15 runners met on a ridiculously blustery night for late July. We welcomed Jay from Worthing Goodgym and welcomed back Nipun for one night only after her move away from Brighton which was a delightful surprise for us all.

After warming up out the back rather than our usual setting due to Pride shenanigans we ran off to Hanover & Elm Grove to meet Councillor David Gibson for another task of clearing litter, bindweed and covering graffiti. Micheal , Ellie & Bernard painted over the first lot while Sherman and Damian went north to do some weeding and then Jay and Kirsty covered some of the pesky tagging round the corner.

Meanwhile, the rest of us cleared bindweed by the almshouses...and I mean cleared...the stuff grows like wildfire and litter picked which included a large cardboard box with an old art deco style lampshade which had been dumped.

Having transformed the area we headed for the Level and did a series of triangular reps which consisted of press ups....run to the 2nd point of the triangle....jumping squats....run to the third point of the triangle....sit ups....run back again and repeat.....several times! We then ran and got blown back to base where some went for an extra social with Nipun once a venue could be decided!!

On the outer reaches of the GoodGym Brighton galaxy, a trip to Moulsecoomb Primary School is always a total joy, and last night was no different.

Our 4.5km run to the school was livened up by busting not one but two GoodGym regulars – Paul, and then Juliet – out and about, living their lives. The absolute cheek of it.

We were greeted at the school by Warren, one of the governors and quite an inspiration when it comes to education and horticulture. As well as giving us tasks according to our level of gardening knowledge (‘basic’ or ‘dangerously ignorant’), he told us about the school’s philosophy and methods and why the grounds are so important.

Off we went to give the school’s orchard a bit of grooming - pruning fruit trees, freeing them from bindweed, getting rid of weeds and chopping down ‘suckers’ – a.k.a. unwanted tree growth.

There was just time for a pose in front of one of Moulescoomb’s amazing replica dwellings – built by the kids as part of their history curriculum – before heading back into town in the sunshine.

It was a big night for Brighton Goodgym as we celebrated our second birthday, that’s 2 whole years, 104 weeks of getting fit by doing good! And a big group of you answered the call and made sure we had plenty of hands on deck to complete our two tasks.

Welcome tonight to Ian, Ellie & Carly joining us for the first time and welcome back to Dennis who we haven’t seen since last summer. It was also a lovely surprise to see Jonathon & Lydia waiting for us at the task, who were both present on our epic rainy launch night two years ago. So with Helena and me, that made four of the 38 original Goodgym runners from 2 yeas ago present tonight. But whether it was your first night or your 100th really doesn’t matter, the joy of Goodgym is that it welcomes runners who come every week or those that drop in from time to time, You all contribute and you all make us special!

So after our usual warm up round the fountain, we headed east to Kemp Town, dropping 4 runners off to help a group of residents reduce noise and air pollution from delivery vehicles at the back of Morrisons by filling 2 large planters with soil and limiting the space those pesky lorries can idle their engines. Everyone else headed to Somerset Point, a council run seniors housing scheme surrounded by a garden, maintained mostly by residents. Eilleen set us to work on various weeding, pruning, sweeping and chopping tasks including giving a Hebe (that’s a plant!) a radical haircut, resulting in tonights pun (thank you Megan!). Somerset Point is currently surrounded by scaffolding due to maintenance work, so the gardens have taken a bit of a bashing, so tidying up was the order of the day and Eilleen was delighted with how much we were able to achieve in just 45 minutes.

I thought as a birthday treat, as well as some brand new gloves, I’d keep the fitness session easy and fun with a twist on the game of ‘pass the parcel’ but David complained it was too easy so a bonus AMRAP (as many reps as possible) of 11/7/17 squats/crunches/jumping jacks to mark our birthdate upped the ante slightly and ensured you were all breathless and sweaty for our birthday celebration social.

We had another great turn out for the social this month, a huge thank you to Helena for making the evening special with a cake featuring photos from the previous 2 years, party hats and Happy Birthday banners. We even had a Happy Birthday message all the way from Hong Kong from regular runner Sherman. What a special night, what a special two years! Thank you all for your amazing contribution to Brighton Goodgym.

p.s this Saturday is our monthly park run meet up at Preston Park and good luck to anyone running the Phoenix 10k on tonight!