The rain had finally stopped last night, but that wasn't the only thing we had to celebrate in Hounslow...

• It was Luis' 100th good deed! Thats a lot of miles, doing good, fitness session and even a few trips to the pub. Well done Luis!

There had been some great racing over the weekend -

• Congratulations to Alan and JP for doing the Ealing Half, and to Andy at the Great Windsor half.

Don't forget if you're on the lookout for a new pair of runners and are done with your old ones, you can trade them in at Runners Need for a £20 voucher off shiny new shoes and a nice sense of wellbeing that your old ones are being recycled. Bargain.

There was a definite chill in the air last night, so we headed out for a good old warm up before setting off for our task. After getting our hearts pumping, we were feeling all autumnal and had a quick poll on our favourite soups. All the classics were there, and good old tomato came out top, and anything with cheese got a very positive response. We have very lofty and important discussions at GoodGym Hounslow.

Up to mulch this week?

It was a short run to Chiswick House and Gardens, which as a registered charity relies on support from volunteers to keep the place open to the whole community. Unfortunately, despite being warned (sorr-y!), we arrived to find our normal entrance closed but soon found another gate where staff gardener Andrew was waiting for us with a big set of keys and a list of jobs.

As well as green fingers, it turns out Andrew has a good pair of running legs on him too, so we followed at a trot to the kitchen garden where we divided into teams and tooled up. Tasks to tackle included shifting bricks and slate, spreading mulch, breaking up pallets and weeding, and we got straight to work. Unfortunately the fabulous new floodlights lasted about two minutes, so a fairly straightforward job turned into extreme weeding, but after half an hour of hard work loads got done. Andy and JP even had time for a game of big pumpkin, little pumpkin (small, or far away?).

After a short jog back to Turnham Green, there was a big fitness challenge to take on. We alternated sprints with increasing numbers of press ups or burpees - this was a real toughie so well done on giving it everything.

Next week we're off to a new task at Chiswick School allotments, where we'll be helping create an area for disadvantaged kids to use. You can find out more details and sign up here. Until then, run happy!

With the nights drawing in, it was great to see so many of you with headtorches last night - well done team. Don't let the darker evenings and chill in the air put you off - there's nothing better to warm you up but it's easy to lose motivation. Don't forget you will always have a group of mates ready to run with you on a Wednesday!

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Give a cheer for Charlotte who came along to her first ever GoodGym group run last night!

Don't forget about our big parkrun takeover on the 17th November - we need YOU! Loads of roles available, sign up here.

Paint it Black

A few weeks ago we had gone down to Ealing Road Church, a community space which is also used as a homeless shelter, foodbank and clothesbank, and sanded down the railings outside the building ready for painting. So our job last night was so start the big job itself.

So after a quick warm up which got our heart rates going, we did a poll to find out which national cuisine we would choose if we could only have one forever more. I'm pleased to report, without a hint of bias, that Italian came out on top, followed by Thai, Indian, British and...sweets (Beth!)

After a nice steady 3k run down there, we arrived to find a series of paint-filled cups, brushes and plastic sheets ready for us to get started straight away. It was a challenging (black paint + black railings + night) but a satisfying one as the team inched its way along producing lovely shiny and rust-free railings. That is really going to smarten the place up, and with Roger the Pastor managing a very busy community space, this was one less thing for him to do.

After tidying up after ourselves we opted to do our fitness session just outside the church on a nice bit of pedestrianised street. After a quick photo shoot from a gentleman who wanted to send our picture to his daughter studying in Newcastle (spread the GoodGym word people!) we started on a pacing drill which saw us vary our running from 10-100% effort, followed by some conditioning exercises and of course finishing off with our weekly one minute plank.

It was a super speedy run home and all that was left to do was stretch out our muscles and look forward to next week when we'll be litter picking for a residents' association. See you then lovely people!

Yesterday was World Mental Health Day and we runners know the benefit of running on our mental health. Last night was our #runandtalk session, a campaign to improve mental health through running in England, but our GoodGym group is here for every single run we do together to listen, talk and share.

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Jessica, Liz and Jazmin all came for their very first GoodGym run - lovely to have you join the group! Give them a cheer, Hounslow.

Look out for the great GoodGym Tooting Common takeover. It's going to be massive (we hope), it's on 17th November and you can choose your role. Sign up here to get involved and let's turn Tooting Common red!

A huge congratulations to Remy who smashed her first (but not her last) marathon at the weekend. Brilliant running!

It's a runderful world

We had a new task tonight at Maryville Care Home, a residential home for the elderly in Brentford. It was a little longer run, at 7.5 k in total, so we set off as a group at a steady pace, and eventually found ourselves in a misty dark corner of the beautifully names The Butts. Eventually we found the home, and after a few attempts to get in, found ourselves being greeted by the wonderful Sister Clare, a true tour de force.

She gave us a potted history of the home, and with her trusty notepad, wrote down a list of jobs for us to tackle on our next visits. However, there didn't seem to be an awful lot to do this week, so after a tour of the place we met a few of the residents. While Oliver was a huge hit with one lady, Carolina made friends with the one and only Pam, who shortly after launched an escape attempt. Next time we'll be washing wheelchairs and painting, but it was great for the sisters to meet us and see what we were all about!

After our weekly minute's plank, we set off on the run back to the Town Hall, and finished off the night with a good stretch. Next week we're back at Ealing Road Church to paint the railings we sanded down a few weeks ago, sign up here to give your Wednesday night run purpose.