‘Thunderstorm and hail warning for Brighton issued by Met office’ said The Argus, Brighton’s local newspaper. Surely not again! After another week of dry and balmy weather could it be possible that the only bit of rain that we’ve had in a whole week would coincide with our second Goodgym run?! The first spots were felt early on but the full deluge held off until near the end. Although the thunder and lightening felt a little ominous in the end we got the nice running rain, the welcoming kind that cools you down and refreshes.

It was a longer run tonight, 4km each way and uphill on the way there, so we cracked on with quite a pace to maximise the time at the task. The speedsters went ahead led by me and back marked by Dani, with Tess (who wrote a fantastic blog about last weeks task) read about it here leading the rest, back marked by Gillian from head office.

Our task tonight was banishing bind weed at The Bevy. I LOVE the Bevy! The pub was previously closed down because of anti social behaviour but the local community raised the funds to refurbish it and now it serves as a community pub and hub for the Moulsecoomb estate. There are all sorts of things going on there from quiz nights and live music nights, and ‘Brains at the Bevy’ where local academics come and give short and enlightening talks. The food is pretty good as well and even cheaper than chips in some other parts of town! And the locals are super friendly! Check out their website for more info and if you haven’t been there before, go check them out here. There is even a parkrun on its doorstep, of the hilly and off road variety, and the Bevy hosts coffee and breakfast after.

So there was a massive amount of bind weed that needed to be pulled up and that is exactly what we did. Whilst Jonathon & Tom did great work weeding the raised area above the pub garden (and thankfully not falling off the wall!) everybody else tackled the bind weed in the kitchen garden to the side. And after just 20 minutes we had removed 2 massive building sacks full of the stuff. Great work gang!

Bind weed banished we headed home, this time downhill. On the way back we injected a little bit of speed into the proceedings by running fast for a couple of timed intervals, stopping when I blew my whistle (that was fun, I felt like a school sports teacher!) and recovered by jogging back to join the group where we continued as one until the next burst of speed. If you want to run faster you have to, well …run faster! But by doing it in short bursts you get your body to adjust to the faster pace until before you know it that has become your new normal.

As we stretched at the end Gillian reminded us that Goodgym is about more than the group runs, so if you want to get involved with Missions and Coached runs then please join up and bring your documents along so we can get you DBS checked and doing even more good!

Well done to you all, that was a long run in hot conditions, please come along for next week’s shorter run with another great task and it might not even rain!

It may be holiday time for some but that didn't stop the lucky 11 from coming along for a 4K run with a bit of a hill to Bloomfield allotment group to help clear a space and make a bonfire.

Well done to Pascale who ran The women can marathon at the weekend.

The inspiration for this women only marathon is American endurance runner Kathrine Switzer, who in 1967 was the first woman to officially complete the all-male Boston Marathon. As runner number 261 she completed in 4 hours 20 minutes, despite being manhandled by officials who tried to drag her off the course two miles in. The images from that day - together with Kathrine's campaign for the "archaic rules" to be overhauled - changed endurance running for women forever. What Kathrine did showed that women CAN run marathons,

Now that's a Fact worth knowing

A 4k run tonight with a short steep hill to climb at the start taking us to our task location at Bloomfield allotments to help sift through a collection of wood and debris to create a bonfire.

Antony (our paramedic) was lead fire starter this evening on his final Goodgym Bath run, he literally went out in style.

Steve, Tom and Antony sawing an old gate up and salvaging the door furniture to be reused , whilst everyone else collected wood and anything else fit to burn.

It was a combination of saving a variety of wildlife in the process from Alison's collection of

Slugs and snails to Toads , Emma even spotted a rat , 'Twas almost Tales of the riverbank

In all 35 minutes spent to get the area cleared and onto the bonfire , we managed to get the bulk cleared just leaving a small amount and fire watching to our lovely hosts this evening .

Thankfully it was all down on the way back with some looping for the faster ones throughout the evening to keep the group together , so shout out to Joe , Tom and Antony for being jolly good sports .

Well earned stretch with Thanks to Pascale for back marking and Joe for a fabulous Pun .

I'm sure we would all like to wish Antony all the best with his move to a new area and hopefully a new Goodgym group for him to inspire with his motivational spirit , we will surely miss him in Bath .

Look forward to seeing you all next week at Cleveland pools , a gem of our beautiful city .

Thank you everyone for being you .

Tonight was a toughie, with 12 runners braving the hills of Bath on a 7k run to the guerrilla garden at Donkey Lane.

Only a few runs at the weekend - well done to everyone in Riga! And well done Emily and Sam on the Two Tunnels 10k. Hopefully there'll be a full crew of trusty GoodGymers out in force for the third instalment of the Two Tunnels race series in July - it's one of the big six races for GoodGym this year! More info here.

Tonight we headed to another guerrilla garden maintained by the wonderful Transition Bath; this time at the top of Donkey Lane. With Snow Hill between us and the task there was some donkey work to be done before we made it to the top! But we pushed on to meet Sue, who had plenty for us to do.

Helen, Ant, Nicola and Alison were on weeding and clearing duty for the top path, with Sophie, Joe, Sam, Steve and Jaxx tackling the long path through the middle of the garden, some of which was hidden by the huge bush of kale! Pascale and Sam tackled some nettles, avoiding ripping up the 'walking onion' plant - worth a Google, its very strange!

With the garden transformed, Sue offered us some kale to take home with us. Without bags, we must have looked mad running back through town with our kale bouquets!

Pretty sure we should be called FoodGym Bath.

Thanks to everyone for being nice to me on my first proper attempt at leading the run this week! Thanks to Pascale for back marking and of course, the pun master himself, Joe, for this week's pun. See you next week!

A perfect evening for a scenic on average 8k run along the canal to do a spot of flyering for Dry-arch growers in fact 320 to be precise, helping to promote their community allotment scheme. A fabulous 13 runners turned up tonight with one lovely lady, none other than Run leader

Pascale on her 50th Good deed ... whoop!!! Black T Shirt on its way.

A few shout outs tonight during warm up and headcount for those who raced at the weekend

Races Bristol 10k Jo young 52.26 -PB Joe kenward 43.59 -PB

Shakespeare's Marathon Alison 3:58 ( this lady just keeps on running)

Stroud trail Marathon Pascale 4:39 and she took loads of beautiful scenic pictures

Time for the off with Steph leading and Pascale back marking. We set out through Sydney gardens to join onto the canal path for a flat (nice change) run out to Bathampton. The faster ones in the group got chance for some tempo running and looping, a stretch of Indian file (Canadian relay) for some extra speed work and they even managed to run past the pub at the end. Well done!!

Splitting into groups and armed with flyers our two teams took to the streets, tackling both sides to ensure no letter box was missed and aren't some of those letterboxes viscous (I don't mean the runners) but thankfully

no fingers were lost during the making of this task

No time to stand still on this task but lots of fun and a great workout for a worthy cause. Some of the runners clocking up over 11k and there was no stopping Steve who just seemed to have no stop button, wish I could borrow his legs when I race. We made our way back along the Warminster road with one final sprint for those who wanted to along Great Pultney street, just enough time for our group Boomerang before stretching out.

Well done everyone!! Another great task bites the dust at Goodgym Bath. Feel very proud to be part of an amazing group of lovely people... cheers.

Thanks to Sam for tonight's pun

Good luck to everyone racing in Riga this weekend or racing anywhere else, let me know how you get on.

A reminder just a week left to sign up for the Goodgym Olympics, let's show them how the West Country rock. We could enjoy a little day trip on the coach https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/goodgym-olympics

After a warm up, head count and welcoming Emma in to the GoodGym fold for her first group run our fifteen fabulous and fit runners took the scenic route along the canal en route to Oldfield Park.

The sun was shining, balloons took to the skies & tales of Eagle Owls were shared as we mindfully meandered up to our task hosts - Bath Mind.

This organisation works to improve the lives of people suffering from mental health problems and tonight we worked to make their gardens a tidier and cleaner place for their residents.

Splitting off in to two task forces to tackle the front and back gardens it took a mere matter of minutes before we were then regrouped and collectively mind-mapped the local area for other places that might be in need of a GoodGym clear up.

Thanks to Nicola for suggesting Moorland Memorial Park for a quick litter pick and to Jo for returning a rogue shopping basket to its rightful place across the road at Co-op.

A jaunt back along the riverside including some sprint reps and loop backs for those wanting some speed training and we were back to base for some cool down stretches and to hatch a plan to head to the pub.

Thanks to Lydia for getting us out socialising tonight, we'll do the same next Thursday night, 27th April, for Pub Quiz at The Boater.

Big thank you to Mary for back marking and of course a shout-out to Steph who's on her holidays.

If you would like to be paired up with a run coach or to join us on GoodGym missions then please do bring your documents to be checked at the next group run.

Have a great rest of the week, hope it includes some more running and getting inspired by the London Marathon.