What a lovely run! It was hot for the first part as a seemingly endless horde of runners left Vivo Gym to run to the Childrens Scrapstore to sort...er... scrap! We found a great rhythm and were soon in the labyrinthine Scrapstore.

We were given several tasks to do - make toys safe by removing batteries, tags and other stuff, cutting up lengths of rope with a heated knife that smelt quite pungent, cutting up netting and fabric (which looked like a massive old tent!), taking thread from industrial sized cotton reels, and the GoodGym classic of taking water damaged phones out of boxes and sorting them in to their component parts - note that we've been to the Scrapstore around 8-10 times and every time we've had those phones to deal with. Well, they are NO MORE! The last 6 boxes were sorted. Phew!

As always at the Scrapstore, we found a variety of random and unexpected items - this time it was a cage full of shop floor dummy legs! These were used in our group photo at the end, and whilst there was a bit of a faff to get them back in to the warehouse, we warmed up by running up and down on the kerb just outside.

Running back was more pleasant - the heat had abated somewhat and we cooled off in Queens Square with a few exercises for our core, and a lovely lying down stretch sequence. As it had been my birthday the day before, the gang spared no expense and presented me with one of the Scrapstore phones, a tuft of rope and a bit of glitter. It almost brought a tear to my eye...

Massive mchugebig congratulations to Richard for making it to the grand number of 100 runs with GoodGym, and also belated happy birthday to my birthday twin Alex, who was also celebrating the day before!

28 cool and crazy people met up at Vivo Gym for one of our shorter runs last night, including many new faces - welcome new guys!

We ran to a very busy area of central Bristol - Stokes Croft. There we met Sara from Incredible Edible and armed with gloves, trowels and bin bags proceeded to weed a large area of garden that covered the space in between 2 large lanes of traffic.

It was a warm night and the area was very dusty - it got in to our eyes and noses and there was a bit of sneezing going on. It seemed to have special clinging properties! Sara was just lamenting the lack of a broom as there were lots of dust on the ground and bits of plant, and then like magic new girl Natasha conjured up two of them! Amazing!

After a good 30 minutes of hard graft and shuttling a vast amount of weeds to a community compost area just up the road, our work here was done... but the hard work was just beginning. So was the rain...

Gary led about half the group on a very hilly run up to the University grounds. There were steps. Many many steps. Just remember that steps are your friend and will make you fitter when you run up them.

I (Pru) took the other half back to Queens Square where we did some fitness drills to improve our running technique... and you thought you were getting off lightly!

We were having a good stretch when Gary's gang got back so did a few announcements (remember that there's a run on Saturday!), and then Gary's group had a stretch too, and we were done!

25 fine and upstanding individuals braved the cold to help their community last night by weeding and digging over some flower beds.

We met at Vivo Gym and after introductions, including a big welcome to Wade and Tom, and a quick health and safety briefing (e.g don't jump in front of cars!), were off! We ran the shortish distance over to Victoria Park, the site of many run throughs but few run toos, so it was about time we helped this sprawling green gem in south Bristol.

We met with Alex who is part of the community group who keep an eye on the park. She explained that there were some flower beds that two nearby schools had been using to teach their students about gardening, and that these flower beds needed a bit of a going over so that the schools can start with a bit of spring planting soon.

With trowels, spades, forks and a wheel barrow, everyone literally dug in and in the usual double quick time, we'd uprooted weeds and turned over a lot of soil, as well as rescued a worm. Those flower beds are now just about ready for the new season of growing!

As there were not quite enough tools to go around, Chris took some of the runners off on a little lap of the park, and then made them do lunges whilst the tools were being packed up! He's a big meany! He also led the pack out of the park mostly because I keep getting lost there, and didn't want us to be running around the paths forever. Our feet were caked with mud from the flower beds so it took a while to knock it all off, for a few moments, we were all about 3 cm taller. It was rather nippy up there and the cold clearly froze my brain as we left without having a group photo! DANG AND BLAST!

Back in Queens Square, just a few metres from Vivo, we had a good stretch out and of course enjoyed a great round of applause.. and then another because Daniel was just so happy!