On Tuesday evening, seven GoodGymers took to the Quayside to practice carpe diem by litter picking along the riverside, making an already beautiful spot even more special.

As the de facto leader, I lead the legion up toward the Millenium Bridge after Tom had arrived and saved the day by providing the litter pickers, and we bagged up each and every last bit of litter we came across. Some of the best finds included Louise fishing a gym bag full of clothes out from a bush, some rusty house keys (both pictured above!), a pregnancy test and bottles/cans of every brand of beer you could imagine.

As always, Michael was working like a Trojan and demanded a second bin bag from me having filled his first to the brim, in what was his 50th GoodGym deed. Give that man a cheer! Chris, Sally and Hannah also began filling their second bags as we approached the bridges, hence it's fair to say that we came, we saw and we picked up loads of rubbish!

If ever a phrase summed up the benefit of GoodGym: mens sana in corpore sano!

This morning, seven Goodgymers gave up their Sunday morning to help tidy up the wonderful Ouseburn Trust in Byker. Upon arrival, we were greeted by Dave and Steve who talked us through the day's tasks and taught us a little about the history of the area, in particular, the stone bridge at the bottom of the valley is one of the oldest bridges in Newcastle, dating back to 1771!

We split up into two groups, with Louise L, Liz and Louise B going with Steve to litter pick and tidy up the area underneath the railway bridge, filling up numerous bags of litter, with Louise L's trophy find being a small trolley shopper which can be seen in the trolley in the photo above! The steep banks of the valley didn't stop them from venturing down to grab every last bit of rubbish they could.

Hannah, Lauren, Eoin and I joined Dave to cut back large amounts of overgrown brambles and nettles that were intruding onto a particularly busy section of path at the top of the valley. We were joined by a number of impressive horses from Stepney Stables parading around next to us, with one, in particular, enjoying the audience that we provided!

You can really see the difference we made in opening up the path in the photographs, along with the mountain of rubbish bags which are a testament to everyone's efforts this morning and I really look forward to returning next week!

I set the challenge last week after we got so close to 1000km in our weekly training session challenge. We were to go again and aim for a 1000km smash.

We were up against it this week as the weather has NOT been kind at all!

Still, getting 924.5K beat's last week's total and that's pretty damn impressive.

Special mentions this week go to Ross with the highest total of 174K, Louise for casually running a marathon (with Dan in support!) and Michael who's been venturing out every day despite having, apparently, "hair like doc Brown"

Well done all, and thanks for staying so involved in our challenges while we have been apart.

A x

Wow!

I am blown away that this week's Accumulator challenge involved 14 runners, covering almost 1000KM in the process!

Grand total: 918.6K ran, walked and cycled in just 6 days.

Here are the highlights:

Anji got out and about on the bike for an hour a day- the glorious hour I am out of the boot I am suffering in rehab from injury.

Paul got the highest total of the week- 197K which included a massive bike ride from Boldon to Billingham and back, that's over 112K!

Mulubrhan has used lockdown to regain fitness and fall back in love with running and was motivated by the challenge.

Tanya and Debbie have covered almost 100K collectively. Running, walking and guest-appearing in my street as they ran past with Remi the dog.

Louise had a nasty fall earlier in the week and still managed to smash over 30K of running and walking. Get well soon!

Lauren has a poorly knee at the moment so took to two wheels this week instead.

Michael has done loads of walking in the sunshine which is great to see as he's been poorly.

Rachel got loads of walking and running in including a sunny run at Byker Links.

Hannah spotted cute cygnets on a run at Exhibition Park.

Jon got loads of walking in but test ran in a new pair of trainers too.

Rachael got out and about with a lot of walking in the sunshine.

Charlotte beat a few demons getting back on the bike for the first time since a nasty fall.

Kate ran and walked the third-highest total and felt really motivated by the challenge.

Amazing work, everyone. So close to 1000KM! ... next time?