15 of us met last night at Wholefoods, where we welcomed back some GG runners we haven't seen in a while - great to see you Victoria and Mahmoud. It was also lovely to run with Jenni from Ealing/Slough again.

It's GG LOVE week so our warm up involved a good old game of noughts and crosses - so surely 'noughts and kisses' right! (Alas not so romantic we had gloves and cones, nice try Mark but still great fun!). We were then off through the dark path across the green and heading towards the 316. Now the 316 is a dull route with traffic and diesel to boot but for a fast track to Whitton to weed and clip it was worth the nearly 10k trip and running with such a great crowd one hardly noticed the view anyway.

Our task on this night was to visit Whitton Youth Zone, which is a great centre offering so many activities for the youth in our community. There we met our lovely task owner Mandy who was ready with tools and the simple brief of...."give it a good tidy up"! So we got to it and did just that with clipping back rose bushes, pulling out weeds, trimming back the ivy and clearing away the dead leaves. All that was left was for us to shovel all that we had collected into a large pile of success!!

Everyday we're shovelling! #goodgym #runners #fitness #volunteering #mondays #whittonyouthzone #richmond pic.twitter.com/b62HwD2dcD

— GoodGym Richmond (@GGRichmon) 12 February 2019

It may have been quite a way out to Whitton but distance 'Definitely made the Heart Grow Fonder'. It was a great task, a great run and great company.

The final note goes to Anita with her ode to Valentines (a #RunLOVE and summary of our night)

Roses are red, violets are blue Whitton youth zone is weedless and the ivy's gone too!