DOING GOOD

Fireworks & hills galore on last nights leaflet drop task in Mackworth!

We were back where we did our second ever group run, supporting the Direct Help & Advice charity (DHA) with one of their community managed libraries. From glossing to flyering, we're the heroes to help them out!

Last night we were tasked with delivering leaflets about volunteering opportunities to the local residents to see if we could rally up some desperately needed support. Volunteers support the running of the library, from sorting books, to answering any queries from the public & so our efforts were highly appreciated by the DHA team.

As usual - to add in some fun, friendly competition - we broke into teams for this flyering task. In highly mature fashion we split into boys vs girls & we were off! The boys won by a very, very, very small margin (not bitter at all) with the girls hot on their heels! We delivered our leaflets in super-record time; the pre-folding of the flyers ready for letterbox posting definitely helped.

WHILST GETTING FIT

The run to Mackworth library where we began our flyering mission was just under two miles, with quite a bit of incline, certainly getting our heart rates up! Once on the estate, we tackled a few more hills delivering the leaflets in a flash of red tees & then for good measure, an Ant Middleton inspired hill sprint session... because, why not?

Thanks to my experience at the weekend of being beasted for eight hours by the SAS man himself at his Mind over Muscle day camp, I was feeling generous & wanted to share some of the love with GoodGym, you lucky lot! We found a lovely short, sharp hill, broke into three teams & set up our stations: Runner 1 in each team (at max effort) runs up the hill & back down, while Runner 2 holds the squat position & Runner 3 jogs on the spot. Once Runner 1 is back, the roles switch. If our heart rates weren't already up, they were after a few rounds of this game, mixing up the exercises with lunges & star jumps for good measure.

Oh what fun we had! Smiles resumed once we took a breather to eat some Haribos & watch a few of sky sparklers. Then it was a down-hill (pretty much) run back to the Jurys Inn. Phew.

MENTIONS

Thanks to Sam for being an ace back-marker, we never would have noticed your pins were sore on those hill sprints! Congratulations to Sid on his second GoodGym run; we're glad you returned after the Pumpkin saga. And happy holidays to Katherine & Mark who will be sunning it up for a few weeks. As always, thanks to everyone for pulling yourselves away from the radiator (a good deed in itself as Alice accurately pointed out) & making awesome things happen with GG Derby - GO TEAM!

THE C WORD

I won't say it... but if you'd like to come along to our festive fuddle on the 17th December after the last group run of 2019 (eeek!) please sign up here so I can get a price for nibbles / drinks (it'll be in the region of £8-£10pp.) Thanks!

UP NEXT

We're gardening again! Headtorches / lights required for this one to illuminate the night GG style. The run will be approximately 7km total. Sign up here to be part of the coolest crowd in town!

Big loves x

DOING GOOD

We were back to support the Direct Help & Advice (DHA) team with their community managed libraries this week... If you cast your mind to way back when GG Derby was a new fledging group (& we didn't put sweaty arms around one another) we did a leafleting task for the DHA in Mackworth. Yesterdays task was to support them again at another of their libraries on Blagreaves Lane in Sinfin. And this time, sweaty embraces were had!

We ditched the flyering duties & instead donned blue rubber gloves & paintbrushes. No we weren't going into surgery, it was glossin' time baby! Little did we know that glossing is quite the technical job. All amateurs, except Ashley who's glossing skills put us to shame, we cracked on, trying to get as little gloss on the library carpets as possible (cough Danny cough) & glossed up those skirting boards good & proper.

After glossing & some chat about GoodGym appearing on Crime Watch for ruining community libraries (we didn't FYI) it was time to cut into the delicious cake that the DHA team had prepared for us, take another photo of Emma eating cake & get a snap of the whole team together, looking like one, big, weird family!

PS. for those of you concerned with the fate of the paintbrushes, they are being cleaned in turps ready for re-use. 'Turps' is short for Turpentine Substitute according to Google, which is actually different to white spirit. We learn something new everyday eh?

WHILST GETTING FIT

This was our longest run to date & it'll hold the record for quite a while yet. We ran just shy of 11km to do good; GO TEAM!

The 5km run out & back gave us a good opportunity to settle into our pace & chat the miles away... except on those hills. On the route out & unfortunately on the hilliest section of the run (soz guys) we worked on our speed. One minute of effort, followed by one minute steady, over & over (hehe) to raise our heart-rates & quicken our pace.

There was no need to stretch after this group run; everyone got their stretch on as they sprawled out across the library floor, painting under shelves, around books & tables & making the library look glossin' wonderful! Evidence of said stretches & the concentration faces is documented well in the photos.

QUOTES OF THE NIGHT

Glenda's gone rogue!

I,Y.... Y, I ... Y & I ~ courtesy of Rachael

Glenda's gone rogue again!

Turp it while its hot

BIG THANKS

Thanks GG'ers for another cracking group run, for putting up with my inaccurate distance guesses (another one for the spreadsheet Tracey), for glossin' your butts off & for listening to me tell you about our Christmas social. If I sold it to you & you're keen read about it here.

A big welcome & well done to our newbies Glenda & Lauren - we hope to see you both again soon!

UP NEXT

Our first 'Plogging' task! Make sure you wear any bright, flashy things you own... Christmas tree lights will do if its all you have! Kidding, kidding, but please do bring a torch / head torch / body torch & let's go get ourselves some treasure from Cycle Route 6! You can sign up to be awesome here.

Happy exploring lovelies!

THE HEADLINES

14 GoodGymers

140km (approx) total distance covered on foot

300 leaflets distributed & many, many books saved

DO GOOD

Our second good deed task saw us heading out for a longer run from the Jurys Inn to Mackworth Library, where we then broke into teams (originally the Left & Right team) to flyer the local houses, using more running. The Direct Help & Advice charity (DHA) are in the process of taking over 10 libraries across Derby & converting them into community-led libraries & our mission was to support this initiative by spreading the word via our GoodGym flyer'ing force that volunteers are needed!

Fair to say that things got a little competitive. Once split into a Left & Right team, the task was simple...

The Mission: 1. Flyer your teams' side of the street & the first team to make it (with all members) to the top of the street, wins a point 2. Repeat until there are no flyers left

The Rules: 1. One leaflet per house 2. Stick to the street; no side-streets, excursions etc. 3. All members must make it back to win the point

The Results:

Left Team: 4 POINTS

Tracey, Mark, Katherine, Alice, Steve, Emma, Rachel

Right Team: 1 POINT

Sam, Peter Lehann, Alice, Nathan, Salvo

Total flyers delivered: 300!

Left team (later deemed the GoodGym'ers) stuck to the above rules & won 4 out of 5 rounds. The Right team, aptly named as the BadGym'ers due to a rogue member, decided to take leaflets... I mean matters, into their own hands. We can't fault their enthusiasm as they darted down side-streets & took detours to get all of their flyers delivered. But in the end, it was the Left team that flyer'ed home with the win! (There's that pun again in case you missed it in the title...)

Our task - which teamed as a killer fartleck session! - ended the way all friendly competitions should, with the sharing of Haribos & tropical photo props to celebrate the wonderful city of Derbados. Even the team that didn't win (the losers, but that's too mean to say) enjoyed their sugary treats & photo time.

GET FIT

3km run out to Mackworth & 3km back to base, with roughly 2.5km (depending on how many side-street excursions were tackled) of fartleck-training sandwiched in the middle at our flyering-made-fun task.

As well as the best part of 10km tackled, the Derby GoodGymers warmed up with mobility drills using resistance bands to activate the glutes, hip flexors & quads, aiding good running form. To finish, we did a standing figure-of-4 pose to release those buns of steel & boy did we feel it!

UP NEXT

Already excited for next week? I bloomin' am!

It's GoodGyms 10th Anniversary & so our next group run will see us finding the perfect spot to take a photo with a giant GoodGym prop... Somewhere en route to our task or at the task that represents who we are as the GoodGym Derbados community. Get your thinking caps on teams! It'll be a shorter run to Markeaton Park, where we'll be rockery arranging - anyone know what this is? - to make the local park even more beautiful. I'm sure we can weave another competition in somehow. First Haribo goes to the best suggestion for the group photo!

Finally, a huge THANK YOU to everyone who came along for their 2nd run with us & a big welcome to our first-timers, Alice & Peter! Ps... Nathan got married at the weekend & is off on his honeymoon so a big cheer from all of us to the happy couple! Congratulations!

See you all soon,

Dani x