It was excellent to welcome some new faces to our group last night - a huge welcome to Laura and Lan who joined us for the first time!

We met in a very busy Hyde Park ready to run through a very busy Central London, all the way to the small basement of a refugee centre where squeezed into very close (clothes) quarters. There was definitely a theme to the session last night!

After a warm up we took off towards Leicester Square, discussing all things parkrun, racing and epic challenges such as the Great Wall of China marathon. The energy levels were high! We ran past some iconic sights - through Wellington Arch and past the Ritz, taking a short pause for a pic beside Eros before ending up outside the blue door of the Notre dame Refugee Centre.

This amazing place assists refugees asylum seekers, undocumented migrants and other human rights applicants who are in the UK either seeking protection or with precarious immigration status. They have a storage space where all the donations they receive are put, but it needed a bit of love.

We jumped in, sorting through bags of clothes, hunting down precious hangers and helping get the place more organised. With so many pairs of helping hands it didn't take long to get the job done, we even had time for a bit of styling advice from Louise and Dan!

Before the second part of the task we took ourselves upstairs for a short - but intense - core blast on a very hard floor. Still, it didn't hold us back, and we knocked out planks, crunches, v sits and toe taps.

The next task took us up four flights of stairs, so we got a bit of bonus fitness (although not quite as much as Kamil and Dan who braved the stair challenge at least two more times than the rest of us!) before stepping in to sort a big office cupboard in an even more cramped space. Old crisps out, new stationary in - the result? One very tidy office area.

Next week we've got a much more spacious task to do. We're going to be painting the Lillington Garden community centre - I hope you'll be able to join us to do even more good in Westminster.

Last night we celebrated nine glorious years of GoodGym Wandsworth – and we did it in classic GG style: with a run, a task at our own GG garden, a lot of laughs and even more potatoes.

We kicked things off with a warm-up and a guess at just how many good deeds have we racked up over the years. The answer? A huge 10,772. That’s a phenomenal amount of digging, weeding, painting, planting and moments of kindness.

We set off to the Omnibus Theatre, where we’ve been cultivating a garden space over the past year. This isn’t just any community garden — it’s one where the produce goes straight to charities supporting families facing food insecurity. With summer in full swing, everything had sprung up— and that includes the weeds! We rolled up our sleeves for a big clear-out. But amidst the weeds were some real treasures. The black gooseberries, figs, beans and chard were all looking lush and leafy, but the highlight was a huge haul of homegrown potatoes – check out the photos to see just what we have produced.

We then dashed over to the road for our traditional birthday fitness session, where last night everything was decided by the roll of a dice. There were squats, sprints and side planks as we battled it out. Even after nine years, the GG Wandsworth competitive spirit is strong– and we never miss a chance to make burpees "fun".

Celebrating what we’ve achieved together in nine years was pretty special. From community clean-ups to massive missions, planting gardens to growing friendships – it’s been a super fun ride powered by the energy and generosity every GoodGymer who’s ever pulled on that red tshirt.

To round off the evening, we returned to the theatre for our party which included double amazing cake courtesy of the legendary Jordan and Catherine, an amazing quiz crafted by ace Quizmaster Paul and of course a toast to the next nine years of doing good and getting fit together. Thanks to everyone who came, ran, weeded, rolled, quizzed, caked and celebrated. Here's to many more miles...

Happy Birthday, GoodGym Wandsworth! ❤️🥔

A huge welcome to Kamil, who came for his very first GoodGym session yesterday - and extra points for making it out on a drizzly Sunday morning!

GoodGym have been helping transform a community centre foyer with a brand new lick of paint, and yesterday's task was our second session at Lillington Gardens. So after a quick warm up in Hyde Park, we set off past Buckingham Palace, dodged the tourists at Victoria, and arrived just in time for Darlene to let us in.

We wasted no time getting stuck in to the painting. The time flew by as we discussed parkruns, our fave music and how on Saturday I had managed to spill a can of paint - so I was being extra careful!

In the time I did one small section of wall, Kamil had managed to cover about three times as much, nice job! We washed our brushes and ourselves up, closed up the centre and headed off to enjoy the rest of our Sundays. A good morning's work making a community centre that much more welcoming for local people.