Pot the difference

With Storm Ciara done and dusted, and Storm Dennis yet to make an appearance, GoodGym Hounslow hit the sweet spot last night with a 4km run, a double task and teamwork based fitness session.

We started off with the news, which looked a lot like this:

• Hackney half news! On 17th May we’re doing a GG aid station outside the Hackney Empire. You can sign up to volunteer at our water station here. Aside from doing a lovely thing for your fellow runners, you will also be rewarded with a free place in the Asics 10k, the Oxford Half or the next Hackney half. They're not cheap so it's well worth it!

• Now that the January challenge is over, it's time for the Extraordinary Task award. The award will be given to a group or individual who showed extraordinary effort in doing good in their community. If you would like to nominate a task or a person, you have two more days to do so, and you can do it here

• The Big Six races have been announced - these are events happening all over the UK where, if you fancy it, you can join loads of other GGers. Loads of them are multi distance, all of them will be a lot of fun. Check out the details here.

• Well done to Remy who earned herself a new parkrun PB on Saturday, and to Matt and Eloise for racing in Richmond park. Great running!

After a warm up and a topical discussion about whether we had ever sent or received a Valentine's card, we set off for Cultivate London. This amazing place is an urban farm and social enterprise in West London.They train unemployed young people in landscaping, horticulture, and also work to engage communities in food growing changing the way Londoners think about their fresh produce and where it comes from. They aim to have a long-term impact on the lives of young people, and amazingly currently over 60% of their fully trained horticulturists have come through their apprenticeship programme.

Our jobs for the night were to de-nail planks and give them a good sand so they could be used as planters in the community gardens, and also to plant a huge bag of bulbs ready for spring. One team had a good de-stressing session with a whole lot of hammering, enjoyed by all especially Jen who pointed out

This is the only type of planking I can get on board with

Meanwhile the other team had formed a very effective factory line sorting, planting, counting, filling and labelling plant pots in possibly our most effective human chain to date. Nice work!

We took a nice steady run back to Turnham Green, where we got into pairs to do a teamwork based fitness session. After a high five sprint, we tested our balance and strength with back to back, pistol and regular squats. All that was left for us to finish the night was to do our stretches and hide from the impending rain. Next week we're back to school sign up here for all the Wednesday fun. Run happy GoodGym!