It was COLD today. Double deeds were on offer to those who came to both volunteer at parkrun and plant bulbs - and they were well earned!

With the last few admin tasks of parkrun still going on in the background, our volunteers and parkrunners gradually joined our new arrivals (welcome Jenny and Melissa)to help Hayley from Urban Buzz plant bulbs along the grass banks that border Eastville park.

The bulbs are intended to attract pollinators into the area when they flower later in the year and there were a lot of them to plant.

The planting area was on a slope leading down to the road so it was quite a challenge to cut slots that could accommodate the bulbs - although it has to be said that Hayley made it look easy! It should also look pretty amazing for everyone driving past when they all flower.

With frozen fingers, even the addition of Hayley's insulated work gloves did little to make the task of plunging the bulbs into the ground any easier but in true Goodgym spirit everyone stuck to the task and we managed in all to cover a 15m stretch of bank by the time we were finished - punctuated with a bit of running and a shin tap competition to try and regain some warmth.

Welcome back to Laura today and fantastic also to have Jay return after putting in a speedy parkrun earlier! Extra special congratulations to Deb on her 100th parkrun.

But the final words must be reserved for Sarah whocelebrated her good deed century on a coach run earlier in the week and who after a brisk run down through the park, donned the traditional Centurion outfit over a nice warm coffee

It was a warm and balmy night (or should that be barmy?) in Brizzle when 30 runners met to take on two tasks spanning the length of the city centre. After meeting and running through some warm ups we split into two teams. Dave's team headed to the Bedminster Patchwork Project to help tidy their South Street patch. My team we more inclined to go further and headed up to the Golden Hill Community Garden (or Golden Balls as I called it in the warm up) to promote their Harvest Fair on the 9th September.

Team Golden Balls

With my trusty back marker Nick team Golden Balls rolled through the streets and really shined when it came to tackling the hills. When we arrived at the community garden we were met by Clare. She gave us an introduction to the great work that the farm do offering people from all walks of life the opportunity to try their hand at gardening. To fundraise for their work they are having a Harvest Fair on Saturday 9th September. We will also be heading back their to help on the day too. We split into 5 groups, 4 flyering the nearby streets and 2 putting up posters to grab the attention of the passers by. Maps were handed out and instructions given before everyone took on the task. Due to long run their and back the time we had was short but that didn't seem tomato to these keen runner beans.

After 15 minutes most of the groups returned and were given a tour of the garden before we left. One group remained AWOL. Neil and Georgina were far too keen and wanted to put up all of the posters they could. Eventually we were all back together and ran back down the hill to Vivo for a stretch off.

The Patchwork Plummers

Dave's Patchwork Plummers fig-ured a shorter run would be a nice option. Taking a fine nine runners over to Bedminster we met up with the lovely Laura from the Patchwork Group, for the second week running, this time on South Street to help tidy up a small garden of land just on the approach to North Street.

Here we were greeted with a fig tree, plum tree, Fat Hen weeds and some bushes to trim plus some grass to cut. A pair of shears were in great demand with Petra tending to the grass, Guido tackling some weeds and Alice (combining shears and loppers, such a pro!) on bush duty.

Ed, Molly, Roanna (a combination of her mother and father's names apparently), Gulnara and Mel made a fine job of clearing the weeds and secateuring (?) the bushes, before we sampled the plums which in the main were a little sour for our liking but Petra seemed to enjoy them as she came back with a stash!

Our shorter run gave us more time on the task and so managed to leave the garden looking much nicer and neater than it had been when we arrived.

Massive well done to everyone who ran along tonight. It was warm, it was tough but you all delivered.

24 wonderful people met up on a beautiful May's evening for a jolly old run to the Northern Slopes, a nature reserve in (of course) South Bristol.

We met up at Vivo, and it was great to see a few new faces - big welcomes to you all!

Gary led the run to the Northern Slopes as this is his turf and he was excited about running up the 'steps of doom', which were at the end of our run. Sadly for Gary but happily for everyone else, the task was based at the bottom of the steps of doom as opposed to the top, so there was no doom to be had that day.

We met up with Julie and Len who dished out tools and also warnings about disturbing nesting birds, and set to cutting down brambles, sawing away at blackthorn bushes, litter picking, and for a few brave souls, wielding a scythe! To compliment our host of farmyard tools, there was a pitchfork about too. The whole gang dived in to the task, despite a few scratches and a little blood being spilled from the brambles - it was a good job I had my first aid kit.

The unexpected gift of tea, coffee, and biscuits brought the task to a halt, so we were a little later leaving than usual. Gary led the gang back to Queens Square where we had a good old stretch and cool down.

What a cold day - hail, snow and rain all preceded our run! 18 brave and hardy souls tackled the unseasonal cold snap and took on one of our longer runs, up to help both Bishop Road School with tree planting and also Golden Hill Allotments with flyering for their May Festival.

The run is effectively one long hill - not an easy one at times as it gets steep at points, but the gang took it on and arrived in good time. Grabbing gloves, spades and lots of tiny trees most of the team planted trees like their lives depended on it.

A gutsy subset took the leaflets and map provided, then pelted off to spread the world of Spring festivities.

We were lucky (as almost always) - not a drop of rain, flake of snow, or pellet of hail hit us at any point, however as it was chilly we headed off in good time and stretched a little faster than usual.

Wonderful stuff team!

Brrr! It was a bit nippy for tonight's run up to Bishop Road Primary School! We left Vivo Gym in a massive pack that slowly got thinned out on our longish and hilly-ish run up to the school - there were long periods of time where we just ran, no interruptions, no traffic lights, just our legs and our lungs working hard.

We arrived to find a MASSIVE pile of compost waiting for us, along with about 8 wheelbarrows, loads of spades, and some really friendly people who were parents of kids at the school - our mission was to shift as much mulch as we could in 30 minutes from the mountain of compost to the brand new flower beds that had been made to help the children learn about gardening. The race against time was ON, baby!!!

It got competative from the outset - how many barrow loads could a GoodGym runner shift? Well, we didn't count, but it was lots and lots.

After 30 minutes of frenzied digging and frenetic barrow pushing, we called time, had a quick group photo, and pelted back down Gloucester Road to Vivo where we ended with a great stretch and a few honourable mentions - thanks to Vicki for coming all the way from the Lambeth branch of GoodGym to run with us. The fact that she had a few days in Bath is by the by, it was GoodGym that she really came for!

Also LARGE MCHUGEBIG congratulations to Lisa for making this her 50th run. Hopefully your black t-shirt will be winging it's way to you soon!

Well done everyone!!!

Our first run of 2016 went off to a cracking start - with a bit of rain! But that didn't put off 29 willing and able runners from meeting at Vivo Gym and heading off both north and south of the city centre.

We split in to two groups, one to tackle a longer run with a bit of a hill in it to help out Incredible Edible with a spot of gardening. T'other headed south to Bedminster where we helped the Patchwork Project litter pick some of their sites.

The smaller group headed up a bit of a climb to meet up with Incredible Edible and prepare a garden for the spring. As they were weeding, they came across several leeks which they proudly ran back with.

The litter picking crew was not so lucky to find such wonderful veg, but each group of 4 people (and one of 3) got really stuck in to their work and cleared away of post Christmas and New Year's debris.

We met back up in Queens Square for our usual stretches and announcements about next week, and give kudos to Nick who came up with possibly what could be the best run pun/report title in 2016. We're going to have to work really hard to come up with such a fab play on words for our next pun!

A really massively huge big welcome to our newbies - Leslie, Vincent, Steph, Dave, James and Harry (apologies if a) you're not new and I have put you down as new or b) you are new and I didn't put you down!). Please keep coming back again and again, get to know your city with us as well as getting fitter and helping some great local community groups!