28 (yes, 28!) runners were keen and ready at Vivo Gym, ready and eager to go flyering! Sadly, the flyering didn't occur because the flyers were still being printed - but like Brownies or Cubs, we're always prepared. We headed back to Kingsdown Garden where we helped Incredible Edible continue to transform this unloved and slightly dodgy space into a garden that grows fruit and vegetables!

It was cold. Not just cold, freezing - the temperature was skirting the 0 mark at times, so with a warning about ice, we trotted off and whilst were not warm by the time we arrived, we were at least warmer.

Given the horde of runners and the fact that we had to carry tools ourselves, we split in to two groups - one group attacked hedges and stumps with the goal of trying to tame the wilderness and clear a flower bed ready for planting. The other group kept warm by doing some plyometric squats, lunges and skater lunges. Then they swapped so most people got a bit of muscle strengthening in to their workout. Because of this, there are not a huge amount of photos this week - sorry!! Also some may be a bit rotated... I've tried to fix it but computer says no...

To warm up after the task was finished, we headed back a slightly different way to squeeze a few more meters out of the legs and to get running up a hill in to the workout too.

As it was so chilly, the stretches in Queens Square were a little faster than usual, and after a few announcements, we zipped back in to the warmth of Vivo Gym!

Gang, thank you so much for coming - when you can tackle that kind of cold and keep smiling all the way through, you know that you can conquer more than you first thought. See y'all soon!

Our first run of 2016 went off to a cracking start - with a bit of rain! But that didn't put off 29 willing and able runners from meeting at Vivo Gym and heading off both north and south of the city centre.

We split in to two groups, one to tackle a longer run with a bit of a hill in it to help out Incredible Edible with a spot of gardening. T'other headed south to Bedminster where we helped the Patchwork Project litter pick some of their sites.

The smaller group headed up a bit of a climb to meet up with Incredible Edible and prepare a garden for the spring. As they were weeding, they came across several leeks which they proudly ran back with.

The litter picking crew was not so lucky to find such wonderful veg, but each group of 4 people (and one of 3) got really stuck in to their work and cleared away of post Christmas and New Year's debris.

We met back up in Queens Square for our usual stretches and announcements about next week, and give kudos to Nick who came up with possibly what could be the best run pun/report title in 2016. We're going to have to work really hard to come up with such a fab play on words for our next pun!

A really massively huge big welcome to our newbies - Leslie, Vincent, Steph, Dave, James and Harry (apologies if a) you're not new and I have put you down as new or b) you are new and I didn't put you down!). Please keep coming back again and again, get to know your city with us as well as getting fitter and helping some great local community groups!

A wonderfully surprising 28 people braved the fierce winds and came running with GoodGym from Vivo Sports Club on Tuesday. We had several new people, so a big welcome to you guys, and also it was Gary's 100th run, so a mahoosive congratulations to him for sticking with it.

I was so happy to see everyone for 3 main reasons: 1) It's always great to see you! 2) It was really really windy so I didn't expect so many people to brave the elements! 3) We needed a lot of runners because we had 2 tasks! I could carry on but I'll run out of my quota of exclamation marks.

Task 1 was to help a group called United Communuites to flyer around the St Pauls area, promoting a recycling event coming up this weekend.

Task 2 was to head to the Scrapstore and prepare various bits of scrap to go in to Playpods which in turn go in to schools for the kids to play with.

We headed off from Vivo after greating our 4 new runners - welcome to the gang, chaps - and were half blown/half ran to St Pauls Learning Centre where we split in to 2 groups for the 2 tasks.

The group that were flyering met up with a lady from United Communities and we popped in to the foyer of St Pauls Learning Centre to have a quick intro to the event and to check we were going to flyer the correct locations; the security guard chap was a little less enthusiastic about our presence and we got grilled about how long we were going to stay and if we had permission to be there! After crossing this unexpected hurdle, we grabbed our leaflets and headed off in several small groups to post our flyers through local doors.

We've found that there has to be a technique to flyering; you have to fold it at least once, if not twice to get it through those little bristles that live just behind the letterbox flap, and even then, it can take some effort.

It did try and rain on us a few times, but I think that we were all sending a collective prayer up to the weather gods and it was only a light smattering. Not proper rain, not really.

Team 2 headed off another half a mile or so to the Scrapstore. As we've done before, there were many things to sort, dismantle, slice, cut and measure. The added bonus this time is that some of the gang got to play with POWER TOOLS! I have to admit I'm a bit sad that I didn't have a chance to have a go with the jigsaw.

Kim, who lead the run to the Scrapstore, had a great deal of trouble extracting the runners from the Scrapstore; it's always one more phone, one more length of material, one more little go on the power tools. Whilst they missed the rain, they did have a bit of a headwind coming back to Vivo too.

Once back at our start, we had a good stretch and those who got there a little earlier had the joy of some lunges, squats and press ups too. Happy days.

Well done gang, it was so great to see such a large bunch of runners, THANK YOU!!!!!

P.S Sorry that there are not many photos - when the group split up, it became hard to photo anyone apart from the two chaps I was with!

At GoodGym Bristol we love a bit of fun and creativity, which is why we think the Children’s Scrapstore is awesome. Companies donate their unwanted junk and the Scrapstore sort and pass it onto schools and community projects who turn it into toys, art, stage sets and anything else they can think of. As it is such a popular project they are always thankful for a helping hand sorting the donated scrap, so this time we brought over 50 helping hands!

After meeting at Vivo Sports Club and introducing ourselves we realised that not only did we have a massive group with even more happy new faces, but a lot of runners were called Emily and Dave, so remembering names on this run would be a lot easier than usual!

We ran 1.5 miles from Vivo to St Werburghs with an epiphany of Emilys and a deluge of Daves taking Bristol by storm. Our goodness must be contagious as a guy who was jogging by saw us and after a quick chat with Paul, who explained our task for the evening was to “go and cut stuff”, decided he wanted to join our helpful hoard.

After this gentle warm up we were ready to take on whatever the lovely ladies at the Scrapstore had to throw at us. We were shown around the warehouse of wonder before being split into groups and set to task. And what do you know, Paul was right in his prediction that we would be cutting stuff up. People were ripping apart curtains, cutting guttering, tearing tents, dismantling chairs, burning through rope, taking thread off of reels and our old favourite, taking phones out of boxes. It may sound destructive but rest assured that there is method to this madness. As ever when the time came to leave it was tough getting everyone to finish their task in hand. “Just one more curtain…” they exclaimed, “We’ll be quick, just gotta finish this…” came another shout. Eventually we got everyone together for a group shot before heading back into the night.

After jogging back, we assembled in Queens Square for a rather random but productive warm down. With a few tricep-dips, squats, sprints and lunges we finished off a very successful evening. Thanks to everyone who came along, you are all ruddy brilliant. Don’t forget the Scrapstore are having an open day on Saturday 17th October when you will be able to go and grab yourself a basket of scrap for a small donation. So why not come and help us build a rockery in Redcliffe at 11am and then head over there to get creative afterwards.