Mrs A was please to see us this morning. We were introduced to her feline friends straightaway and asked to start in the garden. The patio area was covered in weeds & leaves, which seemed to be the perfect place for worms to hide. We relocated our new little friends to a saver area within the flower beds, hope they found their way... The whole time we were working away we would look up to find one of the cats, checking to see were doing a good job & not wreaking their stomping ground!!! We think they liked it as we got to give them a little fuss...

They say 'when one door closes another one opens', I reckon that theme fits well for yesterday. With Simon from Cody Dock, potentially the most knowledgeable man on East London history, off sick with lurgies, it was another chance to sharpen your speed and strengthen your corset of rippling muscles.

This week's random question allowed us a shared empathy of our fellow GoodGymers' past pain. A sophisticated bonding mechanism, maybe. "What funny, unusual or other accidents have you had?" Some were gruesome, I'm thinking Ruth's chopped off toe and believe it was Gemma with the bitten off tongue. I mean, ouch. Some were a highly unfortunate turn of events, Mel's wind swept salt in the face, leading to falling onto a cactus. No lady luck there. There were many more corkers in there, thing i took away from it, is we're all pretty damn robust.

Fitness session started off with a running interval, 1k of warm up, 1k @ 70% and then 1k 'hard'. To my absolute delight you all nailed the session objective, went faster and worked tenaciously on the final K. I now have your times saved, the loop saved...and we'll come back to it. Hooray, i hear you sarcastically say.

We still had oodles of time after this, a testing core session on the agenda. With the 'worm' clearly the peoples' favourite. What an elegant yet efficient move, feel free to replicate, maybe next time you need a cuppa, worm on into the kitchen disclaimer not suitable for stairs. A plank competition finished off proceedings, with some gritty efforts. I'm not sure it's going to make the Olympics' schedule soon, as not a true spectator sport, however, those little rapscallion kids were mesmerised, albeit briefly.

I do apologise again for the lack of task, unexpectedly took up my afternoon trying to find a replacement. If you know of tasks that we could use as last minute subs then let do drop me a line. Or even more long term tasks that we book in, be interesting to hear how you would like to volunteer.

Next week we are at Manorfield Primary School, very small odds on a cancellation, yeah you can hold me to that...sign up here

Have an ace week and see you beauts in 6 days

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 :)

Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to us, happy birthday dear Hounslow, happy birthday to us!

That's right, the Hounslow group is officially ONE. We have taken our first wobbly steps into the world of doing good, and have the quads to prove it. Last night was truly a night of celebrations. We cheered Andy who shares his GoodGymiversary with Hounslow, and Will who was also at the first ever group run. We welcomed the lovely Jeremy to the group for his first ever run - throw a cheer his way, Hounslow! A huge well done to Remy who tackled the horrendous-sounding Luton half and showed that race what for.

After a discussion on the best thing about birthdays - cake, friends, joy, cake, gin, gin and wine,having a whole week off work, cake and more cake - we did our warm up and set off for William Hogarth School. It was a short run there so we did it fairly nippily, looking forward to our indoor task. Unfortunately, when we got there ready to do some flatpack assembly, we found that Ikea had literally not delivered, so we were tasked with raking the outside area which was providing a nice home for many, many leaves.

Undeterred we got stuck in, filling up no less than seven black bin bags to the brim with those leafy pests. Great upper body work out, team. We stopped for a quick photo underneath the apt 'celebration of work' banner and then hit the road again. It was so nice of Hounslow to put on a fireworks display for our first birthday just as we finished the run, and it was only right that we stopped for a quick rest to enjoy them.

But not for long - we had a birthday fitness session to do! We divided up into three teams and played a game of Ana(erobic)grams. The idea was that everybody collects letters by doing exercises - one tuck jump for every good deed, high knees while naming Hounslow tasks, guessing the number of good deeds, planking if you were at the first ever run, high fiving someone whose name began with 'R' and many more - until all 15 were collected. Then came the great unscramble. It really came down to the wire, but it is my pleasure to announce that in first place, winning a round of drinks, was.....the Chizzee Rascals! Way to go Andy, Will, Natasha and Claudia.

All that was left that a trip to the pub for the quiz - kudos Team BetterGym for coming SECOND! - and to eat some cake. Except it didn't quite happen like that, did it? Least said, soonest mended - but check out the photos for the full story.

It's been a cracker of a year, Hounslow. Here's the the next, and the one after, and the one after that. And a huge cheer for all your brilliant personal achievements over the past week.