And so The Tale of Mr McGregor and his Ham Lands Adventures begins.

Once upon a time, 6 intrepid GoodGym explorers ventured to their monthly community mission to work on the butterfly habitat at Ham Lands. Something fishy was in the air after all runners had actually run this morning: Nicky and Kate took on different Parkruns, but both had the same story of the instruction to run through puddles and puddle-related havoc; Caroline and Andy had covered both directions of the towpath, running along the river from Kingston and Chiswick respectively; and Holly and Samia had met in Richmond Park to do a hill “sprint” session. Samia + having chosen to do hills means that something is wrong. Either that, or she’s finally taking marathon training seriously and seeing the benefits of hills (ssshhhh, don’t tell Mark!).

Back to the tale: before we could even call our Friends of Ham Lands to find out where to meet them, we heard a lonely cry. A howl that communicated “help me please”. And then we turned to see an ownerless dog. Caroline and Nicky (who had come prepared with dog treats in her pocket), went to the rescue, turning this into a double community mission. McGregor, or Mr McGregor as we respectably called him, had lost his owner and Nicky and Caroline went on a mission to take him back to his home using the strategy of collar identification and address googling.

With one mission already underway, we met Chris from the Friends of Ham Lands, who equipped us with tools and briefed us on today’s task: cut things back. This is a GoodGymer’s favourite instruction - no weed identification skills needed, pure jungle hacking only. With Mr McGregor returned to his home, Nicky and Caroline returned to join the de-hawthornation and de-brambleation. Significant attachment issues were noted by all, and we became professionals at detaching ourselves and freeing each other up from the thornage. Teamwork wasn’t in short supply, with reinforcements needed with cutting and yanking back the freed brambles.

Andy had clearly been experiencing Richmond task withdrawal symptoms and seized the opportunity to pull out brambles and hawthorns that were more gigantic than the greatest of giants.

@GGRichmon takes on The Bramble: Could this bramble BE any bigger?! pic.twitter.com/6Q9bwDhbKP

— GoodGym Richmond (@GGRichmon) November 10, 2018

Caroline ventured deep into the hawthornery, determined to do a thorough job and Holly continued with her glute workout, squatting and stretching for the lower beasts. And she also played a vital role in creating the latest dance craze: The GoodGym Bramble Tangle Maypole Dance.

@GGRichmon do the bramble tangle maypole dance at a community mission with the Friends of Ham Lands @richenvironment pic.twitter.com/HMOu66nU36

— GoodGym Richmond (@GGRichmon) November 10, 2018

Despite getting a severe case of Attack of Brambles Through Leggings, Kate still managed to multitask, hacking whilst coming up with puns. It may have taken her a while, but Samia FINALLY cotton(tail)-ed on to why so many puns related to Peter Rabbit. Clearly the summer’s rabbit hole Alice in Wonderland moment is still traumatising her... Nicky papped away, taking her responsibilities very seriously. Unfortunately for others, this meant having to do very “good waiting” until Boomerang very up and ready to go.

All’s well that ends... with a run, of course!

Samia lured Andy to run through Richmond Park (“there’s only one hill”... it’s true, it’s just very steep and then switches to a very gentle but long incline....- there are some impressive Strava elevation profiles as a result now!), whilst Holly ran back home, Kate and Nicky cycled along the Thames and Caroline went on to a coach visit.

Great to have you along guys - hope you’ve enjoyed munching on some carrots in honour of Mr McGregor 🥕 - and look forward to next month.