The sunny evenings are increasing and the red shirts are looking brighter than ever.

11 Goodgymmers were amongst us tonight, although late to the party Mark Allen still did a run and then joined the rest of us at the end to stretch. Great to see you Mark!

The rest of us had set out on a gentle jog to Marble Hill park. There Mark had us in training for our Tug of War competition coming up on 8th June in Twickenham. We paired up and trained not only our glutes and quads for power in tug of war but the exercises also doubled up as running drills, so now our fitness is all fired up!

Plus there is nothing quite like a game of "try not to make your partner fall over" to get you focused on technique.

The finale of the fitness session was a practice run of tug of war, the determination and grit was incredible....cant wait for the real thing. Make sure you all sign up!

All fatigued but happy, we got into teams to tackle the Richmond streets with 2 different sets of leaflets (and maybe the odd GG one too!). One for the Volunteer Fair ran by Council for Voluntary Service in Richmond on Thursday 7th June and one for The Poppy Factory and their event the Trumpeters House Garden Party on Saturday 2nd June. We were lucky to have task owner** Rhiannon** tonight from the Poppy Factory. It was great you joined us on the run Rhiannon – Always welcome!

No one went up the hill (except Mark ha ha). But we did tackle lots of stairs (eh Richard) , lots of weird and wonderful gardens (some with inflatable dinosaurs in according to Kate) and even a cat on our travels to deliver 800 leaflets.

Then it was a race back to Wholefoods for the cool down.

A great night! Looking forward to seeing you all again next week when we head out to help Spear in the Richmond hub!! Look up and sign up here https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/cleaning-and-organising-the-shed-and-cupboards Well done Laura on the back running whilst testing your limits still in recovery – very impressive!

This week saw us heading off to a new task owner in Whitton, a run that would see us tackling one of our longer distances (just shy of our max 10km) with eight game GoodGym runners, including new runner Rebecca (welcome!).

It was a sunny if brisk evening and we were all feeling pretty upbeat setting off and returning in daylight. Mark, our solar-powered trainer, had visibly regained some of his tiggerish enthusiasm with this extra dose of Vitamin D, leap frogging bollards and flitting between the front and back runners as we powered our way up the A316.

We arrived at Whitton Youth Zone on Britannia Lane to be met by Mandy, herself an aspiring GoodGym runner (we hope we’ve encouraged her enough to join us sometime soon…) and the manager of this great resource for youth activities and support. Thank you Mandy for making us feel so welcome (always great to be offered tea!) Our task was to tackle the borders surrounding the youth centre and give it a general tidy up.

Sundara was quick off the mark with some giant pruning shears to beat back the ivy whilst the rest of us swept up leaves, weeded and cleared up litter. Meanwhile, there was some hilarity at my misidentification of leaf gatherers (they were cushions for kneeling apparently) and Mark very much enjoyed getting me to demonstrate how they might work. Yes, he definitely has his spark back…

Anyway, there was a lot to be done so with luck we’ll be back again soon to get the whole area looking spick and span. And in the meantime we enjoyed leaving it just a little bit tidier than when we started.

We had a steady run back to Wholefoods and a good deep stretch at the end for our well-tested legs. Well done, Richmond GoodGym, never known to step away from a challenge. Special kudos to Anita who completed the distance, her longest run in some time, and wielded her broom like a woman possessed, all after a day of lifting carpets and some vigorous trampolining the day before.

This Sunday is the London Marathon where a few runners will be sporting red GG shirts. IF you are planning to be a cheer leader on the day, why not share where you plan to be on Whatsapp , as it will be a great chance for a few of you to meet up and cheer all the louder. Don't forget to look out for our Jenny who has trainer hard for the event. We wish her all the best.

Next week, we’ll be coming up roses, or at least planting them somewhere in Richmond, possibly at the top of a hill, see you there.

Well done to all tonight, it was great to see such a unified effort out and back! Have a great week, happy running!

And by GG we mean GirlGym this time. It was Elaine’s turn to lead our nine all-female runners tonight in Richmond on a chilly evening whilst Mark’s away on a (31 degree!) holiday. Still, the cold weather couldn’t stop us from getting out there.

We had a quick warm up (and we really did need it!) outside Wholefoods before heading off up past the Richmond shops and over Richmond Bridge. From there we took a left and fell into a nice brisk pace along the dark riverside path around Marble Hill Park with our head torches lighting the way. As we rejoined the road in Twickenham, we headed back towards Richmond and over Richmond Bridge for a second time before arriving at our task.

Tonight we were back at one of our regular task-givers at the Vineyard Community Centre in Richmond, who run several services for those in need within the local borough. On arrival Desiree offered us some lemony water as she told us about the amazing things they do as an organisation and the help they provide to so many people. Luckily the generosity of the local community and staff at the Vineyard means that they are able to offer some incredible help to people in need. One of these services is providing showers, clothes and food for those who are homeless or struggling, and tonight’s task was to sort through toiletry and sock donations and separate them into categories so that they can distribute them easily to the centre users.

Within minutes we had separate piles of shampoo, conditioner, body wash, toothpaste, combs, and socks, ready for the Vineyard to give out freely to centre visitors. It seems a lot of the donors are frequent flyers, so there were also lots of eye masks, ear plugs and pens, too!

Before we knew it time was up, and after a couple of quick photos we went back into the cold night for a very short distance back to Wholefoods. We then realised that for some reason we all turned down the free cakes, much to Kate and Sundara’s disappointment! Sorry guys, you shouldn’t have been so polite!

Thanks, Desiree, for having us (again), and thanks, Elaine, for leading us on our run tonight. Fingers crossed for some warmer temperatures next Monday.

Welcome to new runner, Louisa, we hope you enjoyed your first run with GoodGym Richmond this evening.

Thanks for a great report, Laura! Two quick bits of news to add on: we're off to the pub on the 9th of April after our run (The Shaftesbury on Kew Road), details are on the GoodGym website - pop it in your diaries! And Kate mentioned that Camden GoodGym are doing another BIG task on the 28th of March - they're looking for 50 people to participate. Kate signed up last time and it sounded brilliant. So if you fancy something a bit different and an opportunity to meet lots of GG runners from different areas, this might be a good one. Check out the Group Runs for Camden on the website.