Last night’s run featured many bags of collected rubbish, muddy shoes, curious passers-by with their dogs, and a very tough fitness session. Just another night with GG Hounslow!

We headed out for one of our regular plastic and litter picks down by the river. This is something we do regularly because it genuinely makes a difference. Rivers are highways for plastic and rubbish – what gets dropped upstream ends up traveling further downstream and into wider ecosystems. Our visits mean we clear the draw dock, keep the path looking welcoming and remind people that someone cares about this stretch of river.

Armed with gloves, bags and pickers, we got stuck in. Passers-by had plenty of encouraging comments as we worked our way along. There’s something about a group of runners in red stopping to pick up litter that draws attention and hopefully makes them reconsider dropping that crisp packet! By the time we wrapped up, we’d collected quite a few bags even though it wasn’t exactly dry out there either. Check out Steph’s muddy shoes. A GoodGym badge of honour in my book!

With the job done, we headed back to Turnham Green for what can only be described as a brutal fitness session combining sprinting laps and strength exercises with a dose of tactics. Michelle took the lion's share of the laps with some very impressive distance, while Lucy somehow managed to squeeze in a day of double fitness. Florian delivered some excellent sprinting form among a huge effort from everyone.

I’m just finalising next week’s session, so watch this space. There are also some missions coming up, including working on the eyot this Saturday and a session gardening at Hope Church.

What looked like it might turn out to be a pleasant morning surprised the 5 GoodGymers who met at Richmond station to go leafleting - the temperature stayed unpleasantly low and it was quite gusty. But the weather didn't dampen our spirits as we set out armed with a pack each of leaflets from the Richmond Good Neighbours charity. We headed to the streets off the Kew Road, one of Richmond GG's happy hunting grounds for leafleting, and split into teams.

Adam and Luis started off going to the southerly roads while Cathy, Harry and JP tackled those further up the main road. Around half-way through we met up again, crossed the Kew Road and weaved our way through the residential areas on the other side.

We finished up after around an hour having delivered the vast majority of our leaflets, with Cathy offering to take the surplus back to ETNA. Then we headed on our way to enjoy the rest of Saturday and the weekend!