We were ready for our close up last night in Hounslow as our task plastic picking by the river was to be covered by a photographer from Associated Press. It was with the flash of the camera that we left Chiswick Town Hall after warm ups to head to Kew Bridge.

Once there we met up with Dan from Active 360, who handed out litter pickers and plastic tubs. Luckily for us the tide was out, but unluckily it revealed masses of plastic bottles, cans, microplastics and wrappers that had been washed up onto shore.

We ventured down as far as we could go collecting everything we could see and chatting with local people who were interested to see what we were up to. We even spoke to one older lady who was stopped from studying geology at school because of her gender, but went on to do an archeology course in later life. She was very keen to see what treasures we might find! Unfortunately I don't think the British museum would be particularly interested int he discovery we made under the bridge last night....

The trugs were being filled quickly and our trainers getting muddier (see Breda's muddy badge of honour in the photos - hope you managed to get them clean!) as we picked and sorted. Before long it was time to bag up and count up how much we had saved from polluting our waterways. Dan worked out we got more than 6 kilos of waste, which is pretty good going in the time we had. Every little helps when it saves plastic getting into our water systems and aquatic life.

We made use of a nice well lit tunnel to do our fitness session, inadvertently creating an unofficial guard of honour for everybody that passed through - I think they appreciated the cheers! We knocked out various different lunges, jumps and leaps, which certainly worked up a sweat.

We saw off the evening with stretches, and for some, a warm up (and clean off, hopefully!) at the pub for food. There are a few fun missions coming up such as this one to drop off old trainers in Osterley and bashing and weaving on Chiswick eyot. Next week we're off to help Wild Chiswick in the allotments - see you there!

It was GoodGym Richmond's monthly signature task: heading to our sponsored riverside plot to look after the grounds. We started with a warm-up stretch in Richmond town centre before setting off to the task, celebrating our progress so far in the January challenge. From there, some jogged, some walked and some cycled down the high street and along the riverside to our tool lock-up where we split into two groups: those getting straight into the task and those joining in a 15 minute fitness session. This involved squats, press-ups, standing ab crunches, lunges and some shadow boxing, all carried out by the light of headtorches and the music from Lucy's phone! The actual doing good bit was lively and energetic with a thorough sweeping of the arcade area, hefty turnover of the compost, litter picking, weeding and saving a willow support that had toppled over. The task finished with an annual tradition: making the year number ourselves. Previous versions have been hilariously illegible but it turns out headtorches make much better pens than bodies! Ken and Lucy even had an extra go at the GoodGym logo too! One final stop for the night: a nice sit down and a chat at the lovely White Cross, just along the riverside. All-round a lovely GoodGym evening that had it all - exercise, volunteering, socialising and feel good!