What a lot to cheer about in Hounslow at the moment! We had some great racing, with Michelle, Beth and Jon all doing the Cabbage Patch 10 on Sunday, we got to welcome Breda who joined us for her very first session (great to meet you Breda!) and we have our upcoming 9th birthday celebrations in a couple of week - let me know if you've got any ideas about how you'd like to mark the occasion. What a lot of good stuff!

Our task for the evening was at Chiswick House, and so we met gardeners Chris and Kate at the gate and followed them into the very dark, very atmospheric grounds. We were led to two giant piles of woodchip, and our task was to shift it under the 300 year old cedar trees and their swooping branches.

With Halloween round the corner it was a very appropriate task - passers by must have wondered who the shadowy figures were dancing around the gently smoking heaps in the night!

The mulch has several positive effects - moisture control and keeping weeds down - plus is a great way to repurpose byproducts. It was also a fantastic workout. All that shoveling, shifting and raking proved to be quite the challenge.

Job done, it was time to learn yet another GoodGym specific new skill - the wheelbarrow pivot. What to do when you have a larger wheelbarrow to person ratio? Check out the photos to see our newly acquired knowledge and an impressive balancing act!

Next week we have potentially two tasks, both at local schools. If you could sign up here so we can take into account numbers and decide if we could manage both, that would be great!

If you're about this weekend and fancy a nice little mission on Chiswick eyot, I have just the thing!

Nothing can stop Goodgymers on a Sunday morning even injuries to attend a junior parkrun. Despite a bad injury, Alan still made his way to be timekeeper : unstoppable. Chikako was tailwalker with her daughter, Maria was marshal at the top gate, Joanna was handing out tokens to the children and I Steph Ducat was marshal at the bottom gate(had to make sure no one took a shortcut. 53 children completed this Sundays Junior Parkrun including a few new comers.

Racing celebrations, a huge task under the light of a beautiful moon, and a star turn from a rarely spotted inhabitant of Chiswick House made for a great Wednesday night at GoodGym Hounslow!

Thanks to Michelle for leading the warm up, before we kicked off the evening with a short run to our regular task. We were fresh off the back of some great races at the weekend - a huge well done to Chris, Tish, Matt, Eloise and Steph for a fantastic run at the Vitality 10km, and to Alan and Florian for smashing the Ealing Half!

We arrived at a secret door to meet Chiswick House gardener Chris, who took us to a new spot or the group - the bee hives. The bees produce honey which is sold in the shop to raise money for the charity, and they want to make the area more accessible for school kids. Enter GoodGym!

The aim of the game was to remove all the undergrowth and anything else that was getting in the way. Everything had to go to create a new pathway, and with the green flag from Chris to adopt a scorched earth policy, we got to work!

We pulled, lopped and cleared, slowly but surely revealing a large area of land. Half way through the task, our mystery guest made an appearance - well done to Ariane for safely uncovering and rehoming a gorgeous hedgehog! He was in very safe hands, and was soon happily snuffling his way back to the woods.

By the end the task the area was truly transformed, great work everybody. We ran and walked back to base, where there was the option of a static core workout using the benches by the rockery. We worked our obliques, lower back and abs with a series of (slightly damp) exercises.

Next week we're off to Harvard Hill for some more gardening - please bring headtorches if you have them as this is a dark task.