It was another brand new task for us this evening as we paid a visit to Live Theatre for the first time, thanks to Cathy for fixing up this super new group run for us! We had not one, not two but FIVE new GoodGym runners and walkers along to join us on this fine evening as we celebrated superstar Run Leader Katy's 50th Good Deed. Katy brought along a stack of amazing homemade cakes and most of her family to celebrate.

We had a huge turn out tonight, a walking group happily led by Ross and a running group already dreading the hill back up from the Quayside we'd need to tackle on the way back- and this was before they realised they'd actually need to tackle it multiple times in the fitness session!

We celebrated two brilliant missions last week and in her absence gave Charlotte a big clap for completing the Paris Marathon yesterday. I have been assured she stepped straight off the train and into the social met by a drink, a cake and a bunch of her #GGNCL family. Excellent timing! A quick warm up and a dash to the Quayside where Live Theatre was waiting for us.

The Live Theatre plays host to a number of events including regular school visits to the creative writing garden situated at the back of Broad Chare. We were asked tonight to do a number of tasks to give the garden some TLC including:

• Painting the decking

• Weeding

• Picking up litter

• Tidying up

It was one of those brilliant tasks where a stack of brand new equipment was waiting for us and we were able to immediately get stuck in. Dan and Dave swept the decking before the painting crew jumped in while everyone else set about picking and weeding the garden and courtyard under the shadow of the Tyne Bridge (check out the photo of Nick with the bridge in the background!) Rachel even managed to find a friend- an enormous worm - another brilliant photo opp for you to look for! The difference we made was immediately visible and we left a much tidier garden behind us in just 35 minutes. There was an extra good deed done by Andrew too as he fastened Evan's coat up for him, although why I don't really know. Who said Bromance was dead?!

As it ended up being a faster job than we'd anticipated, it gave us time to play a quick game of 'Anji Says', as well as pose for two DREAM GoodGym Newcastle group photos by both the Tyne Bridge and Millenium Bridge for the first time in our history. The walking group broke away and we took the opportunity to practice some timed hill repeats on the cobbled bank heading up from the Quayside which everyone absolutely smashed, burning off the last of any Monday Blues.

I know we will be back at Live Theatre - we have to get that other decking area done for a start!- and it would be so great to have another massive turn out so I will share details as soon as I have them.

No community missions this weekend, so make sure you join us if you can for our next Group Run on Easter Monday as we trot across to Byker for a huge leaflet drop for our friends at Scope. Thanks to Debbie for collecting the leaflets, and to Ross for chopping them up for us ready to deliver next week.

Have a great week full of good things, and I will see you next week.

Anji x

Warning! This group run contained a cloak, a tourist, a newbie, a Japanese relay race and 300 leaflets

Firstly, can I just say, I presume it was SO COLD TONIGHT to fully give our Camden tourist Beth a true taste of the North East?! As always we started the evening with loads to celebrate including a new runner (Hello Ellen!), a visiting runner (Yay Beth!) a cloaked runner - happy 51st Good Deed, Andrew! Not to mention a 6 month streak celebration for Charlotte and a super warm up in which we discovered Dave can make himself the tallest person in the group, and Abi has great balance until you actually tell her that.

We were off tonight on a task that thankfully required us to keep moving, as we embarked on a huge leaflet drop in the Arthur's Hill area of town for Vertical Veg for Greening Wingrove. There had been a slight panic that we had been given 2000 leaflets instead of 200, and here I must shout out Louise who spent a very rock and roll Saturday night counting them, to thankfully discover there were "only" 300. These leaflets are a vital way of getting the message out to the local community about a new project encouraging people to grow their own vegetables in their back yards. The super projects on offer from Greening Wingrove can be found on their website if you want to read more.

We scattered off in trios and pairs and managed to cover all the streets listed in the task request in a very swift 15 minutes, leaving extra time for the fitness session - yay! A quick reminder of some sprint technique, a quick warm up using lamp posts and a confusing five minutes arranging ourselves into teams for an Ekiden attempt. It's basically another name for a relay but since reading The Way of the Runner (Finn) I have been a little obsessed by the whole thing.

Ekiden (駅伝) = a long-distance running multistage relay race mostly held on roads. The Japanese term originally referred to a post-horse or stagecoach which transmitted communication by stages.

Our Ekiden comprised three short legs and one long sprint finish in which Nick and Darren were victorious, winning our praise and admiration rather than the classic Japanese prizes of household items such as bin bags and cling film. Well done to everyone for putting in loads of effort and cheering each other on, it was awesome.

The social tonight looked pretty good too as the social-ites headed off to The Stack, complete with a bag full of individually sliced cake courtesy of Andrew to celebrate his 50 good deeds. See photos for amazing cake evidence!

Don't forget, there are two fantastic community missions this week. Tomorrow where you can spend a chilled Tuesday morning tidying a school library and Sunday where there is digging to be done for Newcastle Parks. Get involved if you can.

Finally, it's a huge GOOD LUCK to Task Force hero Charlotte who is running in the PARIS MARATHON on Sunday! Have fun and smile every mile. Bon chance Charlotte!

Happy running and walking. See you all next week,

Anji x

The true beauty of GoodGym is the reflection that much like life being like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get.

Is that too deep for a Monday?

We LOVE helping NEST at Newcastle University as they always have a creative and diverse range of tasks for us that always offer us opportunities to show great team work. NEST is a volunteer project offering educational support to refugees in our city, and I have to say I have never met NEST students that aren't the happiest people you see all day!

It was a huge welcome to a big group of 30 including 3 newcomers tonight, all of which did a fantastic job and hopefully will be back to join us every week now the lighter evenings are almost upon us. We caught up on some great mission news, from Richard and Liz's older person mission last week which allowed someone to return home from hospital safely, to a huge clear up that happened in Harbottle Park yesterday we started the night glowing with pride!

Katy led the Simon Says themed warm up while I joined Charlotte's walking group and tried my best to not bore everyone with my injury woes which I know are mainly in my head. I heard reports that the warm up included "millions of squats" so the gang were well and truly warmed up on arrival to Newcastle University!

Task owner Bridget ushered us into a classroom at the back of the university where there were so many of us we had to move chairs around and perform some army rolls under the tables just to fit in. One side of the room looked like an interview panel and I couldn't decide which job they'd all be going for. Bridget explained that the NEST sessions are growing, with a turn out of 170 students at a session over the weekend.

How brilliant is that?!

NEST hold regular parties for learners and their families and tonight our task was to make decorations, in a brief throwback to our Christmas task there were I witnessed the most terrible snowflake-making by Peter. One side of the room were to make glorious mulit-coloured paper chains, while the other created quote cards for the NEST students to read. These are simple tasks for a group of our size that make a massive difference to groups like NEST ahead of this week's party. This chilled-out task gave everyone a lovely chance to catch up while showing off their creative flourish, or lack thereof.

We had an unexpected late edition to the group when Tom arrived at 7:10pm (late but worth the wait) taking our head count to 31!

Task done and out to the fitness session which was a fast interval session disguised as a children's game- always a winner. Excellent sprint and dodging techniques were on display and we crowned James King of the Cops at the end of the game. The energy was infectious tonight and everyone was smiling as we left.

There's a double Nunsmoor task coming up as we head to Nunsmoor Park for the Community Mission on Saturday followed by our first light task of the year on Monday at the Nunsmoor Centre so it would be great to see you at either or both as we get stuck into some hands on physical work!

Have a great week everyone, you smashed Monday!

Anji x

With no official task this evening, we were set the job of one of our favourite past times...

PLOGGING !

We had a big turn out tonight including new GoodGymer May who did absolutely brilliantly on her first group run.. but more on that later! There were so many achievements to catch up on including Andrew who is on a parkrun PB streak, Louise who smashed her Half Marathon PB in Bath yesterday, and Paul who completed his first ever Ultra 50K! It was also Charlotte's turn to adorn the Geordie cloak of Good Deeds after completing her 50th Good Deed in her coach run the week before last. Doesn't she look splendid in it?!

We also had a catch up following a weekend packed with Community Missions. Massive well done to everyone for keeping the good deeds coming every weekend. There's another one this Sunday at Harbottle Park if you'd like to get involved.

But on to tonight!

We did a multi-exercise warm up in which many many instances of cheating happened and set off on the run with the conversation topic "What's the stupidest thing you've ever done?" in honour of Paul's Ultra. I definitely won't tell you who was once sick in the gutter on a date. At breakfast. We met the walking group at the corner of Leazes Park where the group split into smaller teams to go plogging around the perimeter fences of Leazes Park and the RVI opposite. Two challenges were set: find the weirdest thing and find the most rubbish. The competitive sides started to show and in just 25 minutes, bags were packed full of all manner of weird and wonderful things including a Lambrini bottle complete with straw, a traffic cone and many many takeaway cartons. Plogging is good for the soul and everyone was happy to have the time to catch up while making this busy area of town look so much better!

On to the fitness session and Tempo Surge was the order of the night. We had a fabulous area of Leazes Park all to ourselves and it was just brilliant! This interval session is a fun way of working in teams and doing short bursts of unstructured fast running while supporting and encouraging each other through it. Everyone did so well tonight that it was hard to pick out a stand-out performance, but in the end the award went to new GoodGymer May for her brilliant sprint technique on her very first session. She was the proud recipient of a pink chemistry set (it's a long story) which we hope will come in handy for her medical school interview next week.

Well done to all on another great start to the week. Next week we are back off to Newcastle Uni to help our friends at NEST. It's another short run with a walking option so feel free to share the sign-up page with some newbies who might fancy coming along! You can get involved here

See you next week.

Happy running and walking!

Anji x