Goodgym Brighton’s Tuesday evening run (jog, walk, crawl) to Cardinal Newman Catholic School in Hove took in, in my opinion 80% of Brighton’s steepest hills, I really did crawl at some points !

In tonight’s news…… Well done to Helena on your shiny Silver medal (for the Sussex 2019/20 Cross Country League) and also to Katharine for running further than she's ever run before. And ideas for next weeks social are most welcome (in the Whatsapp group).

Armed with feather dusters microfibre cloths in assorted colours and enough spray cleaner to rid Europe of the corona virus we set about our task of buffing the hell out of the staircases. Noticing a sign on the stairs saying UP ONLY, I could only imagine the pile up at A&E as uninitiated year 7’s figured out inventive ways of getting back downstairs.

As we chanted our mantra ‘cleanliness is next to godliness’ handrails were spruced , strings were polished, stanchions scrubbed, balustrades buffed and newel’s rendered spotless. We were so devoted to our task that many of us missed an impromptu acoustic gig taking place in the music room…….

Task completed we retired to the field to complete our exercises, good+gym =

And just a reminder that we are having a Goodgym volunteering takeover at Junior parkrun this Sunday. Sign up here.

Last night was definitely one of the colder nights we’ve had for Brighton Goodgym, but that didn’t deter our first timers Millie and Louis and the return of Tom who started with us last week. Welcome guys, sorry we can’t determine the weather, but we can determine the feel good factor of every Goodgym task.

Our task took place at St Luke’s, a working parish who host several community projects, most notably the Real Junk Food Project. Food that is destined to be dumped is collected and cooked by the Real Junk Food Project to provide great meals on a “pay as you feel” basis, meaning those who can afford pay the going rate and those who struggling financially can get a good meal at a price they can afford. All this cooking means the kitchen needed a good deep clean and with many hands made light work of it.

With so many of us to help out, Martin, Vicar at St Lukes had other jobs to keep us busy, including cleaning windows, carpets, a full on clean of the loos and the destruction of a sofa so that it could be disposed of. Tools in hand Katherine, Abi and Louis made quick work of pulling the sofa apart (they also looked like they enjoyed it a little too much… surly the week is too short to be stressful already?!)

Following on from our delivering task last week, Tara produced more copies of the Extinction Rebellion’s newsletter Hourglass. With guerrilla style tactics, we swarmed the Preston Ville area of Brighton. The scene looked like a group of ninjas spreading the Extinction Rebellion news.

With so much posting there was little time for a fitness session, however we used the stairs to the Brighton Greenway to “Quick Feet” up the steps, improving our leg strength.

Though many peeled off on the way back to base we managed to pick up Tristian, who is in training for the Brighton Marathon and looking for tips on his first attempt at the distance. Hopefully we’ve convinced Tristian to join our social running group from next week! We’ll be back at Hannover, with Brighton Goodgym favourite Cllr David Gibson, to help out with some community tasks for the residents and if you want your Goodgym fix before then, we'll be helping at Junior Park run this Sunday – see you there!

I don’t know about you but I found that hill tough tonight so apologies for not easing you back in gently and making you tackle one of Brighton’s biggest hills on the first run back of the year! IT strangely felt up hill in both directions too!

But before the run we had lots of Christmas and New year park run progress to catch up on. Congratulations to Roy for finally smashing his target of getting under 21 minutes at both Hove Prom and Hove Park and to Rosie who also took a big chunk off of her PB at the Prom. And well done to Katherine who finally discovered the joy of park run and completed her first ever, quickly followed by her second ever! And talking of parkrun its our meet up at East Brighton this Saturday so hope to see a few of you there.

So with much chat about how we’d all enjoyed the festive season we headed up the massive hill to Cardinal Newman school, picking up Benita, Emma & Tabitha on the way. Premises Manager Pedro set us to work on cleaning the hard to reach parts of a large staircase, concentrating on the dusty railings, high level cobwebs and dust and scuff marks on the walls. With 15 of you working hard we got the job done in about 20 minutes leaving time for a quick fitness session of plank variations in the school corridor. The variations were all designed to target your glutes as well as your core, so great exercises to do to strengthen and condition yourselves for running!

And with all the excitement of the first one back I forgot to mention the January challenge to see which Goodgym area can do the most good deeds and run the most kilometres. Distance ran will be only include those runs logged onto Strava so if you’re not using it then now would be a good time to start! For those that don’t know about Strava its an app that records all your runs and a great way of documenting your activity and process and you can follow your friends to see what activities they are doing as well.

See you next week for a lovely flat run to George Street to help in a charity shop. It’s another longer run at 6km but I’m hoping to have an alternative run and task delivering newlestters for Extinction Rebellion if you don’t want to run so far, so watch this space! And its our weekly social next week too.

Although it is somewhat early to be getting the Christmas puns out, an opportunity to ping pong pun like that doesn’t come along often! Many thanks to BTTC co-founder and this weeks task owner Tim for supplying!

In The News this week we congratulated Amro on completing the Downland Devil 9 mile race (I did it too and can guarantee that is a tough event!) and Rosie for achieving a parkrun PB! Well done Rosie!

Some last minute logistical problems meant there was a change of plan for tonights task and we went to the fabulous BTTC for the second week in a row. I’d go there every week if we could as its just such a positive, amazing place. This week we focussed on cleaning skirting boards, scrubbing walls, cleaning windows and picture frames and giving the office the once over. After 20 minutes or so of hard work we’d ticked all the jobs off the list, leaving plenty of time for tonight’s fitness session.

Tim was very grateful for our efforts and we are all invited to their Christmas Party/ Ping Pong Sing a long this Friday 6th December from 5pm to 6.30pm!

It was such a magical, still evening, cold but not freezing, with no wind and just the perfect night to be exercising outdoors. We headed to the terraces for a 10 minute continuous run of efforts up the slope, recovering along the flat and walking down the stairs. These are tough but great for working on running form, building strength for running and increasing neuromuscular development (communication between brain and muscles). We followed this by 8 lots of partnered exercises, swapping partner each time, to help build a stronger core and legs.

Next week we’ll be going to the Community Kitchen, they will be cooking us soup as a thank you for our contribution over the year, so it will be fitness and run first, then a bit of cleaning at the kitchen followed by soup and we can bring our own wine or beer as well. Then as its the second Tuesday we can continue the evening with some more drinks (and maybe a min course?) somewhere else (keep an eye on the Whattsap group to see where we end up).

Other dates for your diary are 14th December for our parkrun meet up at Hove Park followed by a Community Mission.

Then on 17th December its the last group run and task of the year. I’m currently seeking a task for us so if any one has any ideas please let me know!

And its our Christmas do on Thursday 19th December, we’ll be playing Globalls at the Marina then heading to TGI’s for food and drink. Please let Helena know if you’ll be coming to either and if you are coming to the globalls pay £5.50 into her account 30-84-68, 12299268.

It’s a busy month!

Last night's run was my first, but what a great experience! 16 of us met up at Brighton YHA and although I was a little nervous to start with, everyone was so welcoming, chatty and well up for a positive evening of doing good and running I shouldn't have worried about anything.

After a short run along the sea front, we arrived at the Brighton Table Tennis Club which runs all sorts of fab clubs and projects within the community. Here, we helped clean and tidy the kitchen, the showers and bathrooms, as well as the Parish Hall. Skirting boards, floors and cupboards were scrubbed, smiling pictures of past ping pong successes were dusted, and bathrooms descaled...Not to mention our intrigue (or fascination?) with the spinning mops and mop buckets which too were put to good use!

One of the highlights for me though was how the Ladies' Ping Pong practice (which was taking place whilst we were there,) let us join them at the tables. We GoodGymers paired up with their members to play a couple of games... and what a happy site seeing a hall full of people playing and laughing together.

A very special way to spend a Tuesday evening! Emma and now over to Tara....

Thank you so much Emma for jumping right in and writing this week's run report, its great to get the perspective of a first timer and last night we were spoilt rotten as we had 3 of you! Along with Emma we welcomed Benita & Jacob. You are all very welcome additions to our band of getting fit by doing gooders!

I'd just like to mention as well the fantastic achievement of Frannie. Frannie's been running with us since our Brighton launch in July 2017, often taking on the essential role of back marker which we all very much appreciate. So a huge shout out to Frannie for achieving a 10k PB at the weekend at the Silverstone 10k. Well done and much more to come, I suspect Frannie will be front marking before too long!

Christmas Party News! We got as far as deciding what to do and when to do it and now we need to commit!! So its Globallsat Brighton Marina on Thursday December 19th at 6.30pm followed by eating and or drinking at TGIs after, Helena is organising for us (thank you!) so if you would like to come along we need you to confirm by paying £5.50 into Helena's account with your name as reference. Details are 30-84-68, 12299268. This will cover the cost of the Globalls and then we can pay for our own food and drink at TGI's. All are welcome but it would be very helpful to commit ASAP so we can plan for numbers.