Last night the Brighton Goodgymers took on storm Brendan, gaining some strength training as we ran against the swirling winds! A colossal effort from everyone as we ran along the seafront! Welcome to Tom who joined us for his group run; hope the weather hasn’t put you off joining us again as part of your training for the Brighton Marathon.

Last night was a night of two tasks; helping out at the Scope shop in Hove and delivering newsletters to the residents of Landsdowne Road for the Extinct Rebellion.

Eleven of us ran to George Street, meeting up with Tabitha, to help the lovely Heather with stock checking and sorting. Scope is a charitable organisation who support those with disabilities be recognised as contributing members of society. Emma and Bernard stock checked Christmas books and cards, Abi pulled out a selection of ladies’ belts from stock to be added to the accessories display, Roy and Jacob sorted through stock and helped David, Michelle and Tabitha pull winter clothes out of deep storage. Ollie was temporary lost to the back of the stock room while Sherman and Tom labelled ladies scarves, pulling out their favourites to share with the others! With some headway to the never ending work that Heather seems to have to do, we ran on back to the Brighton i360, completing a fartlek type run with the use of the lampposts along the seafront. Fartlek, which means speedplay, is a form of continuous interval training used to improve our reactive speed so we don’t get pipped at the post on raceday!

Tara, Frannie, Andy, Daisy and Rosie had the second task in hand as Rosie reports: A smaller group ran a shorter distance (or so we thought) to deliver "Hourglass", the appropriately-named Extinction Rebellion newsletter. Running up the steps and front paths of every house on Lansdowne Place and surrounding streets in Hove was a workout in itself and meant extra time for Tara's gruelling routine on the concrete blocks in front of the i360.

Back together again we shared in the other team’s fun; Tara put us through a series of body strengthening exercises, which this Goodgymer is very much feeling today! Back to base and stretching done, we headed out for our monthly social to the Dead Soul Wax bar.

Make sure you sign up for next week's run to St Lukes for some kitchen cleaning on behalf of the Real Junk Food Project.

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.

Being November 5th meant that this week our group run clashed with an event where people stand around in the cold, throw bangers at each other, watch other people, dressed in strange costumes, burn effigies of unpopular politicians, then watch lots of pretty bright patterns in the sky before standing around a huge bonfire and throwing more bangers at other people dressed as bishops and popes! But 8 of us decided that the Legendary Lewes bonfire celebrations were no competition for a night of getting fit and doing good, including Alice joining us for the first time. Welcome Alice, hope to see you back for many more! And it was also great to welcome back Tabatha after time off for working, visiting family and illness. We missed you!

Pelican Parcels is a fantastic local charity creating bundles of good quality, second hand clothes, toys & baby stuff to help families in need. Our tasks were twofold, to carry out the first sort on bags and bags of donated clothes (including several pairs of briefs, leading to tonight's pun, courtesy of Roy), deciding which needed a wash, which were a bit too old or stained and which were good enough to dress our own (mostly imaginary) children. Meanwhile Roy got to indulge his shelf fetish as he and Helena helped task owner Shelley build a new set of shelves to provide some much needed extra storage.

After some last minute shelf complications (delaying tactics?) we ran back to the seafront for a slightly briefer than planned fitness session involving exercises you can do on benches, such as step ups, jumps, press ups and dips. With the sound of fireworks ringing in our ears we ran back to base using the slopes and steps along the prom to add some extra fun and fitness to the run.

Shelley emailed her appreciation for our efforts

Thanks so much for tonight Tara - what a lovely group of energetic people you have. Got through so much it was amazing.

See you at parkrun on Saturday, let us know you’re coming here and get your thinking caps on for where to go on our social next Tuesday!