What a beautiful evening for a run - and tonight's 5 mile run took us through 2 of Ipswich's parks looking glorious in the sunshine.

Before we left we welcomed Imogen on her first Group Run and it was congratulations all round on performances over a busy weekend including the Friday Five Series and parkrun PBs.

The last leg of our outward 3.5 mile run took us across Chantry Park (home to Ipswich parkrun) to the amazing Activ Lives Walled Garden nestled in the bottom corner of the park. Danny met us and explained the chores for the evening - watering, weeding and some hard core digging!

The Walled Garden grows thousands of plants for Ipswich Borough Council but also hosts visitors from the nearby Sue Ryder care home. the digging part of tonight's task was to prepare an area to make wheel chair access easier. However the area to be cleared was very hard, compacted stones and earth, making it very difficult to break into. Ashok, Heidi, Keith and Kerry battered away for the duration of our visit. Progress was slow and unfortunately we weren't able to complete the job - however Danny was grateful for the impact made.

The more gentle side of the task was watering and weeding around the huge array of plants within the garden - much more visible progress was made here - with barrow loads of weeds being transported to compost.

Our return run route took us through Gippeswyk Park and back along the river path onto the Waterfront with the sun still shining - What a beautiful evening for a run!

On the penultimate @GGSHEFF run before Xmas we welcomed 2 new fantastic runners into the group. Please welcome, support and cheer;

• Michelle Clarke
• Finn Burgum

After a brief welcome and chat about the soar legs in the group after the fantastic efforts the previous day at the infamous Percy Pud 10k we set off with DANGEROUS DAVE as our back marker to our task destination of The Real Junk Food Project - Sheffield, a fairly new task, but a massively worthy cause for the group to be involved with.

On arrival we were warmly welcomed into the warehouse by Logistics Manager AMAZING ALICE and volunteers.

Alice gave us a great brief splitting the group into 3 teams;

1. TEAM MARKETPLACE RE-ARRANGE
2. TEAM HAMPER, NO PAMPER
3. TEAM SORT/IS A HOT CROSS BUN SAVORY OR SWEET? IS A TOMATO A FRUIT OR A VEGETABLE?

The teams got straight to work along to the tunes of cheesy xmas music to keep energy levels high, which were also topped up thanks to some generous snacks provided by the team at TRJFPS. A lot of our runners were in the market for a Xmas treat after being hampered by yesterdays 10k, volunteering and a few bevvies at Charlotte & Carys'. THANKS AGAIN BOTH!

All teams did a fantastic job and nothing hampered our efforts. After pudding everything away, we had a big group photo and Alice gave her thanks on behalf of TRJFPS for a market down crate effort by all...

We waved our goodbyes and headed homebound with a cheeky game of King/Queen of the hill to help shift the junk from our trunks. The crown on this occassion was won by the visiting wonder that is DANGEROUS DAVE who we all wish good luck on his PHD review today!

With climbing on Wed and the Regather Social on Dec 12th after our last run before Xmas on the 11th there is still plenty of GG action to get involved in and earn those mince pies so make sure you've signed up to them all and keep an eye on the WhattsApp group for other festive treats!

This week the Sheffield branch of Good Gym set off for our third visit to help Heeley Development Trust.

With a slightly longer run to the Thirwell Rd location it gave us all a chance to warm up on a nippy November eve. On arrival at the top of typical Sheffield steep hill we were warmly greeted by FANTASTIC FRANK who gave us a true to form fantastic brief of the evenings task which was continuing with lifting and shifting a huge pile of logs that are to be bagged up and sold in the future to raise much needed funds for HDT to develop the Thirwell Rd site for small business's such as Regather Bikes who do some fantastic work such as fixing bikes and providing them to Asylum seekers.

We split into three teams. Two human chains piling logs into a log stall and tonne bags and one crack team of suitably strong men and women to lift and shift some of the biggest logs ever seen by human eyes with a wheelbarrow! SCIENTIFIC STEVE set about improving our efficiency with some logorithmic algorithms, what wood we do without him? The human chain saw the pile quickly go down as the evening went on.

With all teams happily chipping away at the task under floodlight kindly provided by FANTASTIC FRANK the shout for the last minute was raised and the pressure was pilled on with some people starting to crack but we pulled it together in true @GGSHEFF fashion and got the job done!

Following a big log pile group photo we got warm before heading back into the night with some static sprints and paired arm rows.

On the way back we made a brief fitness stop in one of our fave parks parks for some quick fire fitness including:

• Box jumps or step ups
• Tri Dips
• Piston Squats
• Two up group sprints

To finish us all off we added some underpass squat shenanigans and Mobot sprint and return loops to keep us together and add some individual challenge before stretching off outside the hubs and hearing all the latest news including:

• REGATHER XMAS SOCIAL - Tues 12 Dec - 6-10pm
• PERCY PUD - This Sunday!
• BUCHAREST RUNNING FESTIVAL - 12-13 May. Promised spreadsheet link here. Get signed up, not to be missed!
• JANUARY CHALLENGE - Get STRAVA linked up to your GG account, if your not sure, ask.

Next week we are off to The Real Junk Food Project, get signed up today.

Until then, happy running :)