That was 200 bulbs planted! so thanks! said Tim Wiseman

Welcome to Hugo, our newest runner.

We ran accross the City Center to Hyde Bridge Street. We worked on the Oxford Canal, planting spring bulbs and litter picking the local area by the river and along the toepath. This was part of GoodGym's ongoing partnership with Oxford City Council, working to improve the waterways.

Its was jolly nippy this evening, but we were lucky to avoid the rain which came down in buckets about an hour after we had finished (watering our bulbs for us!).

We headed off to South Park on the way home for a hill session to finish off the evening! Well done everyone who came!

GOAL Don't forget to set a winter goal to keep you motivated during the cold!

EXTRA BIT

Christmas is just around the corner now so Rachael has kindly set up a Chirstmas Outing Doodle Poll to see if people want a GoodGym meal out!! please fill in ASAP! :)

Fitness Session with RHR next monday

As many of you know I help a small community running group in Rose Hill, If anyone wants to come along for an extra fitness session and to say hi to some different people I'll be there this monday and you'd be very welcome (its Free and mixed ability / very friendly) : Rose Hill Runners. Meet at Rose Hill Community Center, Monday 7pm.

This week we tried out a new format for our Group run. We stayed put at East Oxford Community Centre and did the task first then went for a run; controversial!

Loitering with intent outside the Community Centre, we welcomed Miriam to her first GoodGym session - nagging your friends too come along works folks ;-) - before awarding not 1, but 2 Garlands of Joy to Rachael and Rachel for reaching 10 Good Deeds. We have quite a few people reaching this milestone now, which is awesome!

Nipping round the corner into the courtyard, Tim Wiseman was ready and waiting with our task for the evening. Two unloved benches had been donated by Oxford Direct Services, but they were looking a bit shabby, so our job was to get them restored to their former glory.

Bringing our best elbow grease we set to work cleaning down the slats and ends with white spirit, scrapping off old chewing gum (bleurgh) , and then sanding off the old paint.

Between chitter chatter, hard work, and admiring the Tai Chi sharing the courtyard space, 45 minutes flew by and it was time to pack up. We carefully stashed the bench components out of the way, ready for our 2nd evening working on them next month. Step 2 will be getting the new paint on them.

Then, not forgetting that we are a running club, we set off for a run. We are really fortunate to be allowed access to run on the Roger Bannister Running Track, and this week we headed straight there for an intervals session. Using the half mile jog to Iffley Road as our warm up we jumped straight into the workout when we arrived. This week's challenge was 400m fast running, 30 seconds rest, 200m fast running, 100m walk, 100m jog, and repeat x3. Having previously run on the track in the summer holidays, when we've had it pretty much to ourselves, it was quite a change to have lots of company this week. What a difference term time makes! Sprinters, packs of speedsters, there was lots going on to keep us motivated.

Blood pumping, lungs burning everyone completed the run in fine style.

The beauty of running on the track is that everyone can work at exactly the pace they want that day, and the springy surface is just a joy to run on.

Chatting our way back to base, the stretches at the end of the run elicited lots of groans this week. Tight legs?! Don't forget those yoga videos I sent last week. They're miracle workers.

Great work as always gang!

On #GGSUPerSaturday 3 Oxford Goodgym runners teamed up with the Oxford Stand-Up Paddleboard Club and Plastic Patrol for a river clean up in Oxford. It was the perfect Community Mission for World Clean Up Day, and glorious to be out on the river in the autumn sunshine.

Meeting in Old Marston the paddleboarders took to the River Cherwell, paddling downstream and fishing for litter and dodging punts and kayaks along the way. We found a car tyre, a bike, lots of tennis balls, cans, bottles, crisp packets, and assorted other rubbish. A couple of hours of paddling amassed a big litter haul.

Sticking to dry land, Bethan plogged the river bank and cycle path. It is now pristine and we hope it stays that way!

Meeting back at the Victoria Arms we sorted our litter and logged it in the Plastic Patrol App. The App has been developed with the University of Nottingham to help build a global picture of what litter is being found around the world. It is hoped that the data can be used to hold people to account on their littering.

After all the hard work we definitely deserved the cake kindly provided by Bethan.

With thanks to West Oxford Community Centre and Rose Hill Community Centre for the loan of their litter pickers, and to Street Scene for coming out to collect the litter.

On a fine and sunny Monday, the Oxford Goodgymers met at the West Oxford Community Centre for an evening of planting, painting, and plogging. After a run briefing and welcoming Gemma to the group we set off to our task, trotting down the Thames Path, ducking under low bridges and avoiding tiny dogs along the way.

We met our pal Tim from Oxford City Council at Hythe Bridge Street to collect tools, paint, and plants.

Our task was to put a second coat of paint over some graffiti which we had started to cover in June and to plant some ivy and honeysuckle in the area to dissuade more graffiti from appearing. Spades and paintbrushes in hand our merry band of 7 made short work of the painting and planting. After 45 minutes the walls were clean and painted (thanks to Aoife’s dab-dab-dab top tip) and the plants happily in the ground and draped artistically over the slightly unsightly bin store.

Bidding a fond farewell 'til next month we surprised people going for their evening strolls by enthusiastically using the benches by the Oxford Canal for our workout. It’s always fun to have an audience for squats, step ups and lunges, and we were all very admiring of Mark’s bouncy mountain-climber technique.

We took the scenic route back to base, meandering along the canal and heading towards Port Meadow. After a quick stop off to play on the monkey bars (props to Gemma for beasting them!) we ran across the beautiful Port Meadow. Sadly this is a big litter hot spot, especially when the weather has been so sunny. Horses and cows graze on the land and there have been some heart-breaking deaths after the livestock eat litter left behind by picnic-ers. We did an impromptu litter pick, filling our bag in less than 10 minutes, and then continued along the Thames Path back to base.

It was a fab evening, so lovely to keep the run off road and complete a task started earlier in the year. Thanks to Julia for the pun!

6 months old already! 428 Good Deeds completed, including 12 coach runs and 7 Mission Runs.

We have litter-picked, painted, scythed, raked, weeded, planted, sanded, wheelbarrowed, and of course run, and run, and run.

We have played frisbee, sprinted along the lamp-posts, swung along many sets of monkey bars, played on outdoor treadmills, zip-wired, done sit ups in the rain, tried to master mountain climbers, run relays and hills, and nearly mutineed over planking.

Most importantly, while doing good around Oxford we have laughed a lot, learnt new skills, and made friends and new connections within Goodgym and with our task owners.

Our 6 month birthday run was no exception to the relentless positivity of a Goodgym Group Run, as we welcomed Katie and Ben to their first Goodgym experience, before heading off at a fair clip through the city centre and past some of Oxford's most famous sites to rendez-vous with Tim (the City Council Waterways Co-ordinator) at Hythe Bridge Park on the Oxford Canal. This week's mission was to improve Oxford's waterways, both canal-side and along Castle Mill Stream.

After a warning about discarded needles and instructions on how to dispose of them safely, we split into Team Litter and Team Plants. Team Litter donned gloves, grabbed bin bags and tackled the mess of cigarette butts, bike baskets, coffee cups, and plastic bottles lying around the little park at the end of the Oxford Canal. We've never been thanked so much by members of the public as we were on this task! We were stopped 3 times for a chat and thank you's, which gave us a chance to explain about Goodgym (no, we aren't on community service, at least not that kind of community service!) and make people aware of the little ways they can help in their community.

Meanwhile Team Plants followed Tim across the road to the patch of riverbank beside The Oxford Retreat pub, where they planted native shrubs along a section of fencing, attached wire for them to climb up, and gave them a thorough watering. The stretch of fence is a favourite spot for graffiti, so the hope is that the plants will discourage that in the future. A few weeks ago we planted climbing plants over the road in Hythe Bridge Park, so we took the opportunity to check their survival rate (a couple of casualties, but mostly doing well) and water them ahead of the predicted warm weather this coming weekend.

Jobs completed, tools packed, and we were all ready to run off along the towpath, but WAIT! Not so fast!! We hadn't reckoned on Tim remembering it was our 6 month birthday this week

....and nothing says 'Happy 6 month Birthday' like a courgette with 6 birthday candles in it!

• Happy Birthday To Us sung (to the possible puzzlement of passersby) - see you get a lung workout at Goodgym too!
  
• Group photo taken - shouldn't have doubted the photo skills of the unsuspecting tourist we asked to immortalise us.
  
• And we were free to run.

Making full use of the daylight we meandered back to base along the towpath, through the University Parks, and a magical mystery tour along the River Cherwell, completing nearly 5km of running just on the return journey. Go team, go!

Since it was our sort-of birthday, and because raw courgette isn't the easiest thing to share, we indulged in some cake once back at East Oxford Community Centre.

HAPPY HALF BIRTHDAY TO US!

Onwards and upwards (not too much of the upwards though, hills are unkind): Here's to another awesome 6 months of running and doing good. #SmugRun

Photo gallery today includes some of my favourites from our 6 months of tasks.

With June feeling more like November only the hardiest of Goodgymers showed up to face the raindrops tonight!

Awarding the Garland of Glory to Sarah for having completed 10 Goodgym Good deeds, and welcoming Isabella to the gang, our all-female dream team, zipped on their capes (rain jackets) and headed out to battle the elements, litter, and graffiti.

Our route took us straight through the city centre to the Oxford Canal, where we met Tim Wiseman, the Oxford City Council Waterways Coordinator. Tim had come prepared with paint, paintbrushes and rollers, and we set straight to work painting over graffiti.

The graffiti on Worcester College's external walls has been there for months, and is a real eyesore on the main route from the railway station to city centre and along the Oxford Canal towpath.

Rollers and paintbrushes a-go-go, it took 6 Goodgymers only half an hour to paint over the three patches of graffiti on Hythe Bridge Street and over the road on Middle Fisher Row. In future we hope to return to plant climber plants to deter more graffiti appearing.

Swapping painty fingers for gloves and bin bags, our next task was a litter pick.

Waving goodbye to Tim, and heading toward the Thames, we made light work of litter along our route. Swooping on plastic bottles, cans, takeaway containers, cigarette packets, and glass bottles we collected up 2 large bin bags of litter from our 1.5 mile run along the Thames Path, ending at Folly Bridge. Plogging (picking up litter while jogging) is pretty satisfying, but it's also extremely frustrating to see so much litter being dropped, often only yards from a bin.

Soaked to the skin by now it felt like high time to make a dash for home, and through Christchurch Meadows was the most direct route back to Cowley. Enjoying our jaunt along the Cherwell, views of Merton and Christchurch, and making kissy faces at the cows in the meadow, we were brought up short by a whole heap of litter on the riverbank. It's end of exam-time in Oxford, and it seems that there are some students who like to party by the river and then leave their booze bottles, tutus, shoes(!), and silly string behind. Feeling sorry for the one man clearing up the mess we stopped briefly to help, before dashing back over Magdalen Bridge and up the Cowley Road. Squelch Squelch Squelch.

• 3 patches of graffiti painted over.
  
• 2 bin bags of rubbish collected.
  
• 1 man helped with the post-exam clear up.
  

Thanks to Sarah for the pun!

Next week it WILL be sunny. That's quite enough rainy runs for 1 summer!