Welcome

A massive welcome to Sam who joined us for her first GoodGym experience tonight! We hope you had a great night Sam and enjoyed the craziness that is GoodGym Crewe! Hope to see you back again soon.

Kudos

Great to see Michelle back for her second task, even though her new hairdo completely threw me and I re-introduced myself like a total numpty!! (sorry Michelle!!). Great to have Barry, Louise and Phil back with us after a bit of a break (no pun intended Barry!!!). We’ve missed you!

Thank You

Huge kudos to Sophie for becoming the 4th member of the Taskforce and for taking on the role of walk leader along with Maurice to lead tonight’s walking group. Thank you Sophie and Maurice. Big thanks to Karl who took on the role of back-marker this evening, ensuring nobody was left behind. A massive thank you to Cheryl & Rob at St. Pauls for taking 22 runners into the foodbank this evening and allowing us the responsibility of sorting and organising your shelves!

Tonight’s Task

This week is Valentines, so naturally, we had to have a Valentines Theme! It started with the pre-run refreshments (or should I say pre-run nutrition…….erm) – jammy dodgems and love hearts (very healthy) with a few chocolate fingers thrown in for good measure (and to cater for us chocoholics!!).

Our warmup was meet and greet (basically, you have two teams. One person from each team sets off and runs in a big circle until they meet the person from the other team, they high-five each other and return to swap with the next person). I think it’s fair to say that we’ve all become good friends since GoodGym launched in October so I couldn’t understand their reluctance when I suggested they kiss their partner as they swapped over (well, it is Valentines after all!) ;-0)))) LOL! In the end, we settled for shouting out the name of a song with the word ‘LOVE’ in the title instead – they seemed happier with this – no idea why! ;-0)

Once suitably warmed up we set off into the (once again) dry night (so lucky). We had a large walking group this evening (7 in total which is fantastic!) with the rest of us running. The runners took a slightly longer route to the foodbank, heading up through the town centre. I always love to see the sea of red t-shirts as they weave their way along the pavement – we never fail to get a reaction from passers-by (even though people do sometimes look a bit like a rabbit in headlights when they see us all coming!!). I always love to see the reactions!

We were greeted with a wonderful welcome from the lovely Cheryl and Rob at the foodbank. They showed us all the food that had been generously donated by the people of Crewe and needed to be sorted (481kg in total!!!). We set to work like a team of worker ants – sorting, stacking, carrying and organising tins, packets, jars and boxes until they were on the shelves where they needed to be. As there were 22 pairs of hands tonight, we had spare capacity to sort some of the bric-a-brac that had also been donated to the church. We had great fun trying to inflate an airbed, adorning ourselves with large diamond rings and making conversation with pottery ducks – as you do! We even had time for a brew and a biscuit that had been kindly laid on by Cheryl and Rob. Michelle and Karen were chief brew pourers as I can’t be trusted apparently (can I Karl? ;-0)))

Once our work was complete, we set off back to base via the infamous ‘Rocky Steps’ (well Crewe’s version at least!) for a short workout. We were ‘encouraged’ in our exercise session by some local youths. Everyone took their encouragement in good humour as we did our one-legged squats, plie squats and a couple of circuits around the perimeter of the steps. We made sure that our ‘supporters’ knew who we were and what we were doing, so who knows… maybe they’ll look us up when they’re old enough…

Another amazing turnout tonight and such a huge credit to each of you for being genuinely wonderful human beings, who come out on cold nights week in week out to put something back into your community. Not only is it truly inspiring but it restores my faith in people and our society. There’s a lot of good in our local community and it’s a huge privilege to be a small part of it. Thank you for making my Wednesday evenings so wonderful and for making Crewe a better place to live.

Hope to see you all next week! Have a fab weekend everyone!

Stay safe, Lots of Love, Nicola xxxx

Welcome A huge welcome to our newest GoodGym recruit, the lovely Lois who joined us for her first-time last night. Great to see Alison back for her second task as well. We hope you both had a great night and will join us again next week for some more GoodGym antics!

Kudos Kudos to everyone who came out on Saturday for our one-off booster session. It was a great afternoon and as John said, it was nice to do our first ever daylight task! The Wishing Well and Chance Changing Lives were extremely grateful for the work we did, so well done everyone! Many of you have now got more than 10 GoodGym deeds under your belt - Amazing!

Thank You Thank you to Chris who took on the role of back-marker in the absence of our regulars – Pam and Barry. You did a cracking job - thank you Chris. We hope you’re making a speedy recovery Barry and look forward to having you and Pam back with us when you’re feeling more human again.

The Main Event We kicked off our evening with some coconut rings and chocolate digestives. Not many better ways to kick off a task in my opinion! ;-) Once fully indulged, we headed out onto the square for our warmup. We had a fun game of ‘opposites’ to get the heart pumping. Lauren was the last girl standing but the boys triumphed with Chris just pipping John to the post and winning the much coveted prize of a miniature packet of love hearts (which I forgot to give you – I owe you Chris!).

We then set off our run to Mayfield Care Home – one of our longer distances. Maurice joined us on his bike as he’s sadly still suffering with an injury. You were a great additional tail-cyclist though Maurice – thank you!

We got into the lovely ‘very’ warm care home and were greeted by (mostly) lovely smiley faces! ;-)) Lots of the residents remembered us from our last visit and their faces lit up and you could see that they were delighted to have some company. Many relayed tales of their youth, past working lives or of their families.

After 10 minutes or so of chatter, we started our quiz. The residents really did get involved and some were enjoying it so much that they couldn’t help shouting the answers out for everyone else to hear! Some of the questions were easy and some were a little more taxing – the plural of dwarf proving somewhat of a challenge for most of us! It was the boys who triumphed with our winning quartet of John, Karl and two residents storming to victory with a very respectable 18/20. Winners medals were distributed and worn with pride! Well done the boys!

We headed back to base with a few exercises thrown in en route – squats at each stop! We were a real sight for sore eyes!

Well done everyone for another amazing week of GoodGym goodness. Hope you all enjoyed yourself as much as I did!

Have a great week everyone! Stay Safe!

Lots of Love, Nicola xxxx

Happy New Year & Welcome Happy New Year Everyone! Great to be back with you all in this new decade. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas & New Year. A huge welcome to our first-time runners this evening, Angela, Alison, Karen & Nigel. We really enjoyed running with you tonight and hope you had a great evening and will come back for more (wearing your fab GoodGym T-shirt of course!).

Kudos Well done to everyone for all their running efforts over the festive period. Great to see so many of you clocking up runs on your Strava and a special shout out to anyone that got out of their PJs and did a Christmas Day or New Year parkrun – I think there’s too many of you to mention but you certainly put me to shame!

Thank You Thank you to Barry & Pam for always volunteering for the role of back markers and thank you to Dan and Sophie for being route navigators whilst in that maze of an estate! I think I would still be there now if it hadn’t been for your fab navigation skills! Thank you to Karen for organising the leaflets for us and to Nigel for humping said leaflets in his rucksack!!

The Main Event Lovely to be back in our cosy meeting room with 18 eager GoodGymer’s, Abba and cookies to kick off the first task of 2020 (I did wonder whether the cookies wouldn’t go down well after the Christmas indulgence, but my team did not disappoint and we made light work of them!). We headed out to the square for our team warm up - cone relay with outward sprint and hop back to the change-over. I’d like to say there was a clear winner but to be fair, it was a dead heat! I’m certain there will be some differing opinions on that though… ;-)

Tonight’s task was delivering leaflets in the local area to raise awareness of fuel poverty and how the charity ‘Green Doctor’ can help people who find themselves in this awful situation. We ran to our starting location -which wasn’t far, and I found myself thinking I’d have to extend our route home… Absolutely not necessary as this amazing bunch surpassed all my expectations!!! I have to be honest; I was expecting everyone to walk as they delivered the leaflets – but nobody did!! Everyone ran their way around the estate, making light work of the leafleting and getting bags more exercise at the same time! Mind you, it may have had something to do with the element of competition that I added in….. two teams, simple challenge – first team to finish wins OR, team who delivers the most leaflets overall…..

HOWEVER…

We never quite got to the point of finding out as one of our regular runners, Barry took a bit of a nasty tumble. We were all worried about him but once he’d composed himself, we knew he was ok because the jokes recommenced! Still, a visit to A&E was in order as he wasn’t a pretty sight (sorry Barry) and we wanted to make sure he was ok. Honestly, the lengths some people will go to to get out of leafleting! (just kidding!). Barry has been in touch this morning and he’s ok. They’re not sure whether his nose is broken so he has to go back to the hospital in a few days. He also asked me to pass on his thanks to you all for your care and support. We are currently looking into the purchase of a bulk roll of bubblewrap and a crash helmet for future runs!!

We wish you a speedy recovery Barry because GoodGym Crewe simply won’t be the same without you!

Don’t Forget We have our Booster Session this Saturday. It would be great to see lots of you there! All the details are on the website and you register in the normal way.

Have a great week everyone! Stay Safe!

Lots of Love, Nicola xxx

PS - love the picture of Rose and Jordan You look like Angels that have been beamed down from heaven! ;-)

Welcome Another fab turnout tonight (and once again, dry weather!) and great to welcome new runner, Kimberley. It was great to meet you and we hope you had a great first experience of GoodGym. We hope to see you back again soon (don’t forget to register for your free GoodGym T-shirt. Check out the link in the covering email).

Thank You Huge thank you as always to Pam and Barry for being fabulous back markers and doing such a great job of looking after everyone. A big thank you to everyone who filled a shoe box for the elderly - I’ll be dropping them in to the organiser’s tomorrow morning. And a huge thank you to the Lighthouse Centre for our task tonight and for fabulous hospitality!

The Main Event Our warmup tonight obviously had to include a bit of festive fun (it’s December don’t you know!), so what better way to warm up than with a game of ‘tag tinsel’. Everyone happily stuffed their tails down their pants and with a half-hearted, croaky ‘we’re off’ (dammit, I should have used the whistle) from me, we started round one! Some highly competitive runners fought hard to hang on to their tails but tonight it was every man for themselves and the winner was the one who claimed the most tails. With Christmas tunes belting out in the background and lots of laughter, it’s fair to say that everyone seemed to be having fun. Well done to Suzanne who took round 1 and well done to Claire who took round 2 (2 to the girls – just sayin!).

A very festive looking GoodGym posse then ran to the task wishing Merry Christmas to people as we passed. I always enjoy the look of bewilderment that comes across peoples faces when we speak to them! It wasn’t too far to run to one of our regular organisations, but we were still happy to get out of the cold. A very warm welcome awaited as always, and we were split into two groups – one to wrap some shoe boxes to be given out to the homeless during their Christmas lunch and another to sort through clothes for them. The Christmas carols were playing in the background, the Christmas tree was up and the church was feeling very festive. It’s always really lovely to see you all chatting and having a fun with one another while helping our local community. No better way to spend a Wednesday evening in my opinion....

With our usual epic teamwork, we got the jobs done and even had time for a cup of tea and biscuit – it would have been rude not to after Paul had gone to so much trouble to provide them for us!

Thanks everyone for another brilliant session. Hopefully I’ll be functioning normally again next week!

Have a great week. Look after yourselves and keep being amazing.

Love Nicola xx

PS – It’s Christmasssssss! That means it’s our social next week after group. I hope you’ll join us.