Racing celebrations, a huge task under the light of a beautiful moon, and a star turn from a rarely spotted inhabitant of Chiswick House made for a great Wednesday night at GoodGym Hounslow!

Thanks to Michelle for leading the warm up, before we kicked off the evening with a short run to our regular task. We were fresh off the back of some great races at the weekend - a huge well done to Chris, Tish, Matt, Eloise and Steph for a fantastic run at the Vitality 10km, and to Alan and Florian for smashing the Ealing Half!

We arrived at a secret door to meet Chiswick House gardener Chris, who took us to a new spot or the group - the bee hives. The bees produce honey which is sold in the shop to raise money for the charity, and they want to make the area more accessible for school kids. Enter GoodGym!

The aim of the game was to remove all the undergrowth and anything else that was getting in the way. Everything had to go to create a new pathway, and with the green flag from Chris to adopt a scorched earth policy, we got to work!

We pulled, lopped and cleared, slowly but surely revealing a large area of land. Half way through the task, our mystery guest made an appearance - well done to Ariane for safely uncovering and rehoming a gorgeous hedgehog! He was in very safe hands, and was soon happily snuffling his way back to the woods.

By the end the task the area was truly transformed, great work everybody. We ran and walked back to base, where there was the option of a static core workout using the benches by the rockery. We worked our obliques, lower back and abs with a series of (slightly damp) exercises.

Next week we're off to Harvard Hill for some more gardening - please bring headtorches if you have them as this is a dark task.

A rapid 3 minute mission for Kash and Sevan this afternoon. All they had to do was:

1. Turn Up: Find their was through the maze of Mr R's block of flats to find his front door. Once in Mr R's bedroom, they found an undressed bed topped by a single mattress with sturdy handles. Perfect 👌
2. Flip In: 10 seconds later the mattress top was on the bottom and bottom on top, leaving Mr R very happy. He was too frail to do this himself and said he'd be back in touch in 6 months for the reverse flip operation.
3. Step Out: Then it was time to step out and onto the next task. Southall for Kash and Hammersmith for Sevan 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️

In all, taking the photos took longer than moving the mattress.

Shopping for Mr K, this time featuring baked beans

Yesterday was National Fitness Day, and at GoodGym Hounslow we celebrated in the best way possible - with a brand new task that took a lot of hard work, a run along the river, and a workout that involved endurance, power, strength and stability challenges!

We started off with a warm up at the Town Hall before heading to Green Dragon school in Brentford. The volunteers there have cleared away a space that hasn't been used for 15 years to create a new growing area for the kids.

We soon arrived and were wowed by how huge the school was and how many cool things they had there - an outside kitchen, play areas and not to mention the gang of four foxes watching us work with interest!

The main job was to tackle the hefty brambles which needed to be taken away by the root. Easier said than done! The brambles were so old that they were seriously deep in the ground - which meant a lot of GG elbow grease.

Meanwhile Ariane was grappling with a very dead but very invasive plant. Armed with secateurs and sheer grit, she took it to task, eventually clearing the area completely.

Amazing work everybody. All that was left to do was a fitness challenge that covered flamingos for stability, half burpees for power, press ups for strength and step ups for endurance. Seeing how many we could complete in one minute was a tough ask, but everybody smashed it.

Next week we're back to Chiswick House - see you there!

After finishing a parkrun 🏃‍♂️ and a long-distance walk 🚶, I decided to join the Gunnersbury Community Celebration. The most difficult task at first was trying to find Stephen, an old GoodGym member I had never met before. (He even joked that he had forgotten his GoodGym t-shirt on the day 😅.

Luckily, I came across some friendly volunteers who guided me and suggested I help Claire run and tidy up the children’s games area It turned out to be really fun!

I also had the honour of meeting Max, another GoodGymer 💪 who came along to support the day. Together, we looked after the children’s section until Stephen arrived and kindly showed us around. He even mentioned that Colin Firth’s son would be performing music later on, though unfortunately, we didn’t get the chance to see him.

We stayed longer than planned , as Claire needed help putting away all the materials used for the games into storage . Although it was hard work , it was also rewarding — and overall, the day was a great experience

Shopping for Mr K, this time featuring Mac & Cheese