Another Wednesday, another sprinkling of goodness in the borough of Hounslow.

It was lovely to see some GG tourism - a big welcome to Fiona and Kate! It was a special night as we were also celebrating the birthday of lovely Michelle -happy birthday from us all at GoodGym Hounslow!

After a quick warm up that tested our agility, balance and coordination we started off our run pledging to do some kind things during the rest of the week. It's going to be a lovely few days for friends and family of GG Hounslow, as we promised to do extra missions, take loved ones on holiday, make scones for the office and look after our flatmates' cat. Oh, and help eat our mate's birthday cake. Nice!

We only had a short run to the local primary school, so we set off at a nice steady pace taking the railway bridge steps in our stride. Arriving at the school we found caretaker Claire, who had provided us with a list of jobs earlier that day, waiting to say hi. She let us know how appreciative the school was for the time we spend there after they've suffered budget cuts and are having to do extra work to avoid making redundancies. So it was with renewed purpose that we got stuck into the jobs!

After a surprising amount of discussion on how to divide ourselves up into small groups, we each took a job from the list which included trimming bushes, tackling bamboo (our Hounslow nemesis), weeding, skipping chairs and other bulky stuff and even putting together some water play tables for the kids. After 45 minutes of work we had ticked off all the tasks, and decided (after a non conclusive vote) to take a slightly longer route back to Turnham Green. With a very pretty yomp along the river, we got back to the park and smashed out a tiny tabata session which really got our hearts pumping, and a minute plank challenge where we took our minds off the pain by singing Michelle Happy Birthday. Then we went to the pub. Because, GoodGym Hounslow.

Next week we have an exciting new task at a local rowing club, where we'll be helping them revamp their clubhouse. Sign up here for more Wednesday running and gooding.

With the weather finally at a more comfortable temperature to run in, 18 runners met up for our mid-week GoodGym last night with a great task and a 5k run ahead of us.

It was so good to see so many new faces in Hounslow, and we hope you'll all be back next week! Ladies and gents of GoodGym, please give a huge cheer for Alessandro, Jon, Afzaal, William and Alberto.

If you're in the mood for more good news, then why not head down to the GoodGym social tonight. This is a monthly get together for all different GG areas, and a great chance to hear all the lovely things everybody has been up to. See you there I hope!

We had been asked to run down to Kew Bridge, where we would be helping with a shoreline clean up plus some other useful jobs, but first we had to warm up. After some high knees, heel flicks and all the other usual suspects, we had a quick questionnaire to find out our worst habits. Procrastination was by far top of the list, but timekeeping and biting nails also featured highly. It could definitely have been worse!

We arrived at the slipway by Kew Bridge after a steady 2k run to find buckets, litterpickers and tools waiting for us, and got stuck straight into clearing the plastic that had washed up there. This is a busy and popular part of the river for canoeists, paddleboarders and boaters, but is increasingly unpleasant with the amount of plastic chucked into the water. While most of the group set about clearing it, we also tackled the vegetation that was growing there, and started creating a pathway of small stones and gravel down to the water ready for the Thames Tidefest at the beginning of September.

After forty minutes of hard work, it was looking much clearer and we had the makings of a very confident path, so we downed tools, waved goodbye to Peter, and set off back to Turnham Green for our fitness session. This week we tackled abs, with a toughish ten minute blast featuring planks, scissors, reverse crunches, sit ups and dead bugs.

Don't forget that our friends at Thames Trademen's RC have offered us a free kettlebells class on Thursday 30th August - if you're interested then let me know so we can give them an idea of numbers.

Great to see you all last night and well done on an important job really well done. Next week we're off to a local school to help out, sign up here for more Wednesday doing good and getting fitter.