After last week's mini heat wave we were business as normal again, and a good job it was too.

A cracking team of eight runners met in Chiswick, and we had the pleasure of no less than three ace new members join us. People of GoodGym, please put your hands together for Adam, Natasha and Andreea who all came on their first Hounslow run with us last night. Give them a cheer!

Special bonus points go to Dave, who had a weekend of running, with no less than TWO races. Runspiration! Hat tip also goes to Andreea, who did the same 10k race on Sunday. Way to go guys.

After a few warm ups, introductions, and a quick interrogation to find out what was everybody's favourite biscuit (we nail all the important things in Chiswick. Top choice was rich tea, if you're interested.), we set off on a short but sweet little run down to the Water and Steam Museum.

This amazing place has no funding, and relies on the help of volunteers to keep the museum running. It is chock full of incredible things, and needs support so that everybody is able to go and see them. We were met by Penny, who led us through the museum to the outside area, where we were introduced to Ed and eight brooms. Our job tonight was to sweep up all the gravel in the area into piles, to stop little hands from dumping it in the water displays. This was an upper body and arms work out of epic proportions - which was a good thing, as we runners often neglect this area which can make our running form less efficient.

We each took on a different section of the huge yard, and after half an hour of hard brushing, we had made a big difference. It was one of those impossible tasks where you can't just walk away...just one last bit. 'I won't be coming back here without my brush,' said Adam. Tough work, gang, but there was no grumbling at all, despite a few blisters. After all, champions train, losers complain!

We took the run back to Turnham Green a little faster, and finished off the evening with a blast of circuits that included lots of horrid things like plank rotations, press ups and squat holds. We attempted a half pigeon in our stretches afterwards, watched by the actual birds behind us doing 'full pigeon', as Andy pointed out.

Next week we're going to be conducting a load of surveys for Hounslow Housing services to find out how they can improve the lives of the older community in the borough. A very worthwhile job indeed. You can sign up to help out here. See you then Team Hounslow!

33 GoodGymers ran between 3-6km, made beds for the homeless and helped Skip Garden!

Thanks and welcome to all the new people that came this week; Chloe, Pierre, Enrica, Joanna, Marium and Emma. We also had a photographer and journalist from Runaway Mag, article and pictures to be released soon.

In the news this week:

1. Tom Benson is organising the GG race team monthly time trial on Sunday in Victoria Park if you want to take part. Full details here.
2. Next week is the GG monthly social, we're on tour down to Lewisham. More details here, it's gonna be good!
3. The BIGGEST TASK of the year is next week helping Grounded Ecotherapy lift and carry cement mix at the Southbank Centre on the Thames. SIGN UP HERE

C4WS Task by Frances:

Frances and Pritesh led 15 GoodGymers back to C4WS to help them make beds for the homeless shelter. It's a quick and simple job for us, but a great help to the volunteers organising the shelter.

Quick & simple

Most of the people in the group were either new to GoodGym, new to the homeless shelter, or in Axel’s case, new to making beds. Everyone got stuck in and made the beds in super-speedy time before we headed over to Granary Square to meet the others – ready for the Time Trial!

Skip Garden Task:

Fifteen of us headed to Skip Garden near Granary Square to help Global Generation. Our tasks this time:

1. Moving planters, pots, tables and bags of soil around the garden. This was like a massive game of jenga.
2. Turn the compost machine and sieve the contents to use as mulch in the garden.

We split into teams, got lots done and rotated the teams - well done everyone! After finishing our 'tasking' Gwen explained about Skip Garden and Global Generation the charity who runs it, here is some of what we found out:

• Existed for 12 years across four different sites in Kings Cross
• The team work with young people in the community to educate them on alternative living
• They keep bees who make lovely honey & there is a HONEY CLUB
• Also they keep chickens who provide lovely eggs for the cafe :)

Fitness:

First off we did a series of strength and conditioning exercises, including squats, press ups, tricep dips and plenty more. We mixed this up with some intervals and balancing exercises.

90 degree angle PLEASE

With both groups now combined we moved onto arm technique. When running your arms are as important as your legs, they are vital for efficiency and power. So to develop our arm technique we got into pairs and practised powering our arms at a 90 degree angle, have an open chest and no crossing of the arms!

Next we moved onto our monthly Time Trial - 880 metres around Granary Square. Everyone did brilliantly! Nice arms! I have a record of everyone's time, if you would like yours please just let me know. I'll be keeping an eye on times over the coming trials and I can keep you updated on your progress.

Sign up for next week here, we are breaking out of Camden and heading to the Southbank Centre to help Grounded Ecotherapy. It's a fantastic task,a really great charity and a big workout - come along and tell your mates too - it'll be a great intro to GoodGym for them!

PB out.

Four of us paid another visit to Ealing Road Baptist Church last night. After a 2.5k jog we met with Roger outside the premises who was wearing a new hat and explained how his wife often hides the hats of his that she doesn't like. I don't know why I included this in the report, it just seems funny :-D

So, to work...

Graham and Alicia set about emptying two large cupboards of various tinned food, packets of pasta, biscuits, tea, a dodgy perfume set and some strange biscuit/cream cheese combination that looked a bit scary.

While at the same time Andy and Simon carried some chairs upstairs and then organised a bookshelf.

As usual we got loads done in a short space of time and had a little while for Roger to offer us various items of food that were unsuitable for the food bank, such as out-of-date mince pies, which we sampled for a bit of fuelling for the journey back.

On the way home we stopped for a mini "leg-buster" challenge. A short lunge walk, followed by five squat jumps up and down a kerb and then repeat twice more. Gets you to just about the point where you don't want to walk any more. Ow.

That's it, I'm off now. Thanks for having me GoodGym Hounslow. It has been great fun and I'll see you at Gunnersbury parkrun on the 4th March

Ana from Wandsworth is taking over next week. Sign up here

Simon

Back and ready for action this week were Simon, Andy and Deepa. And joining them on her first trip to GoodGym was Lily, who'd spotted one of GoodGym's tube ads on the Victoria Line. Welcome, Lily.

Our task this week was aother 2.5k run over to Ealing Road Baptist Church for more clearing. A small and dusty room that was filled with... pretty much evrything you could imagine, had to be cleared out.

We set about the task, removing pots of paint, pumps, tools, shelving brackets, poles, magazines, old books, tool boxes, curtains, clocks, lightbulbs, screws, brick mortar and lots and lots of dust.

Then after shifting a few fold-up tables we were done.

Deepa took us through the "Sun Salutation" yoga moves again, Roger gave us an assortment of food to take home (tuna, Indian sweets, Jaffa Cakes, biscuits, and a pot-noodle-wannabe) and we were off.

En route we conducted a little experiment to work out if health food or junk food was better for running. The test was a four-person relay first using a tin of tuna as the baton, then using a pot noodle as a baton. Tuna time came to 1 minute exactly, whereas pot noodle saw us smash that with 55 seconds.

There you have it. Eat junk and prosper.

Thank you Roger for hosting again.

We are back next week for more of the same.

See you there,
Simon

Three of us were keen to do a nice long run over to The Bridgelink Centre in Isleworth this evening. Joining regulars Simon and Andy was Matthew from Wandsworth doing a spot of tourism and in the mood for getting a few miles in the legs.

We worked our way through the streets, chatting about running, and counting down the kilometres, occasionally mentioning that none of us knew where we were or had been in this area before.

And finally we made it. We went in the centre to find Kevin, the caretaker, who we'd been told had lots of jobs for us. Except.... he didn't :( Nope, apparently there was a bit of raking to do earlier on, but somebody had already done it.

Any window cleaning? Sweeping? Tidying up? Nope, 'fraid not. Any leaflets we could drop off on the way back? Nope, 'fraid not.

So, we had a tour of the centre, a glass of water and then headed back.

This time our attention turned to food, which is unsurprisingly quite a common topic for runners on longer runs. And what are our favourite post-run foods? Porridge and Peanut Butter for Matthew, Peanut Butter and Jam on Toast for Simon and Jacket Potato with Tuna and Sweetcorn for Andy.

Why not all three?

We are doing a shorter run of 2.5k to Ealing Road Baptist Church next week where there will definitely be a task and there's loads for us to do, and where Roger (former chef) has promised to cook us up some takeaway food. The last batch was delicious.

So, get down, get fit and get fed.

See you there,
Simon