Shore enough, it was a tide and tested way to do good

A fabulous nineteen runners met in Hounslow to tackle a plastic problem on the shores of the Thames last night before taking on a tough fitness session by the river, and managing not to fall in. Nice work!

We kicked off a great night by cheering some great GoodGym tourism, lovely to see you guys from Ealing, Hammersmith, Richmond and Wandsworth! It was also well done to Andy who ran his way to a great PB at the Hampton Court Half, and a big round of applause to all your fabulous people who have been doing missions and other good deeds.

During our warm up, where we seemed to attract the interest of a lot of passing cars for some reason, we talked about what cheers us when we're totally fed up. Happiness for us comes courtesy of GoodGym (of course), work, red wine, our bed, food of any kind, and ALL THE CATS. Feeling suitably cheered, we set off for our run down to the river.

It was a beautiful route, and with a couple of stops for squats, we made it down there in good time to find Anu waiting for us from Active 360 under Kew Bridge. She told us all about the exciting things they're doing to highlight the disgusting problem of plastic pollution in the river, which is not only terrible for the environment but can also find its way into our food chain. The guys there are collecting plastic bottles which they will turn into a raft which an olympic rower will sail down the Thames to Westminster in a bid to bring the problem to public attention.

That's where we came in last night - our job was to tackle the foreshore in Kew, and to collect as many plastic bottles and other nasties as we could. Fortunately for the environment there were very few, which meant it wasn't a massive task for us, but we still managed to uncover some pretty grim finds including a robot foot, several lengths of packing plastic, and many cans. Shout out to Jo who waded out to the far reaches of the shoreline with her special mud boots and came back with a full bucket!

Half an hour later we declared the shore there a plastic free zone, and waved goodbye to Anu and Paul, who we will hopefully be helping out with their war against plastic in the water during the coming weeks and months.

We headed to a nice stretch of walkway further down the river, and set about smashing a tough fitness session which alternated sprints and recovery runs with strength exercises such as tricep dips, squat pulses, supermans and planks. With a bit of extra 'support' from passersby and a couple of intrigued dogs, we worked our muscles hard, before finally setting off for the last leg of the evening, with the pub acting as effective motivation for some.

Great work tonight gang. Next week we're off to an independent arts theatre charity to do a spot of weeding. Sign up here - it would be great to see all your excellent faces there!