SEVENTEEN (definiely not 18, that's an admin error on Tara's part!) GOOD GYM MEMBERS RAN 7KM TO ST ANDREWS CHRUCH HOVE TO HELP WITH VARIOUS TASKS UNDER THE INSTRUCTION FROM VICAR DAN HENDERSON .

Our first group run of February was run on a lovely evening along the sea front to St Andrews church in Hove , just over three kilometres in distance . We were greeted by Mr Dan Henderson the vicar and his assistant who welcomed us and talked us through the two main tasks for the evening in the Graveyard . There has been some antisocial behaviour in the graveyard at night so having taken some advice the church are adding some lighting to illuminate the graveyard at night .Half of our group were provided with spades and tools to dig a trench for some new cables to provide an electricity supply for the new lighting system , hopefully the new lighting will stop the need for increased security as people are 'dying' to get in (boom boom!!)

Removing Ivy and weeds from tombs and gravestones was our task for the second group of volunteers . One large tomb was so overgrown with Ivy that it was ninety per cent obscured from view , it did not take long for our team to completely clean the ivy from this tomb plus several graves as well . We also had a general clean up and litter pick of the general areas , our volunteers
were so engrossed in their work you could almost here the skeletons coffin' (boom, boom!)

Once we had completed our tasks we said our goodbyes to the vicar and his assistant and we made our way back to the sea front where we started our fitness work out for the evening . This was led by our coach Tara Shanahan , who instructed us on a speed and recovery session running set intervals along the sea front , this also incorporated some steep ramps and steps to add some extra work rate .

We rounded off the lovely evening with some stretching and a warm down and look forward to another task and our social evening next Tuesday evening .

Tara writes....Thanks Andy for a great run report, love the 'jokes', we're all dying with laughter!! Just also to say welcome along to Theresa and Daisy joining us for the first time on a Tuesday evening, hope you enjoyed it and that you'll be back for more. And also hope to see some of you at Hove Prom on Saturday for our monthly parkrun meet up.

This morning twelve of us, including first timersFiona & Daisy, volunteered at Junior parkrun and not only earned ourselves a Goodgym good deed we got a parkrun volunteering cred too! Gulit free parkrunning for a couple of months and twelve extra good deeds towards our total for the January challenge!

We met in a deserted Hove Park at 8.30am where we were assigned our roles by regular Goodgymmer Roy, who was wearing his parkrun Run Director hat today. I got to do the warm up, Helena was tail walker, Michael was Fun Manager (ok funnel!) and everybody else was doing the essential role of marshalling and cheer leading as the 127 four to fourteen year olds completed the 2km course. Roy explained that the junior parkrun needs more marshalls than the regular parkrun so they often struggle to get enough volunteers so our help was really appreciated. All parkruns need volunteers to ensure they go ahead week after week and volunteering at the junior event means you don’t even have to give up your own Saturday parkrun. A win, win situation!

Once we'd cheered and high fived the juniors to the finish line we took on the 2km course ourselves and followed it up with a short fitness session making use of the outdoor gym equipment in the park. , Rosemary impressed us all by banging out several pull ups, whilst most of us struggled to just hang on to the pull up bar!

By the time we’d finished our session the deserted park we’d met in at 8,30am had transformed to a hive of activity including boot campers, tennis players, dog walkers and footballers showing what a great resource our city parks are.

Hope to see you on Tuesday for our next group run helping out in Hanove and Elm Grove ward.