Early bird GoodGymers were out in force today, with 9 around the course on the day of Maki's - Chikako's daughter's - last Junior parkrun as her birthday is coming soon. They'll both still be at Acton Juniors in the future, volunteering to help the event that they've enjoyed attending for years.

Most of today's marshals were GoodGymers, with Max, Maria, Steph, Michelle and Sevan helping the children and adults navigate the course and cheering them up and down the hills. Kash experienced the hills herself as the tailwalker, playing a key role in getting a couple of less enthusiastic children to the finish line and Chikako was the VI Guide for the last time (for now).

In the funnel, Ariane dished out the finish tokens and Alan was a late substitute to the timekeeper role. As it turned out, Alan saved the day (in a small way), by recording the finish times of the runners more accurately than the other timekeeper, meaning that all 65 finishers were correctly logged.

Before we kicked off our run last night, there was plenty of cheering to be done after a busy weekend of racing. We celebrated Florian and Lucy smashing the Big Half, and Jonny completing the triple at the Great North Run. Shout out to Jon for his 250 parkrun. Great running everybody! After some warming up, it was off to our task for the evening, just around the corner.

One of the benefits of going every three weeks to help out at Chiswick House is that we really feel the seasons change and gardens evolve. Last night our job was to clear brambles and ivy from some ancient pillars and stones so they can be repurposed, and there was a feeling of autumn rolling slowly in. The kitchen garden was full of giant sunflowers about to turn, the apples were ripening and there were blackberries for the picking.

We grabbed gloves, loppers and secateurs and began cutting away the overgrowth to reveal some beautiful old stone work. It was a satisfying job to do - have a look at the before and after shots to see what we uncovered! And watch out for the new placement of the pillars around the grounds soon...

It had started to drizzle so we took a brisk run back to Turnham Green where we saw off the night with a three minute mountain leg challenge. The idea is that this drill replicates a hill session - just without having to find any hills! With 90 seconds of step ups and reverse lunges per leg, this is a proper leg blast in an effectively short time.

We have a few community missions coming up which are looking a bit lonely! Can you help? On the 21st there is an opportunity to help out at a lovely community event at St Stephen's conservation area.

If you're up for a bit of saturday night fun, why not sign up for this centenary celebration mission in Gunnersbury? Not only is there the chance to help the community come together, but there is loads of fun stuff happening to enjoy at the same time!

After helping with the setup of the last Brentford Festival in the morning, Sevan and Kash had little time left to prepare GoodGym’s own stall, kindly offered by the retiring rockstar of festival organising, Linda. Luckily, Eleanor and Bryon stayed to lend them two pairs of helpful hands!

With the festival taking place on the grounds of the Ealing Borough, and Brentford technically being in the Borough of Hounslow, two GoodGyms joined forces to spread the word about doing good while getting fit among West Londoners. Michelle and Luis cycled from Chiswick to join the Ealing reps, Sevan and Kash.

The first shift of the volunteer hunting had the most GoodGymers at the stall, but not as much traffic yet, as the festival had only started to warm up. On the bright side, that gave the four a chance to resolve any technical and strategic matters, such as which side the stall should face, how to prevent the signs from toppling over due to wind, and where to get cable ties.

We are looking forward to seeing new GoodGym signups across Ealing and Hounslow, and hopefully growing numbers at our sessions!

I cycled over to Hounslow to help a lovely lady to tidy her back garden. Recently her garden had become a little too lively — the weeds have taken centre stage, and foxes were starting to treat it like their personal playground. Understandably, Mrs M was worried that her once-loved garden was being overrun and the weeds would quickly grow out of control.

Luckily Mrs M had had wood chip laid previously and with the recent rain weeds were easy to uproot. What started as several overgrown patches slowly transformed into a tidier space.

After turning the soil I said goodbye to Mrs M and left her to enjoy her afternoon.

It was a very damp transition into Autumn for the Hounslow GoodGymers, as they made their way to the final leaf clearing task with Cultivate London. The team quickly got stuck into filling bags with the final batch of leaf mulch and shifting it over to the prep area, where Steph made tipping and compressing leaves look easy!

There was considerable football chat as we got the final load of mulch cleared, ready for Cultivate to pack down the area. Bags were refilled as quickly as they could be taken away for emptying.

We also helped Cultivate with packing up soil bags, tidying pots, and clearing out the compost bins. And we were lucky enough that the rain held off for us, giving us a brief glimpse of a rainbow. To top it all off, we were even blessed with the company of Shadow, the neighborhood cat. After a swift and productive 90 minutes, we ran back towards the town hall for a good stretch.

With September on the horizon and the crunch of leaves underfoot, there were some proper back to school vibes at our task last night when we...er, went back to school.

Our job for the night was at Strand on the Green primary school, a place where we go and help out on a regular basis. However, unlike our normal visits, it was only as we got to the bridge near the entrance to the school did we find that the footbridge was closed! Luckily there was lots of local knowledge in the group and we soon opted for a slightly longer deviation.

We arrived to find loads of tools and armed with our set of instructions, we divided up into teams to tackle the various jobs. Emily, Maxime, Harvey, Matt and Jon got busy sanding down the metal trolleys so that they can be painted ready for the new term. It was painstaking work, but it's definitely going to breathe new life into the equipment.

Meanwhile Pippa was weeding and Michelle sweeping up the leaves and debris on the road, just as Eloise and Kymm snipped and pruned the hedge. Gus and Luis had the big guns out with the saw and trimmer, lopping off the tall sections of the overgrown bushes.

It's amazing what a team can achieve together. While everybody was working I was (trying) to work out how much time we would have saved the caretaker who manages the site. With 14 of us working for 45 minutes, that equates to 10.5 working hours - more than a full working day! What an impact.

There was just time to squeeze in a fitness session which featured AMRAP (as many reps as possible) and an abs based challenge based on the Oops Upside Your Head moves! (IFYYK)

This weekend there is a lovely mission to help support WLQP's birthday celebrations - sign up here and don't forget to fill in the form so they know you're coming. Next weeks it is our last visit to help Cultivate finish collecting up the leaves to turn them into mulch. The GG fun never stops!