, sign up here

DO GOOD, GET FIT

This week’s task was helping at a local church called St. Saviour's Battersea Fields, who support the community by organising and running several community group sessions which include free meditation, a choir and a community space

We started by warming up outside Battersea Arts Centre to get us ready for the first leg of our run. We then covered a steady paced first 1.5km and arrived at our destination wind swept but ready to get stuck in

All 37 of us were met by the church administrator who was slightly overwhelmed by our numbers. We quickly split into small groups and got stuck into a huge list of jobs, which included cleaning the kitchen, pantry, washing up, scrubbing the oven, painting the hall, pillars and corridors, moving furniture and toys, weeding, litter picking, clearing the guttering and emptying the window display

An hour later we’d completed our tasks, leaving the church in great condition, the church team happy and all of us with a great feeling of satisfaction

Our fitness session was sacrificed in order to get the most out of our time at the church. Which was compensated by taking a longer route back to base at a nice speedy pace. After a quick stretch we were all done for the night with our tasks complete and 4km in the bag, amazing work all round team Wandsworth!!

COMING UP

Next week Ana will be back and leading us for our task where we're going to be distributing flyers for an amazing youth event being put on by local charity Providence House, sign up here

I’d like to thank you for all for the awesome effort and hard work you all put in tonight

Have a great week and Happy Running!!