I wasn't sure if it was the first real daylight run, sunshine, half term or the lure of being filmed, but this week a record attendance for GG Chelmsford with 19 runners. Thanks for coming along everyone.

This weeks news was Adam completing his first Half Marathon, very well done.

Welcome to Katherine on her first run and Ally & Henry returning with Emily, Mark and Leanne.

With Joel leading and Rachel tail we headed off to Central Park.

Our task this week was to do a litter pick in Central Park and also being filmed for an Active Essex promotion to get people physically active in the county. The mission statement for this promotion is: "We’re asking everyone in Essex to do 30 minutes of daily physical activity for 30 days throughout June for the 30 30 Essex Challenge. There are no distances to run, no targets to beat and no calories to burn. This is 30 minutes of activity, your way."

Why not get involved, details can be found on this website: https://www.3030essex.com/

After a quick litter pick and being filmed doing this we moved onto the main park area to do a "circuit" session. Four positions were set up with various exercises to be done on each one including amongst many others Burpees, squats, sit-ups, planks and shuttle runs. Superbly organised by Rich with one minute on each post, fantastic effort was put in by everyone especially when the camera was pointing in their direction! Only joking, you all looked good and working hard.

A warm down run around Central Park as a group finished that session.

As we were ahead of time we decided to take a longer route back to ARU through to Admirals Park and the parkrun 'hill'. The rest of the run was through the streets to First Avenue which took us to the back of ARU, there was one last exercise to do in the underpass and it had to be the popular wall squat! We then warmed down at the UNI with a reflection on tonights task.

David will be leading next weeks run to Interact to start painting the fences so sign up now and let David know you are coming along.

9 Goodgymmers ran to Broomfield Hospital to plant some beds

Not everyone was put off by Ken's return and the cold weather, so 9 hardy souls set off to Broomfield to help get the hospital beds in order. The flower beds at the front of the hospital that is. No lying down or changing sheets for us, but a long line of plants to be put in.

Fortunately the ground had been dug over and was nice and soft so everyone whizzed through the task, probably in an effort to keep warm!

We were told some exciting news about forthcoming projects that we will be working on in the new year, then we set off with Ally and Henry leading the charge for home.

A nice stretch down whilst we discussed how great the run was going to be next week as Rich was leading a soon to be confirmed task, then we retreated to get a bit warmer!

I have to say it was really nice running with the group again and seeing some familiar faces and a few new ones! I hope to cantch up with you soon!

This was a group run with a difference!

10 runners met at AR Uni ready for an exciting fitness session, then a special invite to Chelmsford Cathedral for a Christmas carol service arranged by Mencap.

We started the fitness session by preparing ourselves with some warm up exercises and headed off to the ‘Avenues’ a short run away.

There are seven Avenues, with 1st Avenue being 425m long and decreasing to 7th Avenue at 235m, a popular place to do efforts. It was a group jog up 1st Avenue and a 80% effort down 2nd Avenue and so on until we got to 7th Avenue. Great efforts by James, Paul, Ally, Laurie, Henry, Rachel, Henry and Catherine up and down all of them.

The faster runners had to run back up the avenue to the last person which was Rich mainly, except for 7th Avenue…!

Now, 7th Avenue is a Strava segment so everyone was challenged to run down the avenue as fast as they could to see how we as a group did, Rachel stormed off and got a crown for her efforts! Rich blasted through everyone to get to the bottom but way off the crown, he now so much wants!

After a short rest to recover we headed back to the Uni and then onto the Cathedral for the carol concert. As Ally got to the underpass first, she had to do a wall squat until the last person got to her.

Time to exercise those vocal chords with Christmas Carols.

A very special thank you to Grace for inviting us, it was a really uplifting concert with amazing singing and a fantastic brass band. We normally never see anyone when we do a task at Mencap so it was really great to see everyone who is involved there, the performances by the members of Mencap were excellent a real privilege to see and hear them.

Next weeks task is to Broomfield Hospital led by Ken, make sure you sign up early.

*12 runners ran 6km to Mencap to help out with some cleaning *

Tonight, we had a treble of exciting news - Joel wore his 100 good deeds t-shirt AND new trainers (although he didn't want to show off!), Rachel and James G completed the Billericay 10k on Sunday, and Rachel, James G and myself have all now completed over 1,000 km in 2018! Well done everyone, even Joel for just getting a new outfit.

We warmed up a little and set off to Mencap. Arriving ten minutes early, there was nothing for us to do but extra laps. Rich led us on a lap round the block, but we were still too early. Rachel and myself knew how close we were to hitting our 2018 target, so we led a 200m up the road and back. This saw us arrive in perfect time to meet Kevin from Mencap.

We were shown to the chairs and cleaning equipment, and I read out the very specific directions to clean them. The door bell rang, and Adam arrived in perfect time to get started. Joel led with the vacuuming, and everyone else followed with the creamy Cif and water. Ally and Henry were overwhelmed by the cleaning product and method, and we all hope that they haven't ruined our relationship with Mencap forever.

Once finished we set off on a slightly longer route back through Moulsham and Central Park, arriving at ARU just before 8pm.

Don't forget - we are going to the pub quiz at the Golden Fleece on Thursday 22nd November from 7.30pm

Next week we are heading to Broomfield Hospital with Gerry run leading.

Thanks for coming everyone, and see you soon!

Laurie