11 runners ran 6k around the city centre after brainstorming possible future tasks

Tonight we had Richard back for the first time in a while, he even came up with tonight’s pun!

Tonight’s task was to help out at the Girl Guide Association, however unfortunately it was cancelled, hence the pun! It was decided that the new ‘task’ would be to brainstorm some suggestions for possible task contacts, as at this time of year the task side of things can run a little dry. After a few suggestions and some stories from David and Fiona regarding this weekend’s Brum Half Marathon we got on our way.

Round town

The plan was a steady run around the city centre, before joining the lit part of the canal and heading towards St Paul’s Square ready for a Bootcamp workout!

Hardcore

Tonight’s Bootcamp was a little longer then the usual HIIT stuff due to time being on our side. It was basically two exercises back-to-back, 50 seconds in total, then a twenty second rest, a 2nd set, then ten seconds rest before a 3rd set. If that wasn’t enough the group did three pairs of exercises in total! To start with it was high knees running, followed by tuck jumps! A special mention goes to David here, despite his legs still being ‘trashed’ from Sunday’s half marathon he kept going! The next two exercises were squat jumps, followed by holding the squat position and boxing, a real leg burner! Abi and Richard showed great form with the squatting on these two exercises. The next two were mountain climbers and straight leg kicks. The mountain climbers were especially impressive, everyone showing good form, Fiona’s legs were going like the clappers, which being a Brum Half finisher as well was especially impressive. Laura, Karin, Aaron and Emily also showed grade A form. That was bootcamp done then......well not quite, one extra thing! The wall squat! The aim was one minute, then I added a further ten seconds and although the whole group did great holding it for seventy seconds considering how tired they were, a special mention goes to Richard, Nicola, Aaron and Liam who managed an unbelievable ninety second hold!

Once done it was a great relief for the group we only had a very short run back. Though Aaron took a few on a little de-tour to show them were a ‘gin bar’ was! I think I will stick to the ‘Ray Mears’ ;-)

Next week we will be out doing good again, it would be great if you could join us sign up here.

14 people ran 7k to water and weed the garden for Stanhope Community Centre

Tonight it was great to welcome GG newbie Emily to the group. It’s great to have you on board :-)

Once the intros were done we were on our way to Stanhope to use our green fingers for a bit of gardening. Richard did the front marking duties, while Garry did the back. Just before arriving at our destination we did our usual hill sprint up to the centre. Everyone pushed hard all the way, Hasnain giving it some right stick, Morwenna getting right up on to those toes and Laura, springing up on her light feet.

Next it was onto the task. It was a case of watering, more watering and weeding. Karin took control of the big hose, spraying water all over the shop! Not just on the plants! Hence this weeks ‘pun’ brought to you by Richard! The rest of the group had to make do with watering cans and weeding instruments. We spent a good twenty minutes in the garden, making it look loads better and certainly a lot wetter!

Intervals

After a quick picture we set off back, doing some thirty second interval efforts, off thirty seconds rest. Six were completed in total. Even I joined in with these, which is rather unusual as normally I’m ‘camera man’! Richard and Hasnain showed their speed, Emily put in some great work in her first session, Fiona and Kate, dug in well and were very consistent throughout, but as ever everyone worked well pulling each other a long! Top stuff!

Once the intervals it was a steady run back to our starter point. Everyone pretty tired with their efforts, so that means a great job done!

Next week we will be out doing good again, it would be great if you could join us sign up here.

14 people ran 5k to do some litter picking for the Canal and River Trust

Last night we met at a slightly earlier time so we could get back for the England game. It was great to welcome Kyley along for the first time, please give her a cheer. The idea was to do a bit of 'plogging'. What this means is pick some litter up as you run. Well we did have to stop a bit, as it is difficult to run and pick litterat the same time, but basically it was a quicker litter pick than usual. Due to the warm weather there was plenty of litter down there, so next week we can finish the job.

We dumped the bags off at the Aston Lock as usual before running back taking in some interval training. Firstly it was some hilly intervals (yes Brum canals do have hills!) After that it was some flat sprints. Richard showing a great burst of speed. Liam put in a great effort wearing his England shirt with pride. Nicola and Kyley put in a dogged performance in the searing heat (it was 28 degrees again in Brum yesterday!!) Once done we had a steady run back to 1000 Trades.

On arrival we had Karin (checking out Sweden's opponents for the next round!), George and Aaron join us. We had the upstairs room booked with a big TV, so a great spot to watch the game. The drama to unfold was quite amazing. England deservedly went 1-0 up, after Colombia's very dirty tactics. Then when it felt comfortable, I basically gave the 'kiss of death' saying 'ive never been so confident that England would win'! Big mistake, Colombia from nowhere stuck one in the onion bag! Noooooooo! The atmosphere in the room went very quiet as everyone watched extra-time. The dreaded penalties arrived and England 'never' win penalty shoot-outs! When Jordan Henderson missed I think we were all resigned to the same old story. Only for Colombia to hit the bar and then there next one was saved. If Eric Dier scored we would win! Everyone held their breath.......but he scored, I went crazy, as did everyone else. What a win!! What an amazing night, I don't think my heart rate has come down yet! Now it's on to Sweden on Saturday, Come on England (sorry Karin!).

Next week we will be out doing good again at the slightly earlier time of 5.45pm, the upstairs room is booked for the 1st World Cup semi-final, it would be great if you could join us sign up here.

14 people ran 7k to do some gardening for Lillian de Lissa Nursery School

On a very hot evening it was great to welcome Natasha to GG Brum for the first time. Even more impressive was that she was fresh from completing a Triathlon on Sunday, who needs recovery 😉 We headed on our way to a new task tonight. Lillian de Lissa School was our destination. The run was just over three k down to the school, the heat making it quite hard work, so everyone was ready for a cold drink on arrival, which was kindly provided by the staff at the school.

The job was to trim lots of trees and plenty of weeding, the group spent a good 25 minutes doing our good deed, doing a rather grand job. After the task we had the usual group photo, Richard finding a puppet (or was that muppet?!) and apparently it looked like a mini version of me, hence the pun. Anyway, the puppet is in the pictures, so you can make your own minds up! Laura being one of the smaller members of the group was the one who got to try out the kids slide! After all that ‘Tom Foolery’ we had one last picture and we were on our way again.

never to hot for a plank

With it being on the hotter side of warm, I thought instead of some interval training tonight we would do some core work in St Paul’s square. The square also has the added benefit of having a bit of shade. It was side planks, followed by up and down planks and then to finish some high intense plank jacks! Top work everyone, as I’m sure you were all a bit hot and bothered by this stage, so it was great to see everyone still working hard and aren’t I pleasant not giving you hill sprints to do in the heat?!

Once done we had a few minutes of running back to 1000 Trades and that was job done for another week!

Next week we will be out doing good again, at the slightly earlier time of 5.45pm, it would be great if you could join us sign up here.

14 people ran 7k to do a litter pick for the Canal and River Trust

We welcomed four newbies to GG Brum tonight. We had Deb and Paul from GG Bristol who had just got off a plane from Bucharest after doing the half marathon there and seen as they landed in Brum, came along! We also had Nicola who joined us for the first time and Kate who came along and talked to the group about plogging on the canals which involves encouraging people to pick up litter while out running on the canals, which was rather appropriate as that was exactly what we were doing tonight! It was also great to welcome Catherine back for the first time for a while.

watching out for terrorist geese

We headed to the canal armed with bin bags, litter pickers and gloves. Once down there we split into four groups each picking the litter on a different section of our adopted part of the canal. Laura, Lee and karin even found a beer in a tree, therefore a 'beer tree'! We managed to steer clear of the rather vicious Canadian geese who have recently had their babies, so aren’t to be messed with. However we did seem some more friendly ducks with their little ducklings further along the canal which helped Richard produce this weeks ‘pun’. In total our litter picking filled seven bin bags, top work!

time-trial

We then headed to Millennium point for the time-trial. With Deb and Paul’s ‘half marathon legs’ they ‘sat this one out’. But what they didn’t do Running wise they certainly made up for with cheering everyone on! It must have really helped as we had nine PB’s out of our eleven time-trialists! Some were doing it for the first time but it’s still a PB! It really was a great sight to see. Richard and John raced each other hard, both just outside six minutes. Richard pushed that hard he collapsed in a heap after crossing The finishing line. Hannah put in a great performance pulling Rob a long all the way round, only for him to outsprint her in the last 100 metres! Trip him up next time Hannah ;-) Kate had a great run on her first GG run. Laura smashed her pb by an incredible 17 second and Nicola put in a top run. Catherine pushed all the way in her first run back. As ever everyone was amazing with the effort they put in, it was fantastic to see, next month can we have Paul and Deb back to help me with the cheering, please, please!

Once done we headed uphill back to 1000 Trades and on arriving back I’m sure you would all agree it was a great evenings work!

Next week we will be out doing good again, it would be great if you could join us sign up here.

12 people ran 10k to organise a food order for FareShare

After last weeks ‘heatwave’ it was back to business as usual this week as a rather wet and soggy night greeted us. Not to worry though, we still had a newbie to welcome and a very warm one goes to Aaron’s mate Jeremy!

We set off to FareShare, taking in the canal towpath on our way. David did the back marking duties and Aaron the front. Once arriving at FareShare Dionne greeted us, who not only works at FS, she is also part of the GG clan. We all got a well earned drink, some getting a bit of extra sparkle, with a cup of sparkling water and then it was on with the job of sorting some food orders. Aaron and Richard stood in the vans while the rest of the group passed them all the food. The first van was a order being taken to Stoke were all the food would be distributed to various charities and schools. The group worked like a ‘well oiled machine’ going back and forth, loading food into the van. I even got Aaron picking the boxes up with a perfect deadlift technique, my Personal Training day job getting used just a little bit more.

Once done before we headed back the group were asked if anybody would like some bread and milk which was going out of date today. Richard jumped at the chance, the only down side was he had to run all the way back with it, therefore running over 5k looking like he had robbed a corner shop (hence the pun/picture). After organising us at the task Dionne also got her running shoes on to join us for the trek back to 1000 Trades.

The run back is always hard work as it is all up hill and generally into a headwind and tonight the wind didn’t disappoint again! Once back the whole group were pretty tired. Running just over 10k there was no need for a fitness session tonight!

Next week we will be out doing good again, it would be great if you could join us sign up here.