We had a Hounslow first to kick off the night yesterday evening - a massive congratulations to [Andy] who is the first of the group to reach that 50 good deed milestone! Give him a huge cheer for this achievement. To celebrate there was cake, lots and lots of cake. We were also treated to a fabulous honey cake made by Remy (who had also run a barnstorming half marathon at the weekend) to mark Rosh Hashanah. Shana Tova everyone!

We were also given our cards by Dave for our team to take part in Hounslow's Beat the Street, welcomed lovely GG ers Alex from Ealing, and Helen and Jordan from Wandsworth, and were very happy to have Jennifer back in the group.

We will rock you

With our task waiting for us just across the road, we had a quick topical chat about our favourite celebrations - Christmas, Passover, St Patrick's day, Norwegian national day and, erm, pancake day all topped the list - and then hopped over to Turnham Green to find Jan waiting for us with tools, bulbs, plants and gloves ready to get stuck in.

Apparently we have had lots of compliments about our previous job on the green where we cleared a huge meadow of thistles, so it was great to move onto the next stage of the job. With Alex and Jennifer tackling the central area planting some beautiful pots, two other teams spread out over the different areas to get to grips with the weeds. The light was fading quickly, but with some headtorches and sheer grit we cleared the rockeries and planted packs of tulip bulbs which we will admire next spring as we do our sprints.

Tulips, two legs

Job done, we moved on to our fitness session, kicking off with some Indian file round the park to get our heart rates up. We then had a quick game of 'grab the light' (the name needs some work) before moving on to the real session, which was a tough one. We concentrated on three areas - core, glutes and arms. Starting with glutes we did six exercises for 45 seconds, including lunges, squats, power skips and hip thrusts before moving onto abs. For that we used the benches to smash out planks, holds, plank jumps and side planks as well as, of course, dead bugs. Finally we tackled those difficult upper body drills with press ups, tricep dips and even an arm wrestle.

After all that, all that was left was to do a good stretching session and to eat cake. Ever run should end with some. Sign up for next week's run, where we will put those beat the street cards to good use.

22 awesome runners ran 3km to clear leaves at Ballast Quay Garden!

After a few weeks of 7k+ runs, it was nice to stay local for a change! And you can't get more local than Ballast Quay!

We welcomed back Glenn who ran with us a few times earlier in the year but had a break to climb Mont Blanc... NICE!! We were also joined by the lovely Winnie who usually runs with GG Southwark :) And lastly, Helen who turned up with a little baby bump... amazing news!!! SO happy for you Helen!!!! Maybe if it's a boy you can call him Jim and if he's well behaved you can say Good Jim :)

After a little warm up we got on our way, starting off with a lap of the uni that much resembled the time trial route that was to come later on in the session! We arrived in no time and were greeted by the amazing Diane who has been looking after Ballast Quay Garden since the early 60s. Such a legend! And of course Tom the dog was there too! WOOF!

A few tasks were on the cards. The first one being a hedge/plant/thing that needed trimming back which Alex and Steve attacked straight away. Some heavy compost bags needed shifting from one side of the garden to the other. And finally, all the leaves needed clearing. There were two brooms and a dustpan and everyone else got stuck in with their hands, filling up the bins! After about 5 minutes, the first bin was full... but amazingly Diane said it was absolutely fine to just chuck all the compost and leaves over the edge of the wall into the Thames.... she even checked with the council! So that was fun.

20 minutes later and the place had never looked so tidy! AMAZING!

We took a group photo and even Tom decided to join us! Diane had kindly left out some juice and biscuits so a few people tucked in... gotta fuel that time trial!!!

Everyone's favourite fitness session

The first Wednesday of every month means only one thing, our 1km time trial around the uni! We have done this for a few months now, hopefully some of you are seeing some improvements???? Here is the official Strava leaderboard and you should be able to see all of your attempts on there too, provided it picked it up alright on your GPS.

After the TT, we had a nice little stretch and finished up a bit earlier than usual... the pub was calling after all!!! We headed to the Old Brewery for some food and drinks and were reunited with Mridula, Vickie and Pulin who went to do the mission in Shooter's Hill.

WHAT A LOVELY EVENING :)

Thanks so much for coming last night! I know there wasn't a huge amount of work for you all to do but you have saved Diane A LOT of time and effort and she really appreciates the work that you do so well done! See you next week for a NEW TASK!

It was looking pretty grim all day, but as soon as we all met at Chiswick Town Hall for our run last night, the skies brightened for us and we were treated to a beautiful sunset as we did our task. The sun always shines on GoodGym runs!*

We started off by giving the amazing Remy a big old pat on the back for absolutely smashing the Aberdeen half marathon at the weekend with her fastest time this year. She's a machine! Well done also to Dave for taking on Gunnersbury parkrun last weekend. Incredibly, this Saturday will be Dave's 150th parkrun, so if you see him crossing the line, make sure you give him a massive GoodGym cheer!

Welcome also to our lovely GG visitors Jordan, Amy and Matthew - lovely to have you with us.

What's your favourite curry? In anticipation of our social after the run last night, we found out everybody's fav before we set off. Rogan josh, tikki masala, dhansak and caulifower curry were all winners. Who's hungry?

The root of the problem

Outside the town hall we met up with local Jan, who organises the wild flower meadow and the rockery in Turnham Green. She provided us with gloves and tools, and we got stuck in clearing the thistles and mugwort that we didn't manage to blitz last week. It was tough work, for they are thorny little pests, but after double-gloving and giving it some serious elbow grease, at the end of 40 minutes we had a huge wall of weeds of which we were proud.

Thistle never end

We warmed up for our fitness session with a few rounds of knee fencing, fish and chips, and clusters - with varying successes. It did the job though, so with our heart rates up, we got stuck into our technical exercises. To improve our running style, helping to prevent injuries and increase efficiency, we went though a series of sprints focusing each time on a different aspect of form. These included thinking about low shoulders and high chests, knee raise, positive backwards arm drive and foot placement. To put it all into practice, we finished off with a pyramid interval session which saw some great running from the team.

The trouble with tribbles

After all that hard work, there was only one thing left - our curry social! But hold on a minute, half the group wants to run the two miles to the restaurant? Amazing stuff! You lot can't get enough of running. Not long after, we all met up at Waterman's art centre, where we had a lovely evening stuffing our faces. Hounslow, you rule. Sign up next week for more GG fun.

*metaphorically

A huge task, a monster fitness session, and cheese jokes. What more could you ask for from a Wednesday night?

With a lovely turn out of excellent Hounslow regulars and some GG tourism from Wandsworth (hello Jordan, Matthew and David!) it was set to be a great night as we said our hellos and well dones. Please give Andy, a cheer, for he has nailed no less than eight good deeds this month - way to go! Great job Jo, Adam and Dave who all took on Gunnersbury parkrun last Saturday and produced some great runs. Finally a massive congratulations to Andreea who rejoins us after getting married!

We had a bit of an upside down night, as our task was just opposite our start location on Turnham Green. So after our news and a quick round of 'what's your favourite cheese?' (halloumi coming in at number one) we met up with Jan (favourite cheese - pyrenean mountain) who provided us with gloves and tools and headed straight over to the task before our run. This was not before we were treated to several of the cheesiest jokes we could hope for from Adam. Let the record reflect the best of them:

Did you hear about the explosion at the cheese factory in France? All that was left was de-brie. How do you approach a Welsh cheese? Caerphilly. What did the cheese say when he looked in the mirror? Halloumi.

Lovely stuff.

Off we went with Jan, who showed us a huge wild meadow section of the green which had a rather intrusive thistle problem. After demonstrating what exactly was a thistle, we donned some pretty hardcore rigging gloves and got stuck in. There was some unfortunate thistle throwing incidents, a blanket refusal to film a video which showcased our work, and a few scratchy-bitey things, but after half an hour, the area looked much better. It's great to be able to help out in an area which we use so often for our fitness sessions, and which is enjoyed by so many local people. We'll be back next week to finish off the job.

Next was our tough fitness session. After a dynamic warm up, we kicked off with a very speedy Indian file fun around the green (and a bit of playing chicken with the traffic) before launching into our monster circuits session which featured no less than 15 stations. It sounds like a lot (it was) but each cardio-based exercise was interspersed with a strengthening drill. After toughies such as sprints, squat jumps, reverse crunches and mountain climbers, we finished off with the killer plank twists. Fantastic work, team. All that was left was a quick game of Bulldog which saw the super speedy Natasha claim the title - and not for the first time! She's the one to watch.

Don't forget that next week we have a curry social next week - everybody welcome, please join us at Waterman's for some well=deserved fun and food after the run, for which you can sign up here. You just Gouda be there.

ps Kudos to Adam who came up with this report's killer pun!