We had two tasks tonight in different locations but for the same organisation. BHT (Brighton Housing Trust) provide essential services to help prevent homelessness and they had two messy and weedy yards in different locations which were in need of some Goodgym TLC.

Run Leader Helena took the warm up tonight and coped admirably with the unexpected situation of our lovely warm up space having been commandeered by Club Tropicana in preparation for this weekend’s Pride celebrations! On offering the group the options of going long with Helena or short with Tara there was pretty much an even split and those going long headed off to Hove for a 7.5km round trip to BHT Archways project which provides accommodation for people with mental health support needs. By all accounts the task was a great success and the weedy, messy yard was quickly transformed into a neat and tidy one. Gilles did some watering of the hanging baskets, Will pulled up a bush and exposed a gang of snails and no less than 4 bin bags of weeds were pulled up. Great work!

Closer to home those choosing the shorter option had a 3.5km round trip to BHTs Phase One project which is a high support hostel providing accommodation for single, homeless men and women many of whom are dealing with alcohol and substance misuse. We set to work sweeping, weeding and tidying their basement yards and even had time to give the windows a wash. Half an hour later and the yards were transformed. There was even talk of getting some scaffolding put up and doing the whole building!

We had some time to head to Hove Lawns for a fitness session where we worked on our core with a side plank Tabata (20 sec work, 10 sec rest x 8) followed by an ingenious partner workout where partner A holds a plank, thus working on core, whilst partner B, jumps over their legs and gets a great plyometric workout. Just as the group were reaching peak plank they were saved from further planking by the arrival of the long runners from Hove and we all joined up together for the last kilometre back to base.

Sadly no new runners tonight. If you're thinking of coming down, don't be shy, we're very welcoming, I think you'll like us!

Don't forget next week is our first social so we will be staying behind at our fabulous host venue YHA for a drink or 2. Until then Keep On Running!

In at the deep end

Well you might think so, but certainly not for 15 runners in Bath this evening and they took the 4k run to Cleveland Pools in their stride. Find out more about this amazing place and see how you can help with getting it reopened http://www.clevelandpools.org.uk/ and at their heritage open weekends.

The task tonight was Pollarding

Hmmm!! What might that be? I hear you say, well it's a method of pruning shrubs and trees to keeping them smaller than they would naturally grow along the riverbank. This prevents them from getting too big and slipping into the river itself.

Welcome to Danielle

Joining the Goodgym Bath crew tonight.

Congratulations to David from GG Bristol on his 100th Good deed this evening... Three cheers ...Hip...Hip..Hip..Hooray!!

Nice to have David joining us from Goodgym Bristol and Sarah our very own coach run queen along.

A beautiful summer evening so the obvious choice of route along the canal path to the Heritage pools. A treat for some of tonight's group who are visiting for the first time.

On arrival Sally our host gave a brief insight into the pools history before arming team Goodgym with the tools for the job. One group took on the pollarding task, whilst the others tackled the weeds in and around the children's pool.

Tim proved to be a master at pollarding showing an artistic style and Danielle got stuck into the pool weeds showing she wasn't out of her depth on this job.

Lucy found tiny frogs, she seems to attract them wherever we go.

35 minutes in total on the task

One very happy host and 15 satisfied runners = A Win Win situation.

Time flies when your having fun and that was certainly the case tonight with just enough time to catch that snap before heading back to the leisure centre.

Thanks to Mary for back marking and to Sally for tonight's pun which was a winner with the ladies.