Four and a half GoodGymers walked/ran/napped around Mersea parkrun! A cloudy start turned warmer and we finished in the lovely sunshine.

(Pic from last week, forgot to take them today sorry!)

A cool spring morning means wrap, get moving and wrap up again - then get coffee at our favourite Patch!

Bravo!

It was a blustery March Parkrun at Colchester Castle Park, where runners conquered four hills looping around the ancient castle and for some runners there were personal milestones (or kilometer-stones if you prefer metric!). Which sounds better? 1,000,000 metres or1000kilometres? Some memorable runs include running at 7.30am at Singapore Parkruns, climbing sand-dunes in Weymouth and running with loads of Goodgymers at Shindigs...but of course more recently shuffling around with a buggy!

Running in a Goodgym T-shirt is super motivating too...I will look forward to all the Goodgym and Parkrun achievements to come by our squad.

No longer is a parkrun an easy start to a Saturday...with tiny feet a little more effort is needed! So it was great to see friendly faces and defeat the hills!

What a stunning day to volunteer at a half marathon and support all the runners and their amazing and diverse reasons to run. It was a pleasure to support the Headway volunteers and the police cadets. The Goodgymers were stationed on East Hill around the three mile mark to encourage and cheer runners and to become amateur traffic police! We are a bit biased so the loudest cheers came for Louise, Emma and Dan!

Despite the event highlighting how (needlessly?) reliant people are on driving into our city centre, the runners looked happy, safe and quite pleased to be running downhill after the effort of North Hill and with the gradual Ipswich road incline ahead!

As I write WhatsApp is buzzing with news from end of the race...the volunteers and cheer squad went for a coffee and a cake and I hope the runners relax and recoup however they enjoy the most!

Well done everyone, you all managed the same distance, and well done to the organizers and volunteers for doing Colchester proud.

One big task, seven excellent runners, 180 seconds of plank and six confusing maps!

It all began at Chiswick Town Hall, as shown by the GoodGym poster on the wall which has categorically never covered any other poster on the noticeboard. Just saying.

You've been dong some great running this week, Hounslow. A big well done to Adam who has been notching up the runs, with a new parkrun PB on Saturday. Must be the beetroot bread! A hat tip too to Jo and Andy who are sailing through the good deeds. Don't forget that we might have our first 50th good deed to celebrate next Wednesday, so stick around after the run for a little fun to mark this great milestone.

This week's task was leafleting for Waterman's Art Centre. Not everybody's favourite task, but a very useful one for the charity. This weekend is the centre's River Weekender - a festival inspired for the river packed with free events for the whole community. Our job was to spread the word in the local area, and it began, as all good things do, with a run.

After a quick warm up featuring a rather natty side hop ("isn't this just...running?"), we set off on the 2k run down to Waterman's. But not before finding out our favourite condiments! There was no stand out winner this week, but ketchup, Lea & Perrins (other brands are available), dijon mustard, mint sauce (from the veggie), pepper, chutney and BBQ were all contenders. Lovely stuff.

A nice speedy run later we arrived at reception to be presented with a bulging trolley full of leaflets and a series of highlighted maps. Cue several minutes of trying to figure out what to do next ("isn't this the same map? Turn it upside down. No, the other way"). We soon cracked it though, and split up into groups to start putting leaflets through doors, into hands, pubs and travelodges before meeting up towards the end of the run to smash out a few door to door sprints.

We finished on a bit of a high after having delivered countless leaflets and enjoying a nice stretch when we were brought up short by the angriest flamenco teacher in town. No we didn't move your poster, mister. Still, we had the plank off to make us feel better, and what a plank off it was. The seconds ticked by and everybody was going strong - who was going to emerge victorious? Some great work from everybody, but this week the crown goes to Andy with an impressive 2 min 37 plank. Wowzer!

Next week it's going to be all sorts of fun planting bulbs and hopefully we'll have something to celebrate too. Sign up here for your Wednesday dose of goodness and fitness!

For this week's run we returned to one of our regulars, the Salvation army in Camberwell.

After a quick warm up outside the Roastery, Helena led the way up Chadwick Road. On the way down Camberwell Grove there was plenty of chat, almost all Great British Bake Off related. Once we arrived at the Salvation Army we were greeted by Janet who told us that there had been a bumper turnout at their recent anniversary celebration, thanks in part to the flyering that we had done on our last visit. This visit was all about the kitchen, the whole place needed a good clean. A low ceiling and Matt's height advantage meant that he was tasked with trying to get rid of the grease and grime from up high while others cleaned shelves, the floor, the hob and any other surface we could reach. While we cleaned we had a serious chat about organ donation before returning to the topic of TV. Most of us had been enjoying the sheer incompetence of the Apprentice candidates but only Beth and Hanna had fallen a little bit in love with Married At First Sight.

Janet has a habit of treating us with sweets when we go to visit but this week had decided we needed something healthy so had some seeds for us to nibble on. After some gentle persuasion she did produce some sweets but she wasn't convinced they had any real sugar in them.

On the way home we Indian filed back up the hill and once back at the Roastery didn't hang about as we were all keen to get home and watch the bake off semi-final.