Tonight was all about teamwork with partner based warm ups and partner circuits as the main fitness session, and there was also some great tag team litter picking

A very clear and cold night (for once it wasn't raining on a Monday - Hurrah) so we set off for a gentle warm up run straight away. Keeping moving we incorporated a few drills before buddying up for a few dynamic stretch and balance sets.

Continuing on our run we took in Bishops Hill (twice) and Devonshire Road (Hill) ......oh how we smiled as we enjoyed the energy sapping strength training that hills provide!.

Arriving at my strategically located car litter picking equipment was handed out and we headed for an area between Suffolk College and Alexandra Park close to one our regular task venues of Brickmakers Wood. The long lane has some high fencing on either side, which ended up providing the entertainment and some additional teamwork for the evening as items of rubbish on the "wrong" side of the fence were collected and passed between litter pickers and over the fence like a very cheap version the fairground "grabber" game.

At this point tonight's report title was sealed with the comment:

"We need a longer one"......purely in reference to the length of our litter picking sticks!

The most spectacular item of this particular challenge was a large bucket being passed upwards and over the fence by a crack team of "pickers".

The end of the lane led nicely into the floodlit college grounds for the main fitness session of partner circuits including shuttle relays and some amusing back to back squats and plank tap tag.

There were lots of laughs ......didn't hear that on Bishops Hill and determined effort before we retraced our tracks back to the car to deposit the litter kit and complete a chilly evening with a downhill jog back to base.

I thought we were going to miss the worst of the weather tonight - I was wrong!

Arriving at our University meeting point it was a bit windy but dry and not too cold. It was lovely to see some "nearly new" faces in Jo and Laura, both of whom hadn't been to a Goodgym run for a while - welcome back!

During our warm up it began the rain began to fall... and as we set off the wind seemed to increase in strength - not the ideal weather for a task of delivering around 500 flyers on behalf of the British Heart Foundation. The flyers were promoting their furniture and electrical shop and aimed at increasing donations to the stock.

We had a designated residential areas to cover within a 1- 1.5 mile radius of the shop. We split into groups - one covering the border of the roughly "oval" shape on our map; the other covering all the roads in the middle. By the time we all met back at the starting point it was raining hard but super work meant the majority of the flyers were in people's letter boxes.

We moved across to a second area nearer the shop itself and again covered a myraid of streets in quick time. The advantage of this task is that everyone keeps moving and avoids getting too cold.

With only a handful of flyers left we headed to the floodlit car park in Portman Road for a brief but intense interval relay session before heading back to base.

Fabulous effort in trying conditions from everyone. We started with 500 flyers and had just 42 left over - hopefully our "first class" deliveries will help increase furniture and electrical stock donations to the shop.

Don't forget this Saturday's additional "Starter Session" meeting after Ipswich parkrun in Christchurch Park. Hope to see lots of you there. Come along early and enjoy a parkrun beforehand - there will be lots of us doing the same!

At last a Monday evening with sunshine! What a treat to start and finish tonight's group run in daylight

We had a 2.5 mile run to get to the Castle Hill Community Centre. We have visited the centre several times during the winter to carry out painting tasks but this was our first outdoor task there.

We were met in the car park by Garath and directed to a massively overgrown corner full of bushes (which had morphed into a small forest of trees with huge trunks) and ivy everywhere. They needed the area cleared as the overgrowing bushes, were damaging an external wall and to re-landscape the area.

With limited tools available - 2 saws, 1 pair of loppers and a broom - this was going to be tough task. However everyone got stuck in immediately and within minutes a small skip was full to the brim with Clive jumping on the top to flatten it down.

Some real headway was made with some incisive sawing taking out huge swathes of bushes, branches and mangled roots. Tom managed to get swallowed by some of the bushes as he tried to lever out a particularly stubborn trunk / root.

The skip was now rammed and a growing pile of swan branches and chopped weeds and ivy was amassing on the ground.

Eventually we had to call a halt as time ran out but we'd made a massive impact in clearing most of the area.

The return leg of the run incorporated some train sprints and Steve led us home via his shortcut from last week.

This report can't end without reference to Kerry's story of arriving at Goodgym this evening - he ran from home down to the waterfront

While waiting the inevitable hour or two for the lights to change I thought to myself “that’s strange: I can’t see any runners in the building”. Maybe I was later than I thought, and everyone had already set off? No, looking at my watch I could see it was only 29 minutes past …… five. I’d fallen short in my little hand reading skills, and set off an hour early. Nothing for it to loop back home, sit down for half an hour, then run all the way back down again.

Brilliantly funny but also top dedication to run home and back again to meet us an hour later.

Tonight took us on a 3.2km each way run to a local independent charity shop to do some weeding and general tidying up around the grounds of it.

A big occasion this week as 5 of our runners were taking part in their 10th GoodGym Norwich group run. So a big shout out to Robert, Samantha, Catherine, Katy and Carl. A fantastic achievement considering we're only on our 15th run!

Catherine had asked me to give everyone a "chocolate finger" when we got back to say thanks.

Bill volunteered to be back runner this week and Simon has the most amazing Head Torch known to man, although it dazed me for about 5 minutes!

Dan Harris has now completed his Leadership in Running Fitness training as well as his GoodGym Run Leader training - I'll explain more in this week's fitness email. To mark this occasion Dan sported an amazing Xmas Light outfit for tonight's run #legend... check out the photos of Rudolph.

On arrival, Hilary gave me a quick overview of what needed doing and everyone got involved straight away as they always do. Simon, Michelle and Catherine took me up on the offer of trimming the bush as it had overgrown.

It was such a thorough task, not a weed left in sight! I'm not sure if Katy standing in the garden waste bin to flatten it would have passed my Risk Assessment haha.

After a group picture we headed back to The Forum with a few fun activities on the way back. The 1st was a wall sit competition to see who could hold it the longest. It got down to Tim and Dan left... with the latter being crowned the champion. The strain on Rob Riley's face will never be forgotten though!

Further along the journey back we stopped for a pairs strength showdown to see who was the strongest. It included a pushing and pulling contest.

Another great turnout and you can sign up to next week's run here.