We had two tasks tonight in different locations but for the same organisation. BHT (Brighton Housing Trust) provide essential services to help prevent homelessness and they had two messy and weedy yards in different locations which were in need of some Goodgym TLC.

Run Leader Helena took the warm up tonight and coped admirably with the unexpected situation of our lovely warm up space having been commandeered by Club Tropicana in preparation for this weekend’s Pride celebrations! On offering the group the options of going long with Helena or short with Tara there was pretty much an even split and those going long headed off to Hove for a 7.5km round trip to BHT Archways project which provides accommodation for people with mental health support needs. By all accounts the task was a great success and the weedy, messy yard was quickly transformed into a neat and tidy one. Gilles did some watering of the hanging baskets, Will pulled up a bush and exposed a gang of snails and no less than 4 bin bags of weeds were pulled up. Great work!

Closer to home those choosing the shorter option had a 3.5km round trip to BHTs Phase One project which is a high support hostel providing accommodation for single, homeless men and women many of whom are dealing with alcohol and substance misuse. We set to work sweeping, weeding and tidying their basement yards and even had time to give the windows a wash. Half an hour later and the yards were transformed. There was even talk of getting some scaffolding put up and doing the whole building!

We had some time to head to Hove Lawns for a fitness session where we worked on our core with a side plank Tabata (20 sec work, 10 sec rest x 8) followed by an ingenious partner workout where partner A holds a plank, thus working on core, whilst partner B, jumps over their legs and gets a great plyometric workout. Just as the group were reaching peak plank they were saved from further planking by the arrival of the long runners from Hove and we all joined up together for the last kilometre back to base.

Sadly no new runners tonight. If you're thinking of coming down, don't be shy, we're very welcoming, I think you'll like us!

Don't forget next week is our first social so we will be staying behind at our fabulous host venue YHA for a drink or 2. Until then Keep On Running!

In at the deep end

Well you might think so, but certainly not for 15 runners in Bath this evening and they took the 4k run to Cleveland Pools in their stride. Find out more about this amazing place and see how you can help with getting it reopened http://www.clevelandpools.org.uk/ and at their heritage open weekends.

The task tonight was Pollarding

Hmmm!! What might that be? I hear you say, well it's a method of pruning shrubs and trees to keeping them smaller than they would naturally grow along the riverbank. This prevents them from getting too big and slipping into the river itself.

Welcome to Danielle

Joining the Goodgym Bath crew tonight.

Congratulations to David from GG Bristol on his 100th Good deed this evening... Three cheers ...Hip...Hip..Hip..Hooray!!

Nice to have David joining us from Goodgym Bristol and Sarah our very own coach run queen along.

A beautiful summer evening so the obvious choice of route along the canal path to the Heritage pools. A treat for some of tonight's group who are visiting for the first time.

On arrival Sally our host gave a brief insight into the pools history before arming team Goodgym with the tools for the job. One group took on the pollarding task, whilst the others tackled the weeds in and around the children's pool.

Tim proved to be a master at pollarding showing an artistic style and Danielle got stuck into the pool weeds showing she wasn't out of her depth on this job.

Lucy found tiny frogs, she seems to attract them wherever we go.

35 minutes in total on the task

One very happy host and 15 satisfied runners = A Win Win situation.

Time flies when your having fun and that was certainly the case tonight with just enough time to catch that snap before heading back to the leisure centre.

Thanks to Mary for back marking and to Sally for tonight's pun which was a winner with the ladies.

And we’re off! Brighton Goodgym has launched! What a night! What weather! What a task! What a great bunch of Goodgymers! What a lot of exclamation marks!!

So much to talk about where to begin? Let’s try the beginning.

As I arrived at our fantastic start location of YHA hostel I immediately spotted a red Gooodgym t-shirt. Deb from Bristol was continuing her tour of south coast GG’s having visited Worthing along the coast the previous evening. Thank you Deb for kindly offering to stand outside and welcome runners into the fold.

At 6.30pm we stepped out to the Old Steine for intros and warm up. Nigel Levine (Team GB 400m runner, proper, proper speedy!) came down with Team Personal Best to tell us how flippin’ tough and awesome we all were for turning up in such challenging conditions. I concur!

Group photos and a warm up round the fountain complete we set off along the seafront for our 3km run to the task. It was great to see so many red t-shirts on display. I spoke to a few of you who had previously been Goodgym members in other areas but having made the very sensible decision to move to Brighton, had been left without your Goodgym fix. The wait is over. We’re here. Thanks for your patience.

There were also many of you doing your first ever Goodgym so a very warm welcome to you all. If you would like a dashing, red t-shirt to let the world know what an amazing movement you are part of, then all you have to do is become a member and its all yours!

As we ran along the lower promenade the group became more strung out with Dom from Croydon doing a fine job of back marking and Run Leader Helena working the mid section. We reconnected by giving the speedier runners some sprints up the ramps on the seafront, some squats at the Peace Statue and some tricep dips on the seats in front of the i-360. After 3km we were pretty soaked through from all the rain, but happy and energised and keen to get the Doing Good going.

On arrival at The Brighthelm Centre volunteer co-ordinator Jacob and his team of volunteer gardeners explained the task ahead. In order to transform the pre-school garden we were split into teams with different tasks. Team Turf had the task of digging up the turf to make the pathway to what would become the wood chip seating area. The turf was put into wheelbarrows and taken away by Team Wheelbarrow. Team Membrane started laying the weed proof membrane over the ground and then moved on to lay it on the path area cleared by Team Turf. Team Woodchip were moving the, you've guessed it, wood chip to the garden area for laying on top of the membrane. There was also a Team Flower Bed and a Team Litter Pick working in the larger garden.

Once the turf path was clear a few of you were without a job and the litter pickers were getting chilly in the torrential rain so we did a little session on running technique focussing on efficient arm drive. We worked on not crossing our arms in front of our mid line, keeping our shoulders still and moving our thumbs from hip to lip. After running a few lengths of the garden where you all displayed awesome arm drive we did a little workout to celebrate the date of the momentous occasion of Brighton Goodgym launch. 11th July 2017 (11/07/17) was marked by completing as many rounds as possible of 11 Squats, 7 Bench Press Ups and 17 Jumping Jacks in the given time.

Back in the fenced pre-school garden fantastic progress had been made but it needed one last push to get the last of the membrane laid on the path and the wood chip spread out on top. The final task was to lay the rings of tree trunks with planks on top that will be the seats for the children. And with seconds to spare before our time limit the task was complete. What a transformation! Jacob and his team were absolutely delighted and couldn’t believe that we’d got the job done so quickly and in such challenging conditions. They are a very small team of volunteer gardeners working for just half a day a week so to get a task like this complete would have taken them several weeks. We did it in half an hour!

It was all downhill from there as we ran the final kilometre back to base, running through the picturesque Pavilion Gardens. Brighton really does have some amazing spaces to run in, we shall be exploring many more of them in the coming weeks.

So a huge thank you to all of you for coming tonight. After weeks of dry weather we had the rainiest evening in months for our launch but you didn’t let it phase you and you got out there, keeping yourselves fit and Doing Good. Feel proud, you were fantastic!