While several Brighton Goodgymers headed to Lewes via bike train, those of us who prefer to avoid the sensory overload of Bonfire Night came to Lavender House, armed with head torches for some intensive weeding!

With the night punctuated by the frequent bang and sparkle of fireworks, we ran up our favourite hill and were greeted by the task owner, who provided an array of garden tools for us to get to work with.

Sherman was an unstoppable force against the weeds, and several of the team even cleared the weeds outside the fence too. Meanwhile, Frances and Michael got to reprise their favourite pastime of pulling the ivy off the wall (so satisfying).

We soon turned the urban jungle into a clear area, into which residents will be installing raised beds to grow vegetables 🥕🥬🍅

Thanks everyone for a great effort tonight! 🙌

The magnificent seven ran, walked and cycled 1.5km up the hill to Lavender House in Kemp Town. We welcomed back Daniela and Edel. 😊

Good Gym has visited Lavender House lots of times but in the words of William Shakespear: "idle weeds are fast in growth"!

Lavender House is retirement housing and we enjoy helping the residents there.

We met Keith of Lavender House who showed us the tools and the task to be done.

Juliet, Jane, Rosie, Ben, Daniel, Edel and me rapidly if indiscriminately cleared the weeds from the flat garden and by the pavement.

A passer by told us how much better it all looked! We managed to finish off and mostly miss the rain shower!

Tonight many of us returned to Goodgym victorious from the Brighton Half Marathon! Congratulations to everyone who ran there were PBs galore and thank you to everyone who supported along the route. Tonight we also welcomed a new member Thomas who was attending his first ever Goodgym session!

Unfortunately Tom picked one of the worst nights of weather we've had for a while! Already freezing cold the rain soon started to pour. We gave a quick intro to Tom and heard all the stories from Sundays Half before heading off to the task.

It was thankfully a short run and a small hill to get there. We arrived to a helpful note from the task owner with the tool shed ready to go. However, getting tools out of the shed was like a scene out of a horror film with the wind blowing, doors banging and tools falling everywhere. Each of us gathered up some tools and headed to the gardens to get weeding. It was more a case of spot the weed that wholesale weeding with the dark not helping our task. But we managed to get some work done before our hands gradually started to freeze to a stop.

We packed up the tools and ran back to the start (avoiding the bollards en route!). The run seemed to help thaw us all out before we headed home to get warm.

Thanks everyone for braving the weather. See you next week!

With October just around the corner it was good to start this week in daylight! This week we managed to avoid the rain and run to Lavender House; a residential for mature members of the community. The house have grounds surrounding it which needed a thorough maintenance and with a team 13 Goodgymers no stone was left unturned!

Residents Tony and Keith showed us where to focus our efforts: We collected 5 bags of weeds from gravel and paving stones to make the front of the house look much tidier. Tony also rewarded us with chocolate to say thank you 😋

To ensure we earned said chocolate we ran to New Steine and did a circuit of everyone's favourite exercises including Rebecca's pistol squats and Jay's extremely energetic burpees!

The day had been hot, the sun had been shining, the beach and bars of Brighton were PACKED! But that didn't deter an eager group of destructive gardeners.

Welcome to Rob who has moved to Brighton recently. He had been a Newham Goodgymer and their loss is our gain! Thank you for getting stuck in with everyone.

And stuck in we got! We met residents Tony and Keith who furnished us with tools, gloves and bags to clear some wild flowers, brambles and Holly which had grown in a concreted area. With a mountain of bags filled and a little energy left, some tackled the wisteria that had grown up the side of the building!

With everything cleared and the tools back in the shed, the residents presented us with a thank you card and celebrations to thank us for helping out! That's definitely a way to win us round to a return visit.

As the sun had been out it was time to get the guns out. This week's fitness session was all about arm and upper body fitness! As runners and cyclists we tend not to work on our arms too much, but the help with our forward propulsion, especially up hills! If you'd like another go at our session check out this video.

Ever the social bunch, a group headed to the Sidewinder to utlise our new upper body strength to lift a few pints...

If you can, please join us for Parkrun this Saturday!

Welcome back to Roy, great to see this old stalwart of Brighton Goodgym back for his first group run of 2022! And welcome home to Holly, who did lots of Goodgym in London but now she’s all ours!

And a big shout out to JJane who has been inspired by Goodgym to resume running! After joining us a couple of weeks ago as a walker she has dusted down her Couch to 5k app and made it up Edward Street without breaking a sweat!

Our task tonight was Lavender House, a council run seniors housing scheme surrounded by garden with a concrete patio round the back that had got in a bit of a mess. We snipped back the brambles, cut back the Holly, demolished a dead shrub, swept and bagged up the cuttings all in 45 minutes leaving the area transformed.

Then we headed down to the terrace on the seafront for a balance themed fitness session, with the calm sea and setting sun as a backdrop.