Mark threw it all at us tonight – yoga, karate, tempo runs and a long hill climb up Church Road towards the Star & Garter before freewheeling down to Petersham Farm. The view at the top of Richmond Hill was a pretty good reward for the steady climb up Church Road, or at least it would have been if my vision hadn’t been blurred by the lack of oxygen to my brain after I had puffed my way to the top.

Which way???? #Richmond #goodgym #running #mondayfun #warmup pic.twitter.com/QczClHya7O

— GoodGym Richmond (@GGRichmon) September 10, 2018

Tonight’s task for the 20-strong team of runners who set off together from Wholefoods Richmond was litter-picking. We donned some very attractive high vis jackets, heavy duty gloves and the GoodGymer’s weapon of choice, the litter picker, courtesy of our lovely task host who had stayed to meet us and direct us into groups in various different directions. I do love a good litter pick, especially in the dark: torches bobbing through the undergrowth accompanied by the sporadic exclamations of gleeful surprise when someone pulls up something particularly curious. Wombles of Wimbledon eat your heart out.

Here they come...oh no! There they go! #goodgym #runningdrills #fitness #volunteering pic.twitter.com/cT4IqDYZC3

— GoodGym Richmond (@GGRichmon) September 10, 2018

We have sometimes been disappointed by Richmond borough’s lack of litter on our litter picking tasks, but tonight it didn’t take us long to amass a good few bags of rubbish (which was satisfying but disappointing for a different reason), leaving just enough time for a low-light ‘guess who’ group photo at the end and a nice downhill jog for home base.

Welcome to our three first time runners, Yesim, Gemma and Leah, and lovely to see everyone else returning along with our regular GoodGym Kingston visitors.

Good luck to all our runners doing the Richmond Runfest next weekend. We definitely need to see photos of your pirate costumes. (I really hope you get a parrot, Jenna…)

Next week we’re back at one of our biggest task supporters, the ETNA community centre in St Margarets, for some green-fingered goodness. Bring your head torches and a pass out for pub grub and drinks in Richmond after the run. And do bling it up with your running medals, all you racers from Richmond RunFest this weekend. Bask in the glory of your well-earned pirate treasure. Ooh arr me hearties.

Here's tonight's running commentary

7pm kick off , team GG Richmond headed for the pitch (aka Richmond Green) to warm up...World Cup style! We did some football warm up drills as well as a friendly game of crab football to work our triceps. One nil, one nil Yay!!!! After tidying the green of the empties...Not ours I should add, we were off!

We jogged to and around Old Deer Park , then over and under bridges until we reached ETNA where we were to tackle some weeds and get Messi. With 14 of us (in England colours) we got lots done. Watering the flowerbeds, weeding (minding the rose bushes), and digging up overgrown plants.

The task was made even more interesting as we were asked to not only keep our hands busy but our minds with Mark setting us the competition of getting as many puns as possible and beating him in a pun match.

While we were there we were greeted by the task owner - the lovely Sian who told us about how the community centre is looking to raise funds for a new Kitchen. If you live in the borough you can vote for ETNA to receive funding, visit here to find out more.

Just before the second half of the night we downed tools for a group photo and talk on all the great things ETNA do and then ran back over Richmond bridge to Wholefoods and a stretch. It's fair to say though , we all wanted extra time to do more at the task. We Moscow again soon to finish the job!

Back at Wholefoods news circulated that England had drawn with Tunisa and we were ready to head home for the highlights but before the final whistle we congratulated Seren and Miranda on their second run and Penny and Jenni (from Ealing GG) on their first run with us.

Great evening as ever - Nice one on the back marking Anita and Jon you get the award for man of the match!

Thanks for a great night all - Looking forward to Monday next already!

On 16th July we will be celebrating our second birthday, the taskforce are finalising how the evening may look but if you have any ideas please share them.