Ahoy me hearties! It has been a while but it was great to get the old crew together and get the Little Trooper’s nursery ship shape and Derby fashion!

The call may have gone out at short notice, but the Derby shipmates didn’t disappoint. It was great to have a bit of GoodGym back in our lives and remember why we all joined up.

It was all hands of deck and in the space of a few hours, the team painted the largest room of the nursery, emptied an old sand pit, shifted a large woodpile, cleaned a dirty buggy shelter and last boat certainly not least dismantling a pirate ship! These were jobs that the nursery team had been trying to do for years and they were exceptionally grateful for the GoodGym whirlwind.

Thank you to Emma, Molly, Catriona and Ashley and a special recognition for Ben and your first ever Good Deed! It was great to have you on board!!

To keep us motivated with our daily dose of outdoor activity, whether running, walking or cycling, we decided to pursue a mammoth challenge during April;

to collectively climb the height of Mount Everest in less than a single month. That's an impressive 8,848m or just over 29,000 ft of elevation!

Sounds hilly, right?

Well I'm delighted to say that we completed this challenge by Monday 13th April (in only two weeks!) where once 'elevation gain' had been totaled up, we had climbed higher than the tallest mountain on planet Earth.

It's fair to say the GoodGym crowd absolutely smashed this fitness challenge and we have some serious mountain goats amongst us!

The challenge made us seek out those hills we normally avoid on our local routes, for some (Ellie!) it made us appreciate just how flat it is where we live & for others, it was a great time to get out & explore the fells by our new home (Nathan!)

And now the moment everyone is excitedly anticipating - the results:

In only two weeks we collectively climbed 11,886m or 38,999ft!

Everyones efforts are totaled below (if you're missing some elevation gain or have been missed off - I'm sorry! - please email me at dani@goodgym.org & I'll get it updated asap. The admin work was heavy.)

LEADERBOARD

WEEK ONE:

• Peter: 445ft
• Nathan: 3858ft
• Karen: 479ft
• Ash: 113ft
• Naomi: 541ft
• Katherine: 1450ft
• Emma: 2027ft
• Helen: 898ft
• Nicky: 225ft
• Mark: 351ft
• Lauren: 59ft
• Alice: 278ft
• Sam: 2605ft
• Dani (me!): 1480ft
• Racheal: 321ft
• Liv: 626
• Huw: 538
• Rachael (H): 666

WEEK TWO:

• Peter: 1785ft
• Nathan: 2040ft
• Karen: 53ft
• Ash: 208ft
• Naomi: 613ft
• Katherine: 4265ft
• Emma: 2542ft
• Helen: 1961ft
• Nicky: Awaiting total
• Mark: 482ft
• Lauren: 784ft
• Alice: 823ft
• Sam: 2575ft
• Dani (me!): 3070ft
• Racheal: Awaiting total
  
• Liv: Awaiting total
  
• Huw: Awaiting total
• Rachael (H): 836ft

Some impressive climbs in the above stats & it shows that although we moan about hills & they're bloomin' hard work, they aren't so bad.

The next time you're slogging up a hill, praying for it to be over or considering stopping, draw on that GG power & remember that together, we climbed higher than the worlds tallest mountain. We can do anything!

Thanks so much for taking part & let's get on that next challenge.

Big Loves

DOING GOOD

It was amazing to see everyone well & smiley on our virtual Tuesday meet-up! It certainly made me value the amazing community we have at GG at the power of those few moments connection with others, in a time of self-isolation.

That was before the hard work came of course & then the real fun began!

WHILST GETTING FIT

The same format as our last Pyramid session, with brand new exercises to jazz it up! If you'd like to repeat the workout, be our guest, doing 60 seconds of each, 45 seconds of each, 30 seconds of each, back to 45 & then a final round of 60 seconds per exercise to finish you off! Here it is:

• Goblet squats with a heel raise (weight at chest as option)
• Bridge pose (weight on hips as option)
• 3-part Sit-up (side, centre, side)
• Mountain Climbers, making them as explosive as possible!

We obviously finished with a 60 hold to create that burn, this time in plank position, with a cheeky hoover-manuvre!

Thanks so much to those who joined in & if you give it ago at home, let me know how it goes :)

Big Loves x

DOING GOOD

In lieu of our usual group run activities we hosted a Zoom call so we could complete a workout, together.

And it was SO great to see many of the Derby GG'ers faces live from their own homes! Smiles & greetings all round as we checked in with one another before a little Tuesday beasting...

WHILST GETTING FIT

And those smiles didn't last for long once that timer was on! Trainer Dani, joined in her home lock-down by Sam & BadGym, hosted a fitness session we like to call The Pyramid. Taking place in a stable currently renovated into a gym (& still smelling of horse muck!) we showed the group an all over body-burner, which targets some of those areas key to sustainable running... the legs (mostly the quads on this one!), the abs & the upper body for a strong foundation.

As the name suggests, we build a pyramid with our sets. 60 seconds of each exercise, 45 seconds of each exercise, 30 seconds of each exercise, back to 45 seconds & finishing with 60 seconds again. Here's what we did (for those that want to try it again!):

• Press-ups! Simple, old-school & effective for toning the upper body. Either full press ups, knees down or using a wall for a supported press-up works here.
• Squat dips! Like a squat, but hold it low. Never straighten the legs, just dip low, slightly lift & dip low again. A butt & a quad burner! Hold a weight for a tougher workout.
• Toe Reaches! Lying on the floor, feet towards the ceiling & arms overhead. Squeeze the abs & reach for those toes! Add weight for a tougher workout.
  
• Reverse Lunges! What it says on the tin, but we keep arms lifted towards the ceiling to increase heart-rate. Want more of a challenge? Hold a weight overhead to really work on that core stability!

And once all that was done & dusted, I couldn't just leave them there.... We finished with a 60 second wall hold to finish off those quads & boy did it finish them off!

Naomi & Helen later reported that they had trouble getting back down the stairs after their workout... fair to say they were a little wobbly with emotion!

BIG THANKS

It was amazing to see you! Let's do the same again next week? New exercises, less quads, promise :)

DOING GOOD

Nine GoodGym'ers ran (two walked) to St Giles Church to do good & little did we know as we approached the Church that we'd be involved in a 200 year old discovery...

Well, the evening had started off a little different as we decided who was most suitable to be at the front of the run pack (narrowed down by injury & lack of tech & settling on the wonderful Noami, who handled it perfectly) & then the runners were left with a warm-up fitness drill as Helen & I headed up the walk & set off to the task with a 9 minute head start!

Helen & I crossed to the Church just as the runners appeared, Ashley overtaking us on the final stretch of pavement! And following the head to head battle of Walkers v Runners, it was time to be shown to our task at St Giles Church.

Joined by David & Norma - from a local history group - we went around the back of the impressive building and stood looking at quite a large ivy bush, to be told a memorial was somewhere inside & our task was to uncover it....

Something to get stuck into - perfect!

And we were off. The GG'ers were sawing off branches of the bush and in no time at all both ton bags were absolutely full. New piles were made around the memorial as we kept hacking away.

Slowly & surely, the first glimpses of the memorial appeared and with it, a date!

1827

The memorial could well be nearly 200 years old! We asked Norma when this memorial was last seen & the church reckons somewhere around 1980 when they no longer had funding for gardening and the memorial had become overgrown with the ivy bush.

"I think a head might roll out!" was exclaimed...

Bit by bit, more of the memorial became exposed but the ivy bush - now at the centre and a mass of roots - was still hanging on firmly. We further cut & prised away branches in search of the golden nugget on the memorial - the cross.

Unfortunately as we neared closer to the cross, the ivy having grown around & through it, as we removed the last section of ivy, the cross left the memorial with it, still encased in layers of roots & leaves, decades old.

And with that a two hundred year old memorial was exposed again for the first time in nearly forty years! A little repair & tidying needed to bring it back to its former glory, but a job well done for the GG clan.

And to clarify... St Giles Church weren't at all 'cross' about the incident!

WHILST GETTING FIT

With such a physical task of sawing & cutting back an ivy bush, it was a good job the runners warmed up with a circuit first, eh!? One minute of elevated push-ups, one minute of walking lunges & one minute of plank walk outs... repeated three times. No wonder the walkers beat them to the task :)

As well as a mean circuit & physical task, 8km was covered to get to & from the task. It's fair to say that we were all ready for dinner come home time!

THANK YOUS

Thanks to everyone for an evening of mystery-busting fun & again, for getting stuck in with an awesome task. Special thanks to Naomi & Ashley for joint front-leading & doing an ace job of it! And of course, a warm welcome to our latest recruit Barbora!

Big Loves