Clad in hats, gloves, and some rather natty new headtorches, a group of 10 intrepid runners did not let the bitter cold put them off last night.

We started off the night talking about the amazing Mission Possible this weekend, where teams of three will be taking on a mass volunteering effort, spreading good all over the city! Good luck everyone, see you in the pub afterwards...

Braving the cold, we stepped outside and dived straight into our warm ups whilst discussing who we would ask round for dinner. Charlie Brooker, Stephen Hawking, David Beckham and Alan Shearer were all lucky enough to score an invite.

The night's task was at the Waterman's Centre, and independent charity which aims to bring art to the local community. It was just under a 2.5k run, and we set off briskly. 20 speedy minutes later we were there, ready to get stuck in.

We were handed shears, bin liners and brooms, and tasked with the job of clearing leaves and cutting back the branches in the car park. It was quite a labour intensive job, which was good, because we needed to keep warm. Half an hour later and several bin bags later we were done. Or were we?

No, we were not. There was the small matter of hill sprints to do. Now, after talking about the possibility of hill sprints for several weeks, if not months, we had to take what we could get. The small incline in the carpark would have to do. In pairs we tackled five reps, keeping our chests high and taking care to pump our arms but to keep them at a 90 degree angle behind our body. You all looked like superstar athletes.

The run back was smattered with some lovely conditioning exercises, just to keep things exciting, and we stopped just short of the Town Hall to do our final bit of fitness. In two teams we assumed plank position, passing the golden satsuma along the line. When the satsuma got the end, somebody shouted 'burpee', and the whole team had to do said burpee, increasing by one each time. Team Jo, Michelle, Jeremy and Andy won the challenge and as their prize, took home the two fought-over satsumas. Lucky them.

During our stretches we realised we have only two runs left THIS YEAR. Let's make the most of them, starting with our penultimate one next week. Stay warm until then :)

Last night in Hounslow started with party rings, marshmallow cakes and by welcoming lovely new runners Audrey and Saule to the group. Give them a cheer, Hounslow!

After a run down of the week's news, a reminder that the Christmas party is going to be on the 8th December at the Battersea Arts Centre and a quick talk about the task, we moved outside to brave the cold and do some dynamic warm ups. And also to find out what everybody's favourite crisps are. All the important stuff.

With our heart rates up, and having discovered that we love skips, kettle crisps, vegetable crisps for the health conscious, and tortilla chips, we were ready for the off. Tonight's task was just over 2.5 k away, and we took the outward leg nice and steady, just stopping for a few wall sits and quick jumping jacks.

We made it to Ealing Road Baptist Church, which also acts as a food bank and homeless shelter, in no time at all, and were greeted by one of the men who uses the shelter. With Jeremy and Saule taking on the toughest job in the very dusty cellar, Andy, Natasha, Will and Audrey started on the various tasks in the food bank. Jo (whose high point of the night was discovering a chocolate unicorn - did anyone actually see where that went?), Jennifer, Remy and Alex tackled the cleaning jobs in the kitchen, hall and bathroom. There was also clothes to sort for the community, including a rather nice cape (we think) and lots of other little jobs that the team smashed through super quickly.

Which meant more time for the core blast. Hurrah! We were lucky enough to be able to take advantage of the lovely warm room to do our fitness session tonight, rather than yomping about in the mud outside. So we thought we better make it count. With two sets of five exercises aimed at working our abs - essential for efficient running and helping to prevent injuries - we spent 15 minutes doing planks, crunches, reverse crunches, Russian twists, bicycles and much more. Who is feeling it today?

With another 2.5k run in front of us, we hit the road and used the long straight section to the half way point to do some fartlek. This speed work is tough, but great training. We ran the last section as a team to finish off the night with some stretches and a well-earned pat on the back.

Next week we're tackling some tasks at a charity which supports people with long term mental health issues, Friends of Cathja. Sign up here to lend a hand.

Unusual time, unusual place, but many familiar faces met at Old Heath Rec for a Saturday afternoon Goodgym Starter Session. After a chilly parkrun morning, I was hoping for a warmer afternoon, but the icy cold wind meant we all got rather cold as we signed up.

Theresa met us with the equipment having filled up an entire bin bag from litter picking on the Old Heath Rec.

We welcomed Charlotte, for her first Goodgym run, and then we made our way to Simon's Lane, which was the site of our last starter session back in April.

Whilst there was a LOT of litter to pick, the most interesting piece of litter was probably two full unopened cans of beer.

An extra long task of litter picking and we returned to dump the bags at Theresa's house before making our way back to the rec. There we were just about to finish up, when Tav showed up with a frisbee, football and another whistling rocket thing, so we had about 20 minutes of acting like big kids and trying not to get hit by various flying objects.

All in all a fun afternoon in New Town, and a good deed done for the local community.

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.

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!

A really sunny Wednesday evening, so I got an ice cream whilst waiting for the excited runners to arrive. Unfortunately, our planned painting task has been postponed, but luckily, Colchester in Bloom are always ready to give us something to do, and particularly since the judging is happening soon, we can really help them to spread their workload.

We welcomed new goodgymer Nafisa, and we reminded ourselves about Fay's Cake morning to send her off on her epic bike ride.

Our task was to dead head the flowers in the various border boxes in the town centre. These were at the top of Balkerne hill great, either side of Crouch street, the corner of Headgate and at the Vineyard Street Car Park. This allowed us to do a nice run around the original boundary of Colchester, before descending back to the River via Castle park.

As a warm sunny evening, we attracted a lot of attention as we made our way making Colchester more beautiful, and have a couple of recruits for Goodgym Ipswich when it starts and Goodgym Southhampton whenever that takes off.

When a teenager heckled us saying we were all really slow and ran ahead of us, Tommy and Chris accelerated to show just how fast we could be! All in jest of course.

On the river path, we did a drill where we took our arms out of running to focus on lifting the legs with the hip flexors. All of the runners found it really tiring, and it helps to understand just how a much stronger core can lead to faster running. It also helps to encourage you to engage your core more in running.

As we made our way back to Leisure World, in a slightly comical unfolding, David ran crash bang into Ian. It was comedy. David was looking behind him and Ian had come to a standstill as there was a stag beetle on the path. Using a couple of sticks, Ian rescued the stag beetle, so not only did we help make the town beautiful, we also protected the local wildlife.

Thank's to Sue for the pun!

9 Goodgymers clear footbath between Bourne Road and Barrington Road

Everything was a bit unusual; it was afternoon, we were in Old Heath Rec, meeting at the GO4 Cafe, and everyone was really early, as it was a Saturday, so no trains to contend with to get to the meeting point on time.

We were all shivering outside the cafe, especially Chris who had just completed his furthest ever run of 20 miles to Brightlingsea and back in his training for the Halstead Marathon in a few weeks.

After sigining in and catching up on our bank holidays we started our warm up on the Old Heath Rec before heading to the car park to collect supplies.

The council clearly knew who they were providing equipment for as both the litter pickers and the hoops for the bin bags were red, and totally completed Ian's outfit.

We made our way to the footpath and as well as litter picking, there were a few overgrown plants to cut back, thanks to John for bringing some shears, and some broken glass to sweep, thanks to Tav for bringing his dustpan and brush.

It always seems to be the case with a litter pick that on an initial glance we don't think that there'll be much there and we'll get it done in no time, that is until we actually start. Our initial target of 20 minutes before moving onto another location was way under the mark, and we ended up spending a good 35 minutes there before piling the bin bags up.

Of course, we might have finished quicker if Tav and Emily didn't use the litter pickers to untie each others' shoelaces.

Impressed with our work, we made it back to the rec to return the equipment, before our fitness session. As its the weekend and we all deserve a bit of a holiday, we had a play rather than specific training, and we had a frisbee and a boomerang to play with.

At first, we were all pretty awful at both and the high wind didn't help. but in time we got the hang of things and had a good game of frisbee.

We'll be meeting at the same place at 10:45 on Monday to clear up another section of New Town.

Have a Wonderful Easter!

Spring was most definitely both in the air and in our step last night as we met for our weekly Hounslow group run.

Along with lovely regular Andy, we said hello to two new runners, Joanna and Vikma who joined us for their first GG run. Throw these ladies a cheer!

Andy is bossing the heroes page, topping the league for distance, cheers and good deeds - but watch out, Lily and Toni are not far behind! Cheers all round.

We discussed the upcoming GoodGym Olympics, which will be taking place on 10th June, sign up now: https://www.goodgym.org/races/goodgym-olympics to show the other boroughs that west London is best London. Holler!

We managed to resist the party that was just kicking off in the next door room, despite glimpses of bowls of wotsits and bottle of wine, and headed out for a quick warm up before our run. With a few ski jumps and grapevines to get that blood pumping, we set off for our favourite church-come-homeless shelter. It was a nice steady pace for the two miles there, broken up halfway with a little chasing competition which saw us all gasping for breath.

Roger the Pastor was waiting for when we got there, and the delicious smells wafting from the kitchen got our noses twitching. As a little incentive (bribe? thank you?) he let us know that he had cooked our dinner to take back with us after we had finished the jobs. Best. Task. Ever.

With that in mind, we were off like rockets. Our task was to move down a room full of chairs from the top of the building to the bottom so that they could be loaded on to the van. A human chain was quickly formed (efficiency!) and we soon stared shifting those chairs in what turned out to be a pretty effective upper body work out. Kudos to Andy taking the tricksy stairway position, hope you're not feeling it too much today. Vikma did not pause for breath as she scooted through the building piled high with chairs, while Joanna nailed the top spot at the head of the chain - does this count as an arms day?!

By the time we had shifted well over 100 chairs, we collected our warm and delicious takeaway dinners and set off on our run back. New business idea - Deliveroo on foot! Quick, someone get the copyright. With another two miles under our belt, we stopped off at the park to smash out a quick abs blast. A strong core is essential for a good running style - it stop unnecessary twisting, helps you keep a good strong form, and makes your running style more efficient, less prone to injury, and faster. After a round of planks, side planks, Russian twists, leg holds and crunches, we were well and truly pooped. And that dinner was calling to us, so with a few stretches, we headed back to our starting point, where the party was less raging, and more - over. Good job we gave it the swerve.

Next week we have a great new task lined up. Don't miss out on doing some good and getting fit - Hounslow needs YOU. Sign up here:

https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/helping-hands-and-legs-in-hounslow