On a chilly night in Hounslow, nine winter warriors took a short run down to Chiswick to protect the trees

But first there was a bit of news:

• Well done to Eloise and to Matt who did the Osterley 10k (after having done the parkrun already!) on Saturday. Great running.

• Don't forget the community mission in Isleworth on Sunday. Help wrap toys for disadvantaged kids for The Its A Wrap charity - what a brilliant way to spend your Sunday.

• Next week is our last run, and after all the festive do gooding and fitness we'll be heading for our Christmas social. Sign up here for a GG Hounslow style knees up.

It was only a short run down to meet the community organisation helping protect Chiswick's famous cherry trees last night, so we did a warm up and a survey on the last films we had seen (from The Lion King to 50 Shades of Grey it was quite a mix...) and headed off into the night.

We arrived to find members of the residents association there who were concerned about the damage that was being done to the lovely cherry trees that lined the road. They are putting on a community event in April celebrating the famous blossom (that apparently the Queen Mother used to come and visit) and needed our help digging tree pits around the trunks to help protect them.

Apparently there were 90 to be done all in all, so we got straight to work digging, raking, and weeding the bases. It was chilly work, but we got stuck in, and after just 40 minutes of work we had managed 17 trees, which effectievly doubled the number of pits the association had already dug. Great work team!

After a short run back to base we started our fitness challenge, which was to run a timed loop round our classic circuit, do some exercises that fired up our key muscle groups, and then repeat the loop but this time trying to beat our previous time. It was brilliant to see that everybody got that little bit quicker the second time - it just shows what a really good warm up and mobilisation of muscles can do for you. Good to remember before a race!

Next week we will be having a very Christmassy session so sign up here to see off the last GoodGym Hounslow run of the decade in true festive style!