How "O Solo Mio" became 11 ladies dancing and 1 lord leaping; it was almost a Christmas miracle. For although Richmonds twinkling lights had everyone thinking jingle bells, Mark's phone was simply ringing out

"WE ARE STUCK AT WORK!"

One by one the Goodgym angels arrived in timely fashion and he was relieved that he did not have to run 12km , wash windows in Twickenham and help the food banks in Richmond all by himself. Tonight's tasks were for 2 of Richmond's organisations supporting homelessness. It is an honour to get the chance to support them as they do some much great work in the community.

Wes et off in one group for a lovely scenic river run, which Mark quite rightly admitted that in order for it to be scenic you need to be able to see something. It was very dark but our band of jostling head torches gave us just enough light to pave our way. Once past Marble hill Park we bid adieu and good luck to our fellow GGers and we split to do good in two areas of Richmond borough.

Whilst the long distance runners set off for window cleaning in Spear us short distance 'sprinters' looped back on ourselves to get to the Vineyard.

Whilst glupping some much needed water we learnt that the Vineyard has 6 projects in Richmond including a morning crisis drop in with signposting and a bi weekly food bank service. They blend the food bank in with their cafe making it a much more enjoyable experience. Now briefed on the vital work Vineyard does in the Richmond area we were keen to roll up our sleeves and dig in. We divided and conquered and split our group into three to get as much done as possible.

Two of us put together gift bags that will be given out to the team of 50 volunteers that make the work the Vineyard does possible. Inside was some hand cream, some fancy chocolate that had been kindly donated and an angel wing Christmas tree decoration which we thought was very apt.

Another two of us packed up gift hampers filled with goodies that had been donated at harvest. These will be given out as Christmas treats, Desree the Centre Manager called these "Bags of Blessings". We had to wade through the cat food to get to the good stuff but we found some yummy mince pies and biscuits!

Lastly there was bread to be individually wrapped. The loaves had been kindly donated by Gail's bakery and arrived in large sacks. We put each one in it's own individual bag the placed them in a basket ready to go on display the next day.

Many local bakeries support the Vineyard, including our very own start location Wholefoods and their main supporter, Pret. We were really impressed to see what might have been food waste being used to support people in need in our community- we definitely feel better about our Pret coffee addiction now!

It was insisted we each take some bread home with us so we were laden with loaves, able to make the quick run down hill to meet up with the rest of the gang for our cool down and to find out how they got on at Spear.

We discovered that the small team of 6 made short work of some rather grimy windows and it was said that it was the quickest and most efficient window cleaning episode ever seen! Our equipment had been left perfectly prepared so that we simply rolled up our sleeves and went about giving Spear the sparkle they deserve and left it gleaming like a jewel amongest the Twickenham Christmas lights. Apparently the worst window done was of course by our Run Trainer who should simply concentrate on his poor photography and leave the real work to the experts.

I am sure the Spear team are in for a treat when they get to work in the morning as Mark cites, even on his journey home, back past their offices he was blinded by the streams of light bouncing off of their crystal panes.

Thank you Jill for a great run report and well done all of you for great work tonight (including lowering my blood pressure.) You coped amazingly running with buckets - welcome back Kate on your second run! Thank you so much for taking a bucket off of me.

Ok to re-cap the news, we saw Jenna in the ninja black shirt (I am sure she won't take this off for weeks!) We heard great news of some awesome 10km races and some PB's. Good luck to Holly and Salwa on Sunday for the Putney 10k.

Please can everyone connect to Strava and start to log your training, races and Goodgym runs. Come January we are in competition with our brother and sister GoodGym sites.

There is still a chance to sign up for mission impossible.

Next week after quite a few of you requested, we will have a shorter run in addition to the one listed on the website. We will have Alice from the Poppy Factory coming to Wholefoods to chat to us about how what we do helps the great cause that the Poppoy Factory stand for.

Finally after we have sang our hearts out on 11th December , the suggestion is , One Kew Road to relieve our vocal cords.

Oh and PLEASE let me know if you wish to be part of the TASKFORCE! Email me for more details