Last night we ran along to Covent Garden to visit Rhythms of Life, a superb charity who feed, educate and provide clothes for the homeless.

Rebecca came along to her first ever group run tonight - give her a cheer for using her run to do some good on a Tuesday evening! Egg, the trainer for GoodGym York also paid us a visit, and it was lovely to have her. We had a little reminder of the Thursday running fitness session happening in Vauxhall this week (the final one of the series before it moves to another area!), and wished everyone luck in their upcoming races. Next week we also have a one-off lunchtime group run for University Mental Health Day! It's on Thursday lunchtime and you can sign up here.

We did some warm up exercises to activate all the muscles we'd be using for our run before doing a headcount and finding out which company everyone would like to be the CEO of. Answers ranged from the likes of Cadbury and Itsu (I suspect for never ending free goodies), to the V&A, the Dog's Trust and London Zoo - all very worthy organisations! If anyone makes it, let me know, as I'd like some special perks for helping you realise your goals!

The task: As it was just a short run there, we arrived in super speedy time, and met Faris, who told us a bit about the charity and showed us to the different rooms where they had tasks that needed doing. Once small group took on the Atrium, where they needed to remove lots of the furniture that was cluttering the room up, to make space so they could use the room for activities for the homeless. The main bulk of the group set to work on the clothes donation room. The charity are very lucky and get a lot of clothes donations, however it currently takes their volunteers hours to find the right piece of clothing as it's not in any kind of order. We helped to categorise all the clothing by putting it all in crates with labels. A splinter group removed all the bags of clothes that didn't have labels on, rifled through them, and put labels in the top so we knew what was in there as soon as the bags were opened. This will make it easier for some of the regular volunteers to sort through the items (or for us next time we come!). There was so much to do and so we could only make a start today, but we will be back to keep working on the task soon.

After washing our hands, and getting a quick photo by the Rhythms of Life sign, we headed off into the night to make our way back to King's. When we arrived back we used the hill outside for our hardcore fitness session. This week we combined a typical speed skater's workout, keeping in theme with the winter olympics. Speed skaters have to generate a lot of power in their legs for their initial sprints at the beginning of their race. They do this by integrating lots of pylometric exercises into their programmes. Pylometrics is a type of jump training where your muscles exert a huge force in a short space of time. This helps with building the power! We split the group in half, and while one half did the hill sprint (focussing on an upright posture and pumping their arms), and easy run back down, the other half completed an exercise such as frog jumps, jumping squats and tuck jumps. They then swapped over, and did it all again!

Thanks Gosia for the photos as always!

Next week, Rachel and/or Sophie will be leading the run and you're going back to the YMCA charity shop by Goodge Street to sort through some of their donations. You can sign up here. Plus don't forget the lunchtime group run, leaving from our King's Sport Health and Fitness Waterloo Gym on Thursday 1st March. Sophie and Rachel will also be leading this and you'll be heading to Oasis Farm Waterloo - a fab task! You can sign up for that here.

Tonight we visited Oasis Farm Waterloo, an urban farm and community resource in Waterloo, a hidden gem just moments from the Southbank, and the closest farm to Parliament. We also managed to run 4km and fit in a quick but tough circuits session.

Joining us for their first ever GoodGym group run, we had the amazing Rajmund, Anna, Georgia, Octavia and Theo (wow so many!) – give them a cheer for coming out in the cold and using their run to do some good. As well as welcoming these fab runners we also heard about the Long Run taking place in South London this weekend for anyone that’s about, and a little reminder of the Thursday running fitness session happening in Vauxhall this week.

As well as braving the cold, here at GoodGym King’s we also had to brave the busy Waterloo Bridge Commute as we couldn’t head out over Blackfriars Bridge as usual due to the location of the task. We practiced our dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge techniques and headed out. With everyone safely over the bridge, we made quick work of the rest of the journey down to the farm and met Roddy outside.

The task: The super organised Roddy split us up into groups when we arrived and showed us each to a planter – we needed to remove all the soil, take out all the bricks, move the planter, and then re-fill it with the bricks and soil – we had a tough 40 minutes ahead of us with a good arm workout! Between us we managed to fully move a couple of planters and make a great start on 2 or 3 more which some volunteers are going to finish off in the morning. I think the sounds of the animals settling down for sleep helped us work hard (especially the pigs from the Pig Palace!).

Roddy kindly let us use the farm's new barn for our fitness session as it started to rain. We went through questions like "are you scared of spiders?", "have you eaten any pancakes already today?" and "do you cycle to work?" - if you answered yes to the question you had a 40 second strength exercise to do, if you answered no then it was a 40 second cardio exercise. After lots of squats, high knees and mountain climbers (great suggestion Sophie!), we were ready to head back to King's. We waved goodbye to Roddy with promises of coming back soon to help with more tasks (hopefully in slightly warmer weather)! We ran back a slightly longer route, with slightly better views, over Westminster Bridge and did some stretches back at the base.

Credit to Gosia for the pun!

Next week is student volunteering week, so join us for our special run to help Rhythm of Life, a superb homeless charity in Covent Garden.