And we all lived appley ever after

We were feeling fruity when we met up at Chiswick Town Hall last night. Was it the prospect of a lovely 9k run, was it the apple picking task for an amazing charity, was it that we had Ross along for his first GoodGym run or was it Adam's beautiful beetroot cake?

We started off with a run down of the week's news, and cheered our lovely GG tourist Beth all the way from Worthing. Excitingly, we are establishing a Hounslow task force shortly. GoodGym TaskForce is a group of local runners who help support the group, so look out for an email soon. For you party people, there is a social tonight for all Goodgymers, while the Hounslow leader board has seen some movement, with Remy topping the leader board for distance covered, and Claudia making everybody feel good by cheering. Way to go, team.

An a-peeling evening

With a nice long almost 3 mile (that's miles not kms, Andreea! <3) ahead of us, we did a quick warm up, found out everybody's favourite fruit (unsurprisingly apples won out) and set off to do a spot of picking. Our task tonight was for the amazing Abundance London project. This charity helps to deal with gluts and harvest surplus fruit, working with schools, teaching kids about fruit harvests and waste, running grafting and pruning workshops and leading planting projects.

Finger pickin' good

After some great running we made it to the task to find organiser Karen waiting for us with long handled pickers, boxes ready for filling, tarpaulins and a very exciting tree shaker implement. Fighting against the fading light we got stuck straight in, and the amount of fruit ready to be harvested was pretty spectacular. Box after box of different varieties of pears and apples were filled, there were a few near Newtonian moments, and we never really totally got to grips with that tree shaker. But we did find out what a quince was, saved countless pieces of fruit from being wasted, and collected enough apples and pears for the chutney making workshop that Abundance London are putting on this Saturday.

Exit left, pursued by pear

After a solid half an hour of picking, we set off back to our starting point. We had no less than three options of taking public transport at least part of the way back, but not one single member of the team decided to tube it, opting instead to run the whole damn way. With Jo back marking, we even stopped for a few press ups and squats along the way, and taking a nice little yomp through Chiswick business park when a train crossing got in our way. There's no stopping you, Hounslow, you smashed it!

Next week we're doing some leafleting to help promote Waterman's art centre's big river weekender. We'll throw in some sprints to keep us on our toes, and there will even be the long awaited plank off. Sign up here for another Wednesday night of fun, fitness and doing good.