For our final King's Group Run in the current format, we had a cracking number of new runners join us. Give Charlotte, Corinne, and Kat a cheer for using their run to do good for the first time.

We were heading to Food For All to help with their food preparations as they create meals for those who need it - the homeless, students, families with low incomes and more. Before we headed off though, we did a quick warm up (it was already HOT outside), and introductions where we found out what everybody's favourite vegetable is. Between us we could cook up a storm as we all liked completely different veggies.

With Danny backmarking we made our way up to Holborn to meet somebody from the Food For All Team. He showed us to their kitchen and storage area, where we would be hard at work for the next 40 mins.

Feeling Vine

Camilla, Rob and Danny got stuck into opening cans of tomatoes, so the volunteers who make food for thousands of people each week could focus on making delicious meals. Whilst everybody else flatpacked all the cardboard boxes that all the donated food comes in. We had the challenge of filling one large pot of tomatoes, and flatpacking the huge piles of cardboard boxes in just 40 mins. As we were feeling so vine, we easily got it all done in the time frame, and left with a big sense of satisfaction.

For our run back we headed down to the river to do some speed work, focusing on driving with our arms and posture. We even managed to fit in a quick core session in Temple Gardens before making our way back for some stretches.

Upcoming events we heard about:

• GG Olympics - come along to cheer everyone taking part.

• British 10km Aid Station volunteering with a free entry into another Virgin Sport race - sign up here

• The June Long Run in Tower Hamlets this weekend - find out more here

There will be changes to the weekly King's group runs. We are now going to work with departments, societes, sports clubs and halls of residence to schedule additional runs accross our campuses, on a variety of days and at different times that suit them. You'll still be able to sign up to these runs, as they will be listed on the GoodGym website, however they will be under Southwark, Lambeth and Westminster areas, depending on which campus is being used as the start location.

If you're a member of GoodGym KCL please can you change your home area. Simply enter your postcode here and select the most convenient.

Thanks to Danny and Camilla for some of the photos!

I think we all know the answer to the question - the chick weed definitely came first, otherwise we wouldn't have had a task to complete this evening. However our legs weren't far behind and they ran about 4km to help Elizabeth and the Friends of Brunswick Square with removing said chick weed from their flower beds.

With the sun out on show we all donned our tshirts and shorts for a short run to remove chick weed from Brunswick Square so that the volunteer gardeners could get stuck straight into their Spring planting. Before heading off we had some quick introductions, and knew that we were off to a questionable run with Dangerous David and Adventurous Alyx, but luckily we reined in our risky sides and stopped at all road crossings. Now that it's light in the evenings it means that lots of London's gated parks are now open during our runs, so we got to run through a couple of other green spaces on our way up to Brunswick Square tonight, which was a breathe of fresh air from the crowded pavements.

Once we arrived we met Elizabeth who gave us a brief history about the Square, including the fact it houses one of London's 10 Great Trees - it was rather large! She then gave us all some tools and gloves and we got stuck in with pulling up the chick weed from one of the flower beds. We managed to get a lot done in just 40 minutes, and even saved some time to help get all the tools back into Elizabeth's car.

On our run back we focused on backward arm drive to give power and rhythm to our run. You can find more great form fixes here.

Fab work today everyone - see you next week when we are informing the homeless about accessing GP surgeries.

22 Goodgymers ran 5km to help Alara and Cecil Sharp House

Welcome along to Hristo whose first time it was last night!

In the news this week:

1. Come along to our 5th birthday party tonight at the Skip Garden - please sign up asap!
2. Join Frances and Graham for a long run and pizza on Saturday on the April Long Run.
3. The GG Olympics has been announced for Saturday 30th June - come along and represent Camden.

After a quick dynamic warm up we headed to some of our favourite tasks for our birthday week.

Cecil Sharp Report by FP:

10 of us went to Cecil Sharp House for our regular mission to help Susannah with the garden. This week she was looking to get the lawn looking green and healthy ready for summer weddings.

Forking around!

Our task was to use forks to create rows of holes in the lawn, which Susannah would then rake over and add seeds and fertiliser. It was a tough job but we just about covered the lawn in holes before heading off.

Alara Report by PB:

After only a 1km run we were at Alara Wholefoods to help look after the garden and Kings Cross Orchard Project.

Our tasks were as follows:

1. Pulling and shovelling a huge compost pile away from the wall as it's making the building damp.
2. Weeding and clearing the orchards around the back.
3. Clearing 7 huge plant pots of ivy and weeds. Plus litter picking the area!
4. Planting pumpkin and bean seeds in little pots.
5. Cutting back a tree and collected up the branches to be put on a fire.

Well done all great work. As a reward Alex gave us each some muesli - yum! On our way to the canal we witnessed a bike thief being chased by the police - was a bit crazy! There was a lot of chat after this of how we could become crime fighters and call ourselves the muesli squad haha

Muesli Squad

After a 2km run on the canal we did our monthly time trial around Granary Square - speedy peeps!

Sign up for next week when we'll be leafleting for the farm and helping Groundwork!

PB out

Last night 7 fantastic runners were not put off by the rainy forecast, and were determined to use their Tuesday evening run to do some good in the local community. We even had two new faces to welcome to the crew - give Josh and Muhammad a cheer everybody!

Luckily for us the clouds held back long enough for our entire run and we managed 4.6km, a tough outdoor fitness session and a whole lot of litter picking around Waterloo Farm. But before we did any of this, we had some news and introductions. After congratulating Paul on his MMM (Mega Manchester Marathon) we heard about...

• Westminster Monday lunch run clubs: Each Monday of April at 1pm Joel will be leading a session from Westminster pier, perfect for those wanting a fitness fix on their lunch break. He will go through some drills, conditioning and of course some running. You can sign up for the next one here

• Volunteering at the Hackney Half, for which you will be rewarded with a shiny free place at future races. You can sign up on the virgin sport volunteer portal here, then let me know (alyx@goodgym.org) so I can add you to the GG water station. You don't need to select a role when signing up.

• London Marathon GG Cheer Stations - find out more here

• North London long run happening this Sunday: Sign up here if you fancy doing a 9-10 mile run with some friendly GoodGym faces this weekend. There will be a couple of groups running at different paces, so hopefully something for everyone (so long as you can do the distance!).

After a quick warm up, and finding out that it was Anna's 50th good deed (this shows she's spent a lot of time giving to others in the community and making London a much better place to live for us all, so give her a cheer!) we made our way over to Waterloo Farm, with Paul back-marking. Unfortunately the Farm Manager wasn't able to get into London today, but he did tell us of some areas around the farm that were in deep need of a clean up, that him and his volunteers could not usually get around to doing. So donned with some very fetching "bluple" (blue and/or purple?!) gloves and some bin bags we split into two groups and made our way around the outskirts of the farm, picking up any litter that we came across. We managed to fill 4 bags full, which is 4 bags worth of litter that the community won't need to see when visiting the farm this week - great work team!

Following our task we did a quick Tabata style HIIT workout (thank GG Wandsworth's Ana for the fitness session idea!) which involved 20s of hard work, followed by 10s rest and this was repeated 8 times (4 minutes total). We did this twice, so well done everyone for sticking with it! For the first round we alternated between squats and burpees, and for the second round we did curtsey squats and spidermans - an all-round great workout for the legs and the core, both important muscle groups to work on for posture and power when running.

We ran the final 2km back to base and did some stretches to finish off our evening piece of getting fit and doing good. If you're up for joining us next week, when we will be heading to Brunswick Square, you can sign up here.

We said our farewells, and wished Paul luck for his Brighton Marathon this weekend (yes, he's got 2 weekends of back to back marathons - give this man a cheer!).

All of the pun credit goes to Paul and Anna - fabulous work!

Tonight we visited St John’s Waterloo to drop off some items for their food collection that they do for the homeless on Wednesdays. We also managed to run about 3km and practice our running technique.

We had three new runners tonight - Catarina, Katrien, and Helen – give them a cheer for using their run tonight to do some good in the community! We heard all about the GoodGym Social happening on Thursday at the Square Pig in Holborn – so close for us. We also celebrated Gosia’s fab mission (which you can see the report for here) from the weekend and her CRUK Winter Run Race, plus Mara’s amazing feat at achieving almost 30km already so far in Feb.

We ran out over Blackfriars Bridge, laden with our goodies, featuring nappies, toothpaste, pasta, cous cous and a can of ready-sliced carrots for the collection, arriving at the church in great time.

The task: We had to enter the church nice and quietly so we didn’t disturb any services going on, and left our small haul in the reception area box ready for some volunteers to sort out the next day with the rest of their food collection items. All the food is being used to support some of the homeless communities in Lambeth.

For our fitness session today we focussed on our running technique, working on the drive and flight phases of our strides. After lots of walks, skips and fast feet up and down in the park, we were ready to make our way back to King’s. We split into two groups with Dom leading the group with the shorter run back over Waterloo bridge and Gosia wonderfully back-marking the group with the longer run back over Blackfriars Bridge. The longer-run group must have been going with some serious pace as we managed to just about beat the other group back.

We made the most of our early arrival back at King’s by doing 3 sets of core triathlons, which if you want to try at home is as follows:

• 20s of “swimming” planks

• 20s of bicycle abs

• 20s of mountain climbers

• 20s rest

Join us next week for Sustainability week at King’s, where we will be planting some trees at Oasis Farm Waterloo!