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!

Hump day in Hounslow is the best ever. Don't believe me? Have a read at what the dream team got up to last night...

We met at a hot hot hot Chiswick Town Hall, ready to do some serious good. But first we had some high fives to hand out. A huge well done to the lovely Jennifer who ran Gunnersbury Park Run for the first time and smashed it, and also to Andy who just ran double the furthest distance he'd every run before in one go with his Dad, who was celebrating 20 years of running. Fantastic job, and in Jennifer's words, that's proper 'runspiration'! We also welcomed back Marco from Islington, no Camden, no Islington.

While we did a little bit of warming up, which included some fancy fast footwork, we chatted about our favourite sandwich fillings. If, dear reader, you're interested, in Hounslow we like; tuna, halloumi and avocado (posh), egg (good protein), smoked salmon (posh), chicken and cheese. Who's getting hungry?

It was a nice 1.7 mile run down to Ealing Baptist Church, which we haven't been to in ages. Well done to everybody for doing it without stopping (aside from a short pause at the worst roundabout in the world). Roger was waiting for us, and there were some distractingly delicious smells emanating from the kitchen....

After a quick glass of water we were taken upstairs to get cracking on our task. The first job was to move a huge pile of bags from one room to another. The bags were full of donated clothes - our task was to sort them out into women, men, kids and, um, miscellaneous, before putting them into nice strong bags ready to be given to the homeless. Even with some small pauses - 'is this small man, or large child?' we got the job done quicksharp, filling all the large bags that Roger had bought.

We were just about to set back off for our run back when Roger came out of the kitchen with six lots of dinner for us all. What a legend! Best task ever.

Our run back was all the quicker, knowing we were carrying our supper with us, and with Andy and Marco doing some extra speed work, we arrived at the Town Hall ready for some stretches in no time. Thanks to the older gent on the bicycle who rode past as we were stretching against the Town Hall pillars shouting 'I tried that yesterday, they wouldn't budge!'. There's always one :)

Following on from Ella's Chiswick Chuckler a couple of weeks ago, we had this rib-tickler from Jennifer this week: two drums and a cymbal fell off a cliff. Ba-dum, tish!

So, I think you'll agree that hump day is the best day in Hounslow - getting fit, making a difference, free dinner, and even a joke or two thrown in! For more of the same, sign up for next week here

Another glorious evening with the perfect combination of bright and sunny but not too warm for our Goodgym run, and we were returning to one of our favourite tasks for Colchester in Bloom up on Bergholt Road Allotments.

17 merry runners joined us, including Sue and Ian. There was the usual chatter in advance of the run, and we congratulated Chris for his first Marathon, Ian, Nicola and Hannah for their Alton Water 10kms, all under the hour, and Tav and Fay for completing their Leadership in Running Fitness Course.

We made our way to Bergholt road, though we did confuse Fay as backmarker when we circled back to bring the group together - clearly they're teaching something different on LiRF these days! Then we made a snake up Bergholt Road to finally arrive at the allotment.

This task was hard. The soil was really hard, and our task was to break it up and turn it over to create a bed for plants - we had 2 examples that had been completed by the Gurkha's the previous day - and we weren't to feel bad that they had managed this well when most of them were over 70. Almost everybody had a go at using the pick-axe, and we learnt the importance of bringing your hips into play to generate the power needed to break the soil up. And I even taught some of the runners what my dad taught be about using a fork to break down and turn over soil, by jumping on it to get it further into the ground to create more leverage.

As well as creating a new plant bed, a shed was built, and hundreds of bulbs were sorted. A really great array of things in 30 minutes, and as always Pam showed her appreciation by asking us back - we'll be doing another task for Colchester in Bloom next week, but she asked if we could come back every Wednesday!

After the task we got on with our impromptu social at the Bricklayers - a very last minute arrangement, but we will have our proper social next Wednesday, so please let Emily know if you'll be coming so she can book a table.

See you next week!