Living just off the route of the Great North Run, it's easy to see the GNRE (Great North Run Effect) in full swing at the moment, with a lot of what I like to call panic-running going on, and I'm not sure if that's also what happened tonight too as our group number flew up! 23 of us trotted out on our longest run to date to help clear a section of the Hadrians Cycleway with Sustrans and some of their ace volunteers. The route was a new one for us and for huge fans of running alongside dual carriageways it really had it all. 4K of the iconic Blaydon Race route to be exact!

We said a big hello to new runner Sarah who is a new resident of our beautiful city and I managed to give her a guided tour of all the sights on the way. It's true that GoodGym gives people the chance to explore places they never knew existed as well as getting fit and doing good. I just may have to work on my tour guide banter which isn't great. "Tell me something great about the Newcastle arena!" ... "Um, bands play there".

Running out to the task in two groups, the speedies led by Paul and the speakies with me tonight, we were met by the fantastic Sarah from Sustrans with a bag of tools and tricks every task owner would envy. The task tonight was to clear back bushes and paths, collecting litter and tidying up as we went to make this an appealing, safe and open space for the hundreds of cyclists and walkers who use the NCN72 path every day. Louise celebrated her tenth good deed tonight by finding a haul of 20 Newcastle Brown Ale bottles (sadly empty) which delighted me with the immediate offering of a pun for the report.

Go Louise!

This particular section of the Hadrian's Cycleway is called Paradise Ramp which we all loved too. We need to start keeping a log of all of the quirky facts our task owners share with us!

The run back incorporated the fitness session tonight as we threw in speed play intervals, charging between lamp posts and in timed efforts. Katie absolutely smashed this and it was amazing to arrive back to a round of applause from the faster group. These are the moments that I always remember after a great group run!

We have a community mission this weekend if you fancy starting your Saturday with a good deed. Sign up here after you have completed your community missions training module. If not, I will see you next week for Bank Holiday GoodGym fun at Francis House followed by Bank Holiday drinks.

Happy running!

Anji x

You'd be forgiven for looking through our photos tonight and thinking all we did was mess about and play in Exhibition Park. There was some of that between all of the standard GoodGym Newcastle awesomeness

There was a big group to welcome four- yes FOUR- new runners to the family! Welcome Jack, Tom, Tom and Raff. You are now fully fledged GoodGym members who have completed group run greatness!

Tonight's group run was a bit of everything: silly warm up games, GoodGym leaflet drop on the way followed by a huge litter pick and fitness session in Exhibition Park! The big challenge was to complete an alphabet of litter. And no Dan, I'm not accepting FETUS for F because you found an egg, or X for Extra Chewing gum. Some interesting litter was uncovered including two bike frames, a seat, part of a fridge and general bottles, cans and crisp packets left over from another scorching weekend in the park. Some people (hello Paul, Amy and Carol-Anne) took some time out to hang around on the many climbing frames on offer as the task came to a close.

What everyone wants when its 26 degrees on an open space occupied by cows is to complete a 1K time trial so we popped over to the Town Moor to do just that. The cows were very accommodating and happy to mooooove out of the way while we warmed up with our (my) favourite drills.

At the sound of the whistle the runners were off! Storming across the moooooor in some blistering times as they tried to outdo one an udder on the way back to the finish. Kudos to Andy who was first in 3:12 and Sarah, first lady in 3:47.

It was back to pastures old (sorry, I will stop this now) for a good stretch and high fives on another excellent evening of doing good things, getting fit and loving our city.

Well done everyone, I might see you at the community mission Or at our next Group Run

Happy Running! Anji x