It was a beautiful night in Wandsworth last night, and with a huge 42 runners and a massive job to do we were pumped and ready to do some good!

We had some great new runners join the GG Wandsworth fam, which always gets the evening off to a happy start! Hello and a very big welcome to Rachel, Olivia and Olivia.

Before we set off we had a quick chat about the Endure 24 race that had happened over the last weekend and that a number of GoodGym runners had smashed - if you're inspired why not check out the next race trip to East Farm on the August bank holiday. There are a number of race distances to choose for, so there's something for everybody. All the details are here so why not check it out.

No Pain(t) No gain

Our Monday job was down at the amazing Caius House, a youth centre in Wandsworth. We've been helping to set up a community café, The Grub Club, an organisation that helps provide food and nutrition advice to local disadvantaged young kids. It was a quick mile run away, so we kicked off with a little warm up that featured progressive squats, fast feet and jumps. We also discussed who we would choose to take on a road trip, if we could choose anybody. Looks like David Attenborough is going to be very busy over the next few months, but the Obamas (and Trump!), the new Royal Couple (on separate trips!) and a few of us in the group will also need to pack a bag....

With Andrew back marking we made it down to Caius House in no time at all, stopping for a few toe taps and squats along the way, and found Aisling waiting for us with paint pots, rollers and a list of jobs. We split up into groups to tackle furniture sanding and treating, and lot of different paint jobs around the room. With colour now being added and the final touches really coming together, it is clear that this place is going to look fantastic. If you want to find out more about the sort of amazing things the Grub Club are doing, have a look here. After half an hour we had made some real progress, but there are still some jobs to be done, so we'll be back! If only there were more hours in the day...

We said our goodbyes, and headed over for a local park where we got stuck into our fitness session, which was circuits with a difference. The idea was that we could choose between three different levels of difficulty with each station, while a control group knocked out 40 jumping jacks and a sprint before each group could move on. It was a tough one last night, but you guys worked hard and really nailed it. Way to go, GoodGym!

There was just a short run and a little (!) hill ahead of us before we could call it a night, so in pairs we set off to really attack that last sprint. A few stretches later and we were done. Nice work, team. If you fancy a good upper body workout shifting bags of compost up the stairs to a rooftop community garden next week (and why wouldn't you?) then sign up here for another night of GoodGym fun!

What a way to kick off National Volunteering Week, with a massive 42 runners meeting up to sprinkle some good over Wandsworth - covering 6k and a knocking out a core blast in the process!

We had some excellent new faces join us for the first time this week. Please put your hands together and give a massive welcome to Tom, Chris, Gaby, Rhoanna, Chris and Katie! Also lovely to see Catriona from Hammersmith doing a nice bit of GG tourism at her first Wandsworth group run.

Well done to all those amazing people, including Beth, Helen, Jessie, Paul and Luke who turned up for their second run of the day, after going to the Mayor's Run to Do Good at City Hall earlier that day. Nice work!

Also don't forget that we have the monthly GoodGym social on Thursday in Farringdon - your chance to catch up on all the GG news, meet up with other GGers and see who won that all important Pun of the Month. And there's no need to wear your kit!

After all that cheering and news, we headed outside to do our warm up, increasing the level of work incrementally until we were breathing more heavily and our heart rates were up. We had a quick discussion on our fav films - Gladiator, Bridget Jones and even the Lion King all got a mention, before setting off to our task with Helen and Emily kindly backmarking.

Three kilometres later we arrived at the Rose Community Clubroom, a lovely community centre for local residents - and with a beaut view of the power station. It hosts music lessons for local kids, is home to a choir and other groups, and even has an outside pizza oven and barbeque which the neighbours can use. Waiting for us with brooms and cleaning equipment was Glenn, who manages the place, and we soon got into cleaning, weeding, sorting and shifting rubbish and outside furniture. Half an hour later the place was looking great, and we were rewarded with chocolate treats and water. Lucky us! Waving goodbye to Glenn we set off for a short run to the beautiful Battersea Park for our workout.

We started our fitness session with a plank race which engaged our cores to the max, before moving on to some tough but effective conditioning exercises including side planks switches, frog jumps, low squats and wide leg jumps. Then Chi took over for a serious abs blast designed to give us a core of steel. It featured scissor kicks, leg holds and ankle touches and put us all through our paces. Thanks Chi!

With a 3k run still ahead of us we set off back to the BAC, taking on that last hill with some real power. Next week we have got a cracking task finishing off the decorating of a lovely community café in a Wandsworth youth centre - you can sign up for it here. Expect more fun, more fitness and a lovely sense of having done some real good. Well done team!