Fifteen runners attended tonights group run and we were still in the dark and drizzly rain!

We can't wait for the light evenings which seem a very, very distant memory!

Our usual warm up along the pedestrian area through the university in the drizzle to get the muscles warmed up. We headed out led by Joel and the tail was Rachel, a big mac(keown) sandwich! We took a different route to Moulsham Mill via the river and the Riverside Sports Centre.

Tonights task was to visit our friends at Interact and dig over the Vegetable beds getting them ready for planting. Breaking out the tools and wheelbarrows, two groups set about turning over the soil and pulling up weeds. After all the rain the soil looked in a fairly good condition and was easy to get into. Julie was working the soil with a hoe extremely expertly and it looked a work of art when she had finished.

Looks like we did a good job so hopefully the beds can now be planted up with a new season of vegetable. It was time to pack up and head back to the Uni. We took a longer way back via Victoria road and a photo call at "And So To Bed", the most inviting bed shop in Chelmsford, then onto Bunny Walk and an opportunity to do some lamp post sprints back to base.

Good luck to Isabelle for the Half Marathon in Victoria Park, London at the weekend.

It's celebration time at parkrun this week with "International Womens Day" being celebrated, a further bonus as it is "Chase the Pacer day" at Chelmsford parkrun, make sure you get there!

Happy running.

16 runners made a date of it leafletting Chelmer Village and Springfield

Hello everyone! My first GoodGym lead since the famed Halloween run report began with some superb Valentine's themed puns. It was a shame Doug couldn't make it tonight, as I know he is a huge fan. After everyone's laughter died down we took a photo, and definitely did a head count....

Rich warmed us up and we set off running up the bunny walks, past the prison and beyond Chelmer Village retail park. Loading everyone up with lots and lots of love, jelly babies and leaflets we headed off up Beeleigh Link. And then it all went perfectly to plan, with Russel C leading people wildly down Cusack Avenue (I took a photo of the street in case we had to do a missing persons report later) and we shot up the various roads trying to get furniture donations for BHF. After a brief moment of silence to remember those we lost, they turned up! From the top of there we headed to the pub, which our Endeavours deserved but sadly had a task to do so couldn't stop for a pint (that is for next week). We headed from there leafletting through Springfield to Simon's local, The Tulip, and back down to the river. We then did a Gerry special - lamppost sprints!

Everyone got a thorough workout and we headed back to ARU for some Valentine's chocolates and to polish off the jelly babies. Don't forget next Thursday is the February social - Chelmsford beer festival! We will be getting there at about 6pm and drinking it dry!

Thanks to everyone for coming, especially Kirk who was the only one who laughed at all of the jokes in the run briefing! I am just glad we made it back....

Fifteen runners attended tonights group run, this is a significant increase on previous weeks which must mean the summer holidays are closing down to a finish. Although, tonight was a very nice warm evening with late sunshine dappling our run out to our task. The task was to finish off painting at St Johns Church hall in Moulsham. Fourteen set off with some warm up exercises with Richard E leading off and Julie tail marking, before we knew it we arrived at the top of the high street and set off on two caterpillar of seven runners each, giving some amusement to the drinkers and eaters along the high street. As we reached the church hall our local 'Ironman' Rich W was waiting for us, Rich swam, cycled, ran in that order at the weekend in Copenhagen completing his first but not last, Ironman...well done Rich! Now we were fifteen! So we all got stuck into the task, broke open the paint and brushes. Joel and Charlotte scrambled up ladders and stood on the worktops to reach the high places. With rollers and paint brushes in hand short work was made in painting the kitchen Time to clean up and pack away was soon upon us, after locking the hall Richard E led us off into the park to do a short Pyramid session, as Rich W is on a recovery programme he had the honor of blowing the whistle for the session, 1-2-3-2-1 minute efforts with 30 second rest inbetween. Catherine & Jenny left at this point as they had run out of time. The girls, Laurie, Julie, Katie, Charlotte went clockwise around a 500m section of the park and the boys - Andy, Anton, James, David, Doug, Richard, Joel went anti-clockwise hi-fiving as they passed each other. Blowing the whistle wasn't too taxing for Rich and he coped admirably!

After the session finished, a quick photo call and then the run back to the University, we said goodbye to Anton, Charlotte, Joel & Doug (four) at the station, David, Laurie and Katie (three) at the Police Station. Which left Five of us on the last leg back to base.

It's all about the numbers!

On a lovely sunny July evening 13 goodgymers met at our base at ARU ready to do to some good around Chelmsford.

Tonight’s task was to spruce up the kitchen at the St Johns church hall.

After a catch-up chat and a quick head count, we set off down the high street with Adam leading the way. I had promised that we would be met by a special guest to open the hall for us and there were many guesses with my favourite being George Michael by Catherine. It was in fact Richard E who had been running with the whole time. Muhahaha

We soon got to work first sanding then wiping down the walls before giving them a good lick of paint. Within no time the majority of the kitchen had been given a good coat and it was time to wash up and head back.

Taking a slightly longer route back so we could enjoy Oaklands park we made our way back to ARU and stretched off chatting and enjoying the evening the whole time.

Next weeks task will be doing some litter picking with Gerry at Marconi ponds by central park.

Good luck to James G on doing his first triathlon this Saturday.

And finally, THANK YOU all for coming tonight. That job would have taken 1 person the best part of a day to complete and by coming they can now look to do other worthwhile things. So, on behalf of St Johns church, THANK YOU AGAIN.

And on that note,

Run Happy

Rich

This weeks group run saw 8 runners meet up at the Uni tonight. No particular news to talk about this week apart from Andy who went to Center Parcs in the Netherlands and had 35 deg weather! Sounds fantastic. We set off to the Broomfield allotments to our task tonight, a number of warm up exercises on the way, led off by Russell and tail marked by Katie. It's a shortish run to the allotments from the Uni so we arrived in good time to be met by Sue who had all the tools laid out for us ready. Our task was to dig over an allotment for an elderly couple so they can get on with some planting, luckily Julie brought along 4 and a half pairs of gloves!? Quickly into the task and soon we had the ground turned over and the tufts of grass picked out and set aside. Katie was asking lots of questions for her own allotment, she got lots of tips! Russell, Jennifer and Charlotte started to tackle another part of the allotment, out of interest there are about 100 beds in this area so plenty for us to help out with. Time to finish and put the tools away, then jogging back towards the Uni. I had planned a Fartlek session down the Avenues but decided last minute a "Circuit" fitness session would be good as Russell claimed not to know much about his core muscles, so time to find out! The boys (Russell, Paul, Andy) went running around a number trees, whilst the girls (Charlotte, Jennifer, Julie, Katie) started with sit-ups. On the whistle they swapped over and then it was Press-ups, Squats and a 1 minute Plank to finish off and swapping running at each set. Very impressed with Charlottes one armed press-ups! Hopefully Russell now knows where his core muscles are now. :) A jog along the bottom of the Avenues back to the Uni and a stretch down to finish off. All in all, a very nice group run and a task well done.

Hi All,

I thought the rain had stopped just in time for our run this week but the weather had different ideas but hey, who doesn’t love a run in the rain every now and then? Lol

This week’s run was in partnership with The Great Get Together which is an initiative setup by the family and friends of the late Jo Cox to reject divisive politics and bring communities together. So basically, keep being your lovely selves but if you want to promote this then use the #moreincommon on social media.

Our task was to go to Broomfield allotments and turn the earth over in a patch for an elderly person who wasn’t able to get out to do it. After a nice warm up in the rain we reached there and was greeted by Sue who supplied us with spades, forks, gloves and wheelbarrows to really get stuck in. As always this has to accompanied by some world class chatting and ranged from the new leisure centre (Riverside) as well as the new KFC vegan option, to Andy talking about how he put a fork through his foot when he was younger. To which everyone started being extra careful where they were digging.

With most of the patch turned over we took the tools back to the barn, quickly washing the hands and then on the road on our way back to base.

Tonight’s session was along the avenues which we started at 4th avenue and worked our way back down to 1st. With the avenues being on an incline its perfect for some hill sessions and to make the most of them I thought maybe a slightly more advanced session could work.

So, we did some Kenyan Hills. Starting at the bottom of 4th Avenue I asked the group to run up (really pushing it) but not to concentrate on speed but to think about keeping tall, swinging their arms and getting their heart rate up. We regrouped at the top and then used going down 3rd avenue as an active recovery, with the emphasis on bringing the heart rate down before pushing hard again up 2nd and then recover down 1st. Everyone was fantastic and really pushed it, so a big WELL DONE. You can now brag to all your friends that you did a Kenyan Hills session last night. ;-P

Quick jog back to the gym and we stretched off and chatted about our weekend coming up. On that note Kids Inspire are having an open volunteer’s day this Saturday where they are needing people to come down and help out. Please check the website for more details

Thanks for coming tonight guys and putting in the hard work. See you soon

Run Happy

Rich

p.s. you just did a Kenyan Hills session ;-P

A late cancellation of the booked task meant a quick re-think of what to do on the group run, so a litter pick it was!

This means we could do a longer fitness session!

We welcomed Tim to his first group run and hope that he enjoyed it, even the pyramids I hope!

Birthday wishes were given to Laurie for her recent birthday. I mentioned our recent local race Baddow 10 and announced our next local race will be the Chelmsford 10k in November, on-line booking should be available soon.

Well done to Rich for his 100 mile bike ride at the weekend.

I spoke about the changes to the Goodgym Missions and the process going forward to do these.

Time to head off to the park with a warm up session along the pedestrian zone from the Uni and a jog to the dreaded traffic lights by the Police Station, the advance runners got across straight away but the rest of us had to wait the three changes of lights. Into the park to collect the litter picking equipment which was shared out. We tackled the childrens playground with Julie managing to find a trampoline to bounce on! Then we covered the main pedestrian path to the station and picked up quite a bit of litter there, this is an area we cleared about a month ago.

The fitness session beckoned in the park and an offer of two were voted on, Pyramids or a 2km handicap and the Pyramid got voted in!

Everyone did extremely well on the 1-2-3-4-3-2-1 minutes with a minute break in-between, great effort all around.

After a recovewrey rest we then headed back to the Uni dropping off runners along the way to their various homes.

A warm spring evening saw 13 wonderful people meet in our usual place at the ARU gym ready to do some good and get fit while doing so. Before I start want to say a huge HELLO and WELCOME to Olivia and Katie on coming to their very first Goodgym run. Hopefully it’ll be the first of many. Also welcome back to Hannah. Looks like we didn’t scare you off last week ;-P

At the pre run brief we chatted about last week social where we went to a local all you can eat pizzeria ( Moto pizza ) and how lovely it was… If you speak to anyone that went ask them about PINEAPPLE and what colour Russell will paint his hallway. ( sorry Russell ).

After our customary warm up we set off towards one of our favourite places to visit ,InterAct. Where we would be continuing from where we left off last week. With David leading out and Catherine back marking we ran and chatted our way through Chelmsford high street until we reach InterAct with the wonderful Susie waiting to greet us.

Then it was on to the task….. Tonight we were continuing painting the fence at the front of the cottage but also to start sanding down some poles they want to repaint and then tie a canopy over to make a covered area in the patio.

We all gloved up to protect out beautiful soft fingers from the paint and then spit into small groups and started slapping it on. With Adam and Hannah starting on the panel closest to the edge, Catherine and Joseph next along , with newbies Olivia and Katie absolutely smashing it with the gang of JamesG Anton and Russell finishing it off. With Laurie putting the final touches inside of the fence all was going well.

As the awesome painting was going on David and Gerry had the sandpaper in hand and were making light work of the metal poles. Although David seemed to want to dance more around it ( Laurie you may want to have a conversation with him ) .

Time flew by and before we knew it it was time to leave. So we collected paint brushes , put the lids back on the paint, ate our biscuits ;-) took a group photo and set off. With Gerry taking a group for a longer run and I taking a shorter route back we both arrived at the ARU gym at almost the same time. #winning

We stretched off and discussed our plans for the weekend. GOOD LUCK to Gerry this weekend at the LONDON MARATHON I'm sure you'll have a great time

Thank you for coming and hope to see you all next week

and remember to run happy

Rich