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!

Welcome to 2018 and what a perfect way to start the year off! A really nice mix of regulars and new runners tonight as we welcomed Danni, Laura & Roy for their first Goodgym experience and also Jamie who has previously ran with Goodgym in London.

There was a change to tonight’s advertised task as the elderly residents at the almshouses decided they would prefer us to visit when we have the evening light so that’s one to look forward to for the spring. So instead we headed to a task the same distance away but at the top of one of Brighton’s biggest hills! I tried to find the easiest way up but I know this gave some of you a bit more than you bargained for so well done on achieving your first summit of Southover Street!

Tonight’s task was another gardening, pruning and clearing one, this time in a community garden behind the estate in Finsbury Road. As the area to work in was quite small we split the group with half working at the task with run leader Helena whilst the other half completed a fitness session with me including lots of squats, lunges, kicks, jumps and exercise you can do in a small area whilst standing up!

The task involved cutting back buddleia, grasses and other vegetation which was covering a path and by the time we’d finished half of the path was totally clear and I’m sure we’ll be returning soon to finish the job. We’d bagged up about 15 bags of garden waste and the final task was to try to cram it all into Cllr David’s car to be taken off for green recycling. And cram we had to including a few bags in the front seat (hence tonight’s pun, thank you Helena!)

We headed back to base via a slightly different route and as far as I’m aware no one even mentioned Christmas! (Apart from me when I commented that nobody had mentioned Christmas!)

See you next week, keep on running!

A change of plan to the scheduled task this evening for 16 intrepid runners in Bath but of course that would also mean the addition of a hill or two to the 6k run to DONKEY LANE community garden .

A few announcements before the off with a warm welcome to another Goodgym tourist from GG Greenwich the lovely Amy....whoop!!!

Bath Heroes this month

Mary 8 Good deeds

Alison 188.9k

Remember everyone get signed up on Strava through your Goodgym profile and all your training runs will be logged, you also get to support your fellow runners/vice Versa. Could be a tiebreaker in the making regards hitting the next BIG 50!! Joe at 48 and Mary at 47.

welcome to Caitlin (my daughter) for her first taste of Goodgym fitness and no I didn't force her.

The first part of our run out was nice and flat, that was until we arrived at Hedgemead Park when it became apparent the

only was is up baby, for you and me now

I'm not too hard on them though as they'd already enjoyed a couple of hill sprints to warm up, plus had a breather at the top of the many steps with an opportunity to

squat it like it's Hot or until they drop

Sue was eagerly awaiting the group at the end of perfect view with her tools, our task to help weed to help with the maintenance of this rather large area.

The task for 35 mins

Clearing the Pathways through the herb and veggie area,. Cut back a rather large Kale plant, although this got rather out of hand with poor Jo trying to keep Joe and Sam on task but Sam was literally engulfed in Kale...Ha!! Pretty maids in a row working on the garden paths doing a fabulous job. Steve, Rob and the two Emma's tackled the stingers on the other side of the footpath allowing the young trees some breathing space.

Amy confessed to enjoying the hills with Holly, Megan and Caitlin taking the herbs in hand. Pascale had a lovely bunch of Kale to enjoy in her breakfast smoothie, that might make up for the extra mileage she did tonight.

Time up!!

Group photo and our very own Mexican led wave by Dora to top off the evening.

Thankfully a nice downhill finish back to the leisure centre for a few stretches.

Thanks to Emma for back marking and Joe for our fabulous pun tonight.

Reminder that it's monthly **QUIZ SOCIAL on Thursday at The Boater at 7.30pm, please feel free to come along and bring a little raffle prize to show our support to Rob who will be climbing Kilimanjaro with his brother and is self funding, so the money he raises will go to the charity. They will be supporting Against Malaria Foundation, who ‘fund anti-malaria nets, specifically long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs), and work with distribution partners to ensure they are used’ (https://www.againstmalaria.com/WhyMalaria.aspx). Feel free to share their giving page Here is the link for the fundraising page! https://www.againstmalaria.com/Fundraiser.aspx?FundraiserID=7688

hope to see you at Thursdays quiz.

A fabulous 15 this evening at Goodgym Bath for a 5k run to the community allotments at the foot of The Two Tunnels on Lyncombe road.

Whoop!! and Welcome to Leanne from Goodgym York

joining us fresh from racing the train at the weekend before heading for a well deserved break in Devon

Well Done to everyone who raced at the weekend Two Tunnels series from 10k to 50k some great achievements... Feel proud!!

Time to hit the road and head towards a wee hill and the job at hand tonight

TWO TASKS to cut back the over hanging hedge and hazel from the young fruit trees and lay some chicken wire over a slippery wooden bridge accessing the allotments along a shared pathway.

The route out involved a rather enjoyable leg burning hill or two, although the first was considered a warm up for the second one and i really do believe they enjoyed every moment.

The Task itself

LOPPERS and SECATEURS pairing up to form the hedge trimmers with Ed on saw duty on a fallen tree and had a later use as a cuttings battling ram. Emma,Tim and Sam getting to grips with that slippery bridge with some chicken wire and a staple gun.

40 MINUTES LATER

Job done!! one well pruned hedge stretching along a narrow footpath with a mad dash at the end to create a wildlife haven with the cuttings and one very safe bridge to cross with our very own

QUEEN MARY

to officially cut the twig and open the bridge to the public. This was suitably topped off with some delicious raspberry tasting before the short run back to base.

Double thanks to Alison for back marking and for tonights pun.

A Lovely summers evening on the riverbank at Goodgym BATH for a sweet 16 who weedy enjoyed themselves at on a 5k run involving some hill climbing with bags of mulch and weeds for The Canal and River trust.

A few announcements to kick off this evening:

Well done Pascale and Alison who ran the Salisbury 54321 on Sunday 42 & 33 k

New Taskforce - Lucy, Emma and Alison .. WHOOP!!

Welcome to Holly and Ben

Nicola and Dora were chatting away in spanish (i think so anyway) something about Mexico i think and the possibility of a night out on the plus side..keep you posted team!!

As promised a nice flat run along the canal or at least until we arrived at our destination when 7 merry men were required to head up that hill and carry bags of mulch back down to the riverbank.

The remaining members were already hard at work chopping back ash and weeding an overgrown area, Ben was in fact working so hard he broke his garden trowel...Ooops!! lot's of banter and laughter along the way.

30 minutes later

Time to spread the bags of mulch over the cleared area before filling the now empty bags with cuttings and weeds before a group effort to carry everything back up the hill where its transport was waiting to carry it off to the compost heap in the sky.

A touch of fitness stuff and looping thrown into the mix for good measure and because they enjoy it so much, although you would never guess it from their little faces...HA!!

A suitably short run back down the hill and along the river back to the leisure centre for a nice stretch and chat, perfect end to a beautiful day.

Smashing job achieved yet again team,

fabulous...fabulous...fabulous!!

GOOD LUCK to everyone racing the TWO TUNNELS this weekend especially Rhiannon on her first 10k ...GO GIRL!!

GOOD LUCK to everyone racing the train from Goodgym this weekend, can't wait to read all about that one.

Until next time, keep running and stay safe