What could be better than a spot of painting on a summer's evening? Last night GoodGym Wandsworth enjoyed just that, soaking up the last of the sun in the beautiful Paradise Cooperative Garden while giving the shed a lick of paint.

We started off the night at our usual meeting spot to do a warm up. Given it was International Cat day we also went round the group and named our pets of past and present, which featured tortoises, cats, rats and of course a pup or two!

A steady run later we found ourselves finishing off through a lovely cooling and very welcome shower courtesy of the local garden centre. Refreshed, we stepped into the garden to find it had shot up in the weeks since we'd been there last. The sweetcorn towered over us all, and we spotted huge marrows, a lovely bean arch and flowers as far as we could see. It was a beautiful place to do our job, and we got stuck into sanding down the tool shed straight away.

Next stage was the actual painting, and we were a little concerned that although it looked black, it was initially going on a rather patchy shade of something that looked quite different! There was a lot of talk about 60 Second Makeover, the newly-returned Changing Rooms and that faux leather wall paper. Nonetheless we persevered, and along with redecorating ourselves, the shed started to quickly look pretty smart.

Have a look at the before and after for a proper transformation! And we're not stopping there either - next week we're back to paint the community area which promises to be another big but very rewarding job. Until then, have a lovely week and happy GoodGyming!

Last night 12 GGers met on lovely bright evening to transform the outside space of a community theatre and attempted a taskmaster themed fitness session that may or may not have gone entirely to plan....read on to find out more!

We started off the night with a warm up that tested our coordination and reactions, before doing our customary challenge. This week, as it was the Queen's birthday, we each had to name a different member of the Royal Family. There were perhaps some dubious answers, but between us we got most of the heavy hitters!

It was just a short run to the Omnibus Theatre, an organisation which is run as a charity and aims to bring the arts to the local community. We were met by cheerful Chris, who led us round to the back of the building to an outside space which the team doesn't have the capacity to maintain. The idea is that in the future it will be run as a community garden, but int he meantime we're happy to help keep on top of it!

There was plenty to do, and we got stuck in tackling the overgrown areas and clearing the (we hoped) weeds. Half an hour later and the area was looking a million times better - well done team!

We headed over to the common for our fitness session and an attempt to replicate last week's numbers-based task. The idea is that each person counting consecutively jumps on even numbers and squats on odd, and if somebody gets it wrong the whole group has to do a forfeit. We then added rules each time we actually reached 20. The result? Fitness based chaos - but a lot of fun! We then knocked out a plank waterfall, before heading back to base for stretches.

Don't forget our regular mission on Friday lunchtimes, plus next week we'll be having a group session but it will be slightly earlier than normal as its a bank holiday - watch this space!

Until then, happy running!

We were back with a bang in Wandsworth last night with a fabulous group of GoodGymers raring to go!

It was lovely to see Wandsworth regulars, faces from other boroughs coming to join us, and to welcome Kelly to GoodGym for her very first run. Cheers all round!

After a quick warm up where we talked about the task ahead - helping out at a local community garden transformed from a multistory carpark and run by volunteers - and discussed our New Year's resolutions. Several of us pledged to be on time more (every year for me - going to happen any day now, I'm sure of it), while others vowed to walk, cycle and run more. There was even the excellent intention to be more Nigella.

We set off for Doddington, with only a minor hiccup along the way as some of us took on a little additional mileage, and arrived at the garden to find Malissa waiting for us with jobs that included digging over and sieving the compost, as well as clearing leaves from the pathways.

After forty minutes of hard work, we said our goodbyes and headed off into the night, stopping along the way for several fitness stations which included the dreaded progressive squat and pavement toe taps.

There are loads of exciting things coming up, including several missions this weekend - you can check out all the options here. If you fancy a free tickets to the National running show on the 22nd - 23rd Jan at the Birmingham NEC (https://nationalrunningshow.com/birmingham) you can get a free one thorugh Wandsworth runner Oliver with free ticket code - OCANNON. Thanks Ollie!

Don't forget parkrun every saturday at 9am - a couple of GGers said they were doing Wimbledon so look out for some friendly faces.

Next week we're off to a local theatre and arts charity to lend a hand, you can sign up for more fun right here. Hope fully see you then, but in the meantime, run happy into 2022!

30 excellent GoodGymmers met at Papa's Park on a particularly chilly Tuesday evening for this week's group run.

First of all, we welcomed two lovely new runners Harriet and Nick.

We then heard about some upcoming GoodGym events to get involved with:

• A fun community mission at the O2 in Greenwich supporting the Rainbow Trust charity this Saturday morning/early afternoon.
• A Dulwich parkrun takeover with our friends from GoodGym Southwark on Saturday 23rd November.
• The monthly GoodGym Lambeth parkrun and brunch social at Brockwell Park on Saturday 30th November.
• Pub after the GoodGym Lambeth group run next Tuesday 19th November.

Back to tonight, Victoria led an excellent warm-up that involved herding the chickens (as all good warm ups should).

Next, Freyja and Tim led a small-but-perfectly-formed team to complete our flyering for the brilliant Repowering who are installing solar panels in two local primary schools and encouraging local people to invest in shares to tackle climate change and benefit the community - LOVELY STUFF. They blitzed this super speedily and even had time to run an extra loop on their way back to base - what a group of heroes.

Meanwhile, the rest of us headed up the hill to a NEW TASK at GLOWS - a community co-working space. Sam and I led a direct party pace route while Victoria and Phil led a longer route. We arrived and met the lovely Magdelena who explained with great amusement that they had mistaken the choir who met there for us - WHOOPS!!! Once we had clarified that we were the runners, we got down to work moving some big tables with some lovely background music from said choir, including local classics such as Lambeth Walk and some festive favourites to get us in that Christmassy spirit. Whilst half the group shifted some HUGE tables, the other half did some FITNESS, making sure we kept warm in the chilly night air. And then we swapped, so everyone got to do some lifting and some fitness. Because that's what GoodGym is all about.

Heading down the hill back to base, the two task groups merged smoothly together, as if by magic. After some final stretches, we enjoyed MORE CAKE (definitely not stringing this whole Bake Off thing out, honest...), courtesy of Aislin (EXCELLENTLY chocolatey chocolate cake) and me (Yorkshire parkin because, well, Yorkshire, obviously).

Thank you everyone, BRILLIANT WORK. Join us next week for some more good deeds with the lovely John, what may be the last week of Bake Off cake, and PUB NIGHT (and you wouldn't want to miss that).