A completely surreal but absolutely brilliant last run as trainer tonight began with the arrival en-masse of 13 Bristol University medical students who had all decided to join us for the night as part of their vounteering assignment. Thanks for joining us folks!

This made the warm up circle pretty large but feeling I had things nicely under control we moved onto the usual head count. However, when rather familiar looking faces began appearing and giving their names as Paul that I realised things were not quite as under control as I had thought. Each time I thought we were back on track another Paul would pop up and I pretty soon realised that possibly this wasn't the evening to plan on separating people into odd and even numbers :) Thanks for making me laugh though Pauls!

With 48 runnners needing to travel the 3k to the Pickle factory a group split was essential - so thanks to Dave for being ever-dependable and having claimed not to know the way in fact succeeding in finding all the short cuts that I had missed!

I'd prepared Stuart for a big turnout - but not this big, so it was fantastic to arrive and find he had come up with an array of jobs to keep everyone occupied - Stuart you're a star! One group cut and sawed a pile of branches down to size so they could be transported by car. Another dug out the earth at the entrance to one of the containers so it would be level enough for paving stones and rain water wouldn't drain inside.

The biggest groups were reserved for painting though. A group of 20 which included the students painted the hallway inside the Pickle factory. Conditions were cramped but I'm not sure that accounted for all the paint that seemed to find its way mysteriously onto the legs and arms of the painters. The last group worked on creating a green path that would match the green walls above it.

Excellent progress was made by all the teams and by the time it was time to go we'd certainly got the bulk of the jobs done. We posed for a group photo and I can't be sure, but its just possible that one or two Pauls appeared again behind me.

We returned for some stretching and then congratulated Deb on reaching her amazing 200 good deed milestone. Everyone loves Deb so it was no surprise that this was greeted with an enormous round of applause. Watch this space for associated fashion updates in GG red in the next week or two.

So all there was left to do was to give my sincere thanks to all the fantastic Task Force members and Run Leaders who've supported me over the last seven months - honestly I couldn't have done it without you - and to wish Shona all the very best for what I know will be a very successful tenure as captain of the good ship GG Bristol!

(Ps Thanks to Richard for my Pink Panther cake and for the mysterious photos left in my bag, a montage of which can be found attached to this run report. Richard and Clo you are completely mad - but in the best way possible x)

Three tasks for the price of just one Goodgym run tonight as 32 runners returned to the Pickle factory to pickle up where they left off.

The venue is home to Baggator who do youth and community work for the local Easton area. Stuart, our host is proud of their independence, secured by their ability to generate their own funding and allowing them to try innovative projects like teenage coding classes run in their theatre space in conjunction with local universities and a women-only IT class where their young children are also welcome.

Painting  

Task one was to continue painting the walls and ceiling along the stairwell and in the toilet. No surprise to see resident painter-in-chief Fi in this group.

Sanding

Task two was sanding down wood so it too could be painted in due course

Skull Scraping

The last task was to use wire brushes to remove any flaking paint from the Skull graffiti on the courtyard container. This will ultimately allow a neutral base layer to be painted so that a new graffiti design can be created. Special thanks to Clo here who generously gave up her place on the paint team to help out in what was a pretty dusty job!

After 30 mins on the task it was time to go, with the skull pretty much scraped and a lot of painting and sanding sorted.

The run back then became a game of two pace groups with walking lunges, squats and even some applause and arches by the groups to each other. Thanks to my fellow run leaders and back markers Jack, Clo and Charlie for all the fun and for keeping everyone safe.

Thanks also to Alice, Mel and Charlie for extra photos - and Alice for the pun.

Thanks for a great evening everyone - see you all soon!

No rain tonight so certain people who asked which task was inside needn't have worried after all :)

We had two tasks, one to help out Baggator youth project paint their Pickle Factory and one to help out Full Circle, hosts of the Docklands Youth Project.

The Pickle Factory painters were led by Charlie and were charged firstly with checking on the origin of the name. In fact, in a bizarre and unexpected twist of fate it turns out that the Pickle Factory is so named because it used to be a Pickle Factory. Apparently it still smelled of pickles for some time after the factory closed. Thanks Charlie for confirming this.

The second objective was to get busy sanding and painting at this fantastic local project which offers the local youth all manner of activities ranging from bicycle maintenance through table tennis and even programming workshops run in their lovely theatre space. I'm pleased to report that great progress was made here too, though there is still a little left for a return visit in a couple of weeks time.

The Full Circle five plus four, so called to poorly mirror the alliteration on the previous task but actually inaccurate as the fabulous Emma joined us later, set off to clear their outside courtyard of leaves and brambles so the grass mat could be relaid. We were a little early so we squeezed in some step ups - where someone apparently fell over in an embarassing manner but I can't possibly reveal who - and an unnecessary second flight of steps.

Ann-Marie met us and we were soon at work raking brushing and bagging everything in our way until we had 6 or 7 full bags and a nice clear courtyard. Some of us will return to lay the gravel and mat next week, but Ann-Marie seemed really please with our progress so far!

After a varied pace lap of Queen Square we congratulated the runners at last weekends Kelston 10k and reminded everyone to check on their plans for Bucharest! Finally, a number of us went on to our monthly eats at Bella Vista, brilliantly organised by Clo and featuring a genuine Emma selfie at last.

And the run title? Well, Richard came up with the excellent It'll be all white on the night, but I'm pretty sure its been used. So I've gone with Caroline's lovely tongue twister instead - just because it made me smile.