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.

Yesterday was National Fitness Day, and at GoodGym Hounslow we celebrated in the best way possible - with a brand new task that took a lot of hard work, a run along the river, and a workout that involved endurance, power, strength and stability challenges!

We started off with a warm up at the Town Hall before heading to Green Dragon school in Brentford. The volunteers there have cleared away a space that hasn't been used for 15 years to create a new growing area for the kids.

We soon arrived and were wowed by how huge the school was and how many cool things they had there - an outside kitchen, play areas and not to mention the gang of four foxes watching us work with interest!

The main job was to tackle the hefty brambles which needed to be taken away by the root. Easier said than done! The brambles were so old that they were seriously deep in the ground - which meant a lot of GG elbow grease.

Meanwhile Ariane was grappling with a very dead but very invasive plant. Armed with secateurs and sheer grit, she took it to task, eventually clearing the area completely.

Amazing work everybody. All that was left to do was a fitness challenge that covered flamingos for stability, half burpees for power, press ups for strength and step ups for endurance. Seeing how many we could complete in one minute was a tough ask, but everybody smashed it.

Next week we're back to Chiswick House - see you there!

What we lost in distance last night we more than made up for in productivity, positive impact and a bumper balancing session!

Our task for the evening was just across the road at Turnham Green, so we wasted no time heading over to the wild meadow where Jan from Friends of Turnham Green was waiting for us. Many of the tasks we do have an immediate impact - washing the Chiswick mural, uncovering the old pillars at Chiswick House or plastic picking at Kew Bridge, for example. This job was a little different as we were investing effort now so that come next spring, the area will - hopefully - be an amazing display of wild flowers for local people to enjoy.

Dividing up into pairs, we each took a 2 X 2 metre patch of recently mowed grass in the meadow area and began the laborious job of scarifying. For the uninitiated, this means pulling up all the loose grass and weeds to reveal the earth so that seeds can be spread. It is hard work, but ultimately satisfying - the pile of dead grass quickly grew to monster proportions.

Once that part of the task was complete, we moved on to the more delicate process of using a tablespoon to disperse the cornflower and poppy seeds far and wide. Let's keep our fingers crossed for rain to help them bed in, as if they so come up successfully next year it's going to be a glorious riot of colour.

All that was left was to use the GG red roller (very on brand) to complete their journey into the soil. Great work - can't wait to see the results!

Without a run this week we had plenty of time for a longer fitness session, this time focusing on balance for runners. And if last night was anything to go by, should Cirque de Soleil need any last minute stand-ins, GG Hounslow have plenty of candidates! As runners are constantly propelling their weight from one side to the other, good balance is important for stability and efficiency. It's definitely worth including some of the drills from last night into your weekly training.

Next week we have a new (woohoo) task. We're going to be going to a school in Brentford to help transform an overgrown space into a community growing space.

There is also a fun mission marshaling at local centenary celebrations on Saturday and setting up for a community event in a conservation area on Sunday - we definitely need a few more pairs of hands for these ones, so if you're free this weekend and want to do some good why not sign up?!

Early bird GoodGymers were out in force today, with 9 around the course on the day of Maki's - Chikako's daughter's - last Junior parkrun as her birthday is coming soon. They'll both still be at Acton Juniors in the future, volunteering to help the event that they've enjoyed attending for years.

Most of today's marshals were GoodGymers, with Max, Maria, Steph, Michelle and Sevan helping the children and adults navigate the course and cheering them up and down the hills. Kash experienced the hills herself as the tailwalker, playing a key role in getting a couple of less enthusiastic children to the finish line and Chikako was the VI Guide for the last time (for now).

In the funnel, Ariane dished out the finish tokens and Alan was a late substitute to the timekeeper role. As it turned out, Alan saved the day (in a small way), by recording the finish times of the runners more accurately than the other timekeeper, meaning that all 65 finishers were correctly logged.

Before we kicked off our run last night, there was plenty of cheering to be done after a busy weekend of racing. We celebrated Florian and Lucy smashing the Big Half, and Jonny completing the triple at the Great North Run. Shout out to Jon for his 250 parkrun. Great running everybody! After some warming up, it was off to our task for the evening, just around the corner.

One of the benefits of going every three weeks to help out at Chiswick House is that we really feel the seasons change and gardens evolve. Last night our job was to clear brambles and ivy from some ancient pillars and stones so they can be repurposed, and there was a feeling of autumn rolling slowly in. The kitchen garden was full of giant sunflowers about to turn, the apples were ripening and there were blackberries for the picking.

We grabbed gloves, loppers and secateurs and began cutting away the overgrowth to reveal some beautiful old stone work. It was a satisfying job to do - have a look at the before and after shots to see what we uncovered! And watch out for the new placement of the pillars around the grounds soon...

It had started to drizzle so we took a brisk run back to Turnham Green where we saw off the night with a three minute mountain leg challenge. The idea is that this drill replicates a hill session - just without having to find any hills! With 90 seconds of step ups and reverse lunges per leg, this is a proper leg blast in an effectively short time.

We have a few community missions coming up which are looking a bit lonely! Can you help? On the 21st there is an opportunity to help out at a lovely community event at St Stephen's conservation area.

If you're up for a bit of saturday night fun, why not sign up for this centenary celebration mission in Gunnersbury? Not only is there the chance to help the community come together, but there is loads of fun stuff happening to enjoy at the same time!

After helping with the setup of the last Brentford Festival in the morning, Sevan and Kash had little time left to prepare GoodGym’s own stall, kindly offered by the retiring rockstar of festival organising, Linda. Luckily, Eleanor and Bryon stayed to lend them two pairs of helpful hands!

With the festival taking place on the grounds of the Ealing Borough, and Brentford technically being in the Borough of Hounslow, two GoodGyms joined forces to spread the word about doing good while getting fit among West Londoners. Michelle and Luis cycled from Chiswick to join the Ealing reps, Sevan and Kash.

The first shift of the volunteer hunting had the most GoodGymers at the stall, but not as much traffic yet, as the festival had only started to warm up. On the bright side, that gave the four a chance to resolve any technical and strategic matters, such as which side the stall should face, how to prevent the signs from toppling over due to wind, and where to get cable ties.

We are looking forward to seeing new GoodGym signups across Ealing and Hounslow, and hopefully growing numbers at our sessions!

I cycled over to Hounslow to help a lovely lady to tidy her back garden. Recently her garden had become a little too lively — the weeds have taken centre stage, and foxes were starting to treat it like their personal playground. Understandably, Mrs M was worried that her once-loved garden was being overrun and the weeds would quickly grow out of control.

Luckily Mrs M had had wood chip laid previously and with the recent rain weeds were easy to uproot. What started as several overgrown patches slowly transformed into a tidier space.

After turning the soil I said goodbye to Mrs M and left her to enjoy her afternoon.