congratulations to Jen for ten good deeds

It was a dark and chilly January evening, Jen, myself, Erin, and a late late late late late Andy met at the gym, meeting the walkers and the Walkers at the church directly.

We set off discussing our new year resolutions and Christmas lack of showering. Arriving at the church we raked right in to action. Filling bins and tubs left, right, and centre.

After we had finished we gathered round for a celebratory photo for the 10 deed milestone and unfortunately I am unable to post one of them due to the unsavoury pose Rich decided to do. Tut tut.

Then the highlight of the task! We were all given small bottles of wine by Stephen! Thank you! Much appreciated. I had to entrust mine with Sallyann so hopefully I will get them before she drinks them...

We headed off back and Erin and Jen chaperoned Andy to base while I peeled off.

Top work everyone! Don't forget it is our Thai food social this weekend.

Five of us began at base and Jane insisted on leading out. As we are like to share responsibility I let Joel choose his favourite lights on Moulsham Street for a photo. He chose....Taco Bell. It did mean I could do a pretty good Jingle Taco Bells joke though. Oh deer (that makes sense if you look at the photo of me with the deer lights).

We got to the village hall and Fay shouted 'Ahoy!' for some reason which confused me immensely. Anyway, we got to work filling five bins with many leaves (between 200k and 700k I would say) being led by the literal professional in Richard. We discussed Christmas dinner, our host David has one a week in December, Christmas desserts, mince pies and more. Sallyann bragged about retiring next week (congrats!!!) while I cleaned paths and wept at the prospect of 50 more years until retirement.

We ran out of bin space and took a serious photo for our serious business. Well done all!

Next week we are getting a pint and maybe takeaway after the group run, come along!

The last task of the January challenge brought out double digits of runners. We won't talk about our good deed target, but superb to smash the distance one!

After a discussion about my tiger knees, I performed a seamless introduction and away we went. Really nice to meet Linn, hopefully you enjoyed your first (of many) task and run, and aren't put off by rumours that heel clicks at Parkrun are mandatory.

Birthday boy Ben led us out at a rapid pace and we were at the church in no time.

As there was a limited amount of paint, everyone dug in except the specimens who did some fitness. Andy had a nap on the floor, Russell complained about his back and quit wall sits early, and Rich posed as he loves to do. We were incredulous that Sallyann thought it didn't look intense enough and has challenged anyone to a plank off at the summer beer festival. As you can imagine, Fay was very impressed and filmed us for social media, perhaps a trial run for ITV!

The painting went well, we ran out but managed most of the room. It didn't help that Joel decided to use some of the sacred sauce on his face (great to have him back) and Martin has offered to paint the ceiling when required.

After a brief, totally legit vote, we decided to run a longer way back. Joints creaking we got back to base and chatted about how my acca was going to win loads of money and i would take everyone for dinner. Sadly I got 50% of them wrong. Next time.

Very successful task. Very successful run. Hopefully next week's task will be similarly so (removals and bringing walls down) and so will the pub quiz!

On a cold January evening Jane and I braved the elements and met Leanne at the old factory gym ready for a lovely chatty run to kick start our fitness and get over the lurgy for the new year.

We reached St John's church hall in no time where we met Fay and Sallyann already hard at work painting the skirting board. The plan was to get at least half done before coming back next week, but being the well oiled machine that we are we managed to get a whole coat of paint the whole way round the room.

With that we packed up and said our goodbyes, Fay and Sallyann walking back, Jane running home to get some dinner and Leanne and I running back to base to get a few more running miles in.

We'll be back at the church hall next week to give the skirting board a second coat.

And it will be you last chance to help us reach our target for the January challenge. So please come along if you are free.

Until then.... RUN HAPPY

Rich

On the 18th of December my GoodGym gave to me:

• 12 months of running
• 11 GoodGym socials
• 10 secret bottles of wine
• 9 GoodGymers tasking
• 8 photos taken
• 7 days til xmas
• 6 rakes and brooms
• 5 Fulllllll bins
• 4 xmas outfits
• 3 Erin exams
• 2 Lit up houses
• and
• a cheer from A-Andy

I hope everyone has a great Christmas and gets a break! Happy running!

After a string of poor excuses, only the bravest of goodgymers met last night (having a baby? pssh).

Traffic was awful so there was a lot of discussion over the best way through town right now, and the answer is clearly on foot.

Fay, Andy and Richard drove in but survived the ordeal. The excellent 'reverse advent calendar' foodbank collection is underway. Joe appeared when summoned by Andy.

A cold run to the church hall and we got to work, it's like we've never cleared any leaves at all every time we visit but it keeps us out of trouble. Everything was filling up with piles of leaves still waiting to be lifted so a brisk walk for a bin secondment allowed us to get more picked up for collection day.

We will be back for more leaves in a few weeks!