33 of Camden's finest helped Skip Garden with some gardening and we leafleted for Green Gym & Kentish Town City Farm

Welcome along to Antonia whose first group run it was last night - lovely to have you along.

In the news this week:

1. Well done to Shirin who hit 50 Good Deeds last week! Woop woop!
2. Also a massive well done to Sophie and Steve who represented GG at Manchester Marathon recently, both achieving under 4 hours.
3. This Sunday is the London Marathon and GoodGym has various cheering squads out and about - have a look here. Myself and 20+ other GoodGymers are running - come along and cheer us on!

Chris' Leaflet Telegram:

This week were leafleting for Green Gym who run local gardening projects in Camden and Kentish Town City Farm who run programs for people 60+ in the local community.

Sunset running

We headed up to Kentish Town. Bumped into Jess (Sophie's mate) on the way there on her bike. Split into two groups, tackled the areas marked on the map around Kentish Town, working our way back down to Castlehaven. Pritesh was at the back, Steve gave a leaflet to some corner lads. Stop.

Skip Garden Report by PB:

We headed over to Skip Garden, through a busy Granary Square (it was like it was the first day of summer or something). Upon our arrival we met Chief Gardener Emma who explained our jobs:

1. Folding up and loading the yurt onto a van to be moved to the Canada Water site - this provides lots more space in the Garden for activities!
2. Shovelling soil into small bags so to be easily used around the garden to feed the plants & flowers
3. Moving the compost ridan out of the way - it's unfortunately broken and will be removed soon, so no more ridan fun.
4. Moving very heavy pots from inside to outside
5. Watering the plants - they need feeding

RIP Ridan

After we'd taken a group picture we headed for a run on the sunny canal with two options on the way back, short with Frances or long with me.

I am recovering from London Marathon next week so Pritesh is in charge and you're going to Antrim Allotments - sign up here.

PB out.

33 GGers ran 4-6km, helped Skip Garden & Castlehaven and did a time trial!

Welcome along to Eleonora whose first time it was last night, plus there was the return of lots of January newbies - lovely to have you all along.

In the news this week:

1. Well done to Lucy and George who have hit 50 good deeds in the last week - well done to you both! That's a whole lot of good!
2. Rosie Ashworth (Taskforce Member) made us some awesome brownies and flapjacks for us as she raising money for RISE, a charity which supports victims of domestic violence. If you'd like to donate in aid of brownie eating please go to her JustGiving Page here.
3. Go along to Victoria Park 10km on 25th February - great race to start the year!

Right onto last night, after a quick warm up we split into two groups to help Camden task favourites Castlehaven and Skip Garden.

Frances' Skip Garden Report:

Fifteen of us went to Skip Garden to help them get ready for Lumiere London. They were expecting loads of visitors over the next few nights and needed us to help with moving trip hazards and getting 70 litres of wine in the right place, something which Steve Coman was very keen to help with.

Wine please!

After we'd finished we did a couple of laps of Granary Square and then took turns to assign a variety of core exercises

Castlehaven Report by PB:

After a gentle mile of running we arrived at Castlehaven, an amazing community centre who help both young and old people with their services. They also look after two parks in the area and need help maintaining these - that's where we come in.

Despite it being January there was still some dead and wet leaves left in the gullys along the fences surrounding the park. We got to work armed with tools, bin bags and gloves. After 20 minutes we'd packed up 16 bags of leaves - nice!

Candle in the wind!

On our way to meet the other team we ran along the canal and took in the light festival as we approached Granary Square. Once there, the teams combined, we played the high knees game in the smoke and then lined up for our first time trial of the year! Everyone did amazingly, really pushing the pace! Chris came in first at 2.34, one second outside the course record - pretty good!

Next week we are off to one of our most important and impactful tasks at the American International Church to help make beds for the homeless - sign up here.

PB out.

Wednesday are pretty good. You've got half way through the week and the weekend is just about in sight. What could make it better? A run. What about a run with a group of mates? And throw in a community task that makes you feel good about yourself. A fitness session? Go on then! Lovely stuff.

Firstly, a huge well done to Remy and to Will who both smashed the Royal Parks Half on Sunday. If you've got the need for speed, don't forget that GoodGym are organising a trip to the Bucharest Festival of Running next May - sign up for details. It promises to be a fun weekend of running, eating and exploring and everybody is welcome!

Tonight we were heading back to a local school - Strand on the Green - to help out with a list of jobs that needed doing. But first - the warm up and the weekly Hounslow headscratcher. If you were invisible, where would be the first place you'd go? The Whitehouse, the Pentagon, North Korea, Downing street - looks like we've all got a bit of the secret agent in us.

Sand-on-the-Green

It was only a short run to the school, so we set off, licketysplit , at a nice fast pace. One mile later we were there, finding Claire the caretaker waiting for us with a trailer of tools. Michelle got the work sweeping the bike shed and paths, Claudia took the scooter park, Remy, Will and Andy tackled the fenced play area while Ross, Adam and Jo dived into the huge pile of blocks that needed sanding.

Half an hour of elbow grease later, the jobs were done and dusted and we kicked off with our fitness session. It was a bit of a bumpy start with the flip a coin game, but eventually we got there, splitting into two groups with each side doing an exercise depending on the result of the flip. Next up was a timed obstacle course, which wasn't exactly plain sailing either and was eventually called off thanks to an apocalyptic shower of rain that came out of nowhere. Like a bunch of naughty school children we sheltered in the bike sheds under it had passed. Next week normal service will be resumed, promise!

We were just about to hit the road when disaster struck. It really wasn't our night. The code to the electric gates had mysteriously stopped working, and after several attempts at opening it from the outside and scaling the fence, it was hero Andy with super long legs who managed to hop the gate and release us. Well done Andy!

All that was left was a speedy run back to base, a few stretches and a bit of thawing out. Don't forget, Team Hounslow, that whatever the world throws at us, we all sand together.

Next week, we're back to school - a different one this time, for a spot of painting.

It was a bit of a rocky start to the night when ten runners found themselves to be homeless after being kicked out of our regular room, but the evening just got better and better from there.

First of all we cheered the indomitable Remy who is getting ever closer to that PB with a cracking performance at the Great Scottish half marathon this week.

We then celebrated lovely Jo who last night reached the all important FIFTY milestone. It shows a lot of commitment to get there, so well done to Jo- give her a cheer!

After a quick warm up and a discussion about what age is the best - answers ranged from 7 to 67 - we set off on a short run to Turnham Green station where the incredibly industrious Karen of Abundance London and GGer Michelle were waiting for us with buckets and sponges. Our job tonight was to strip off the fly posters that were making a mess of the walls of the tube station bridge.

The bridge has been there for almost 200 years, and it seemed as though the posters started going up not long after. We got stuck in, peeling off layer after layer of paper. The aim is to clear the wall ready for a big project. Abundance London recently received permission from TFL, along with some funding from Hounslow and Ealing Council, to install a huge mural under the railway arches at Turnham Green tube. The plan is to create a large mural made up from a series of historical maps of the area from 1745 up to the present day. GoodGym Hounslow is to become a small part of Chiswick history!

Turns out that stripping off the posters is totally addictive, and we couldn't (ahem) tear ourselves away. So satisfying when a huge piece comes off in one go. We even had a hand from Paul, the lovely cabbie waiting at the taxi rank right by the station, and the flower seller from across the road helped carry our water. What a community job! After 40 or so minutes of work the wall was transformed. A note for an potential fly posterers in the Turnham Green area: stay away. We will find you.

After waving goodbye to Karen we were taken on a little detour by Remy who is leading us to victory in the Beat the Streets competition, did a few squats as we tapped our cards, then headed back to the park to knock out a fitness session. Last night it was all about the glutes. We started off with some walk outs to warm up, then started on an intense hit session that was aimed at strengthening our glutes in order to prevent injury and get ourselves some nice peachy bums in the process. We knocked out 40 seconds of ladder runs (hereby christened by Jordan as 'Beyoncés'), squat jumps and side shuffles and lunges, followed each time by 20 seconds rest. Feel the burn!

All that was left was to tackle the short run back to the Town Hall where much to our delight we found a birthday party going on and were generously donated slices of chocolate cake from the birthday girl. Much appreciated after a tough session, and to show our gratitude we serenaded the party with a nice rousing round of happy birthday. Then we headed to the pub to toast Jo. All in all a great night of running, addictive tasks, Beyoncé, cake and pub. More next week?

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.

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!