That’s right, our leader, our captain, the sultan, the grand pupa Steven Hitch abandoned us to go sun himself – and on our 50th run too! Thankfully the gracious and glorious Paul Evans stood in for Steve. Paul Evans, winner of the 1991 Lisbon Half Marathon, the 1996 Chicago Marathon and 10k finalist in the 1992 Olympics – we’re looking into making this swap slightly more permanent

Our intrepid runners gathered excitedly on the steps of The Forum. Eagerly awaiting Paul’s arrival. What would he be like? Would he bring his medals? Could he run on water? And how were we going to work his AND Steve’s name into a pun worthy of a Goodgym run report title?! (We smashed the last one, thanks Hayley and Liz)

Paul soon arrived and settled everyone into a warm up. After some stretches with an Olympian, a half-cut punk and 32 Goodgym runners we were ready to call this a weird joke and go home. Instead Paul handed off the responsibility of leading the run to Sarah and Calum, very sneaky Mr Olympian. There was immediate concern. Calum has often led Goodgymers astray in past runs – and not even in a humorous way, in a “Where is Calum and his 5 runners?” way. Still we all had faith in Paul’s decision, and no-one else wanted to set the pace for the night.

After multiple ‘almost wrong turns’, a dozen ‘not that way Calum’s’ and a few ‘Grab him before he runs to Ipswich’ the runners arrived at the base of Gas Hill. Now, the runners have faced this specific challenge many a time in the past. They were familiar with the deceptively devilish slope. But in their prolonged absence from the eye-watering incline of Gas Hill this once surmountable task had developed into nothing less than a behemoth. It was a colossus of gradients, the master of calf bursting, one hell of a mole hill. They set off.

ALL MADE THE PEAK!! They celebrated with high fives and “whooping”. Some whispered they heard Paul even say “That’s quite the hill” but that’s just rumour and hearsay. Soon our sweaty travellers arrived at their set task. De-weeding Marion Road Day Centre’s garden. Ploughing into the challenge our runners pulled, tugged and trimmed to their hearts content.

The task wasn’t without its mishaps. One young man was sitting, enwrapped in his task. He and his gardening fork are united in uprooting the befouling weeds before them. The rise and fall of his tool is rhythmic. Sweat and focus cover his face. Until, tragedy. The Fork has broken. The middle tooth lost in the wilderness of the garden. Oh for fork-sake. Despite this set back the team make the garden beautiful. And by a happy accident they end up collecting an extra runner from somewhere.* Wonder of wonders they’ve hit 33 and broken their record for highest attendance in Goodgym Norwich history!

The task completed, and Day centre staff elated, our runners head back to The Forum. A sprint session finished off the night’s 3.5km run. Some say a more punctual run has never been had. Others, that Sarah and Calum’s leadership was simultaneously inspirational and uplifting. Still all you need know is everyone arrived back safely. Stretched. Thanked Paul for his kind service to the cause and then ate some brownies supplied by Jasmine. Alas! Here our tale does end. Before I leave you to wait another week to hear of our next exciting exploits I shall leave you with this. You have brains in your head and feet in your shoes, you can run your life in any direction you choose. Until next time folks!

(*Actually it was Emily who joined us at the task!)

Another fantastic turnout this evening for GoodGym Norwich.

A big welcome to new runners Lucy, Millie & Katy

A massive congratulations to Bill for doing his 10th Group Run!

This week Katy was our back runner

Tonight's task was a marine litter pick around the Riverside Road area. It was a nice 1.6km distance each way.

On arrival we were greeted by Lottie who is from Keep Britain Tidy's River Care team. She had all the kit we needed and I put everyone in groups and set them on their ways.

Catherine & Samantha found a couple of frogs while on their adventure, with the former being concerned she was disturbing them mating.

I did take a photo of one of the frogs but it didn't come out very well (not a photo of them mating obviously!).

The team covered a big area this evening but for some reason it was actually quite clean already so there wasn't a huge amount of litter to be collected.

Once we finished we regrouped on Bishops Gate Bridge to return the equipment to Lottie.

It was then quite handy that Gas Hill was right opposite us :-) so the challenge was for everyone to make it to the top of Norwich's notorious peak, whether they ran or walked... and everyone made it so no-one peaked too soon (always a good thing).

After a recovery back down Gas Hill, we headed back towards The Forum. 1st stop was for the sprint challenge on Gentleman's Walk. 2nd stop was a little fitness session outside The Forum. This included 3 rounds of push-ups on each step then box jumps on each step. For anyone that wanted to I gave them an option of doing the Wheelbarrow up the steps, which Alex managed to do while 'twerking' at the same time.

Next week's run takes us to Joseph's Other Coat Charity Shop.

Hang onto your leaves -No sign of hurricane Maria in Worthing

On a calm and brightish (?! ) evening in Sunny Worthing 6 trusty GoodGym runners met at Spalshpoint Lesiure Centre for a (not so quick) catch up on weekly news and general chat. We almost forgot about the running and task ahead :)

It was lovely to welcome Sue (https://www.goodgym.org/runners/sue-c2e8c2a1-bcc6-48f6-ac03-ab9b55ab6a66) back proudly wearing her new GoodGym tee shirt with the additional super power of the the additional logo on the back. It looked so good that we ( well I ) all have t shirt envy now.

Brownies and fish and chips

The group headed off for a warm up around the pier and found a food theme going on. A group of girl brownies were enjoying a delightful dinner of fish and chips. What a typically lovely seaside scene that was!

Ranger of the lost park

Food forgotten it was time to arrive at the seafront Denton gardens for part 2 of the tidy up on the east bed just next to the mini golf. A warm welcome awaited us from our park ranger Keith who was , as ever , raring to get started and experience yet more 'pun fun'

Power ranger and his A team

Once again the team worked hard under the careful supervsion and wit and humour of Keith next to the golf . Gill managed to improvise another tool to work with. Sue was far from weedy pulling out some monsters ! Beth found a power ball to assist her ranging .Nick went crazy when he found an orange golf ball and Belinda was spotted warming up her bicep muscles in preparation for our Good Gym social next Monday by raising a discarded bottle of cider- organically sourced but not gluten free !

We didn't realise that we were making memories - we just knew we were having fun

The group headed off for a speed of light trip down memory lane revisiting and remembering previous tasks. There was anchor gardens ( not a dolphin to be seen ) Windsor lawns ( quite a royal feeling ) the residents garden ( the rockery and rolling task ) and Teville gate ( Now you see it soon you won't )

Fitness Spirit

With our new '' team buddy '' leader and GoodGym time traveller ,Beth, the runners did some great sprint efforts with every step working towards achieving their individual goals.

The stars were out

A lovely stretch and chat back at Splashpoint Leisure Centre completed another Monday night for GoodGym Worthing

Next week we will be finshing our task and run with a visit to The Egremont pub situated just near Splashpoint at 32 Brighton road , BN11 3ED . This will be an informal ,fun ( and possibly pun finder ) hour where we welcome any current , past or potential GoodGym members and non members and their friends.

Have a great week everyone

Julia :)

Tonight we had our 1st indoor task at GoodGym Norwich and it was a very special one as we were heading to the Norwich Food Bank to date sort items.

Another fantastic turn out again and a big welcome to new runners Elizabeth, Tim, Poppy, Sophia, Graham, Tom & Calum. Although it was your 1st GoodGym experience, it felt like you settled in straight away and a big thank you to the other runners for making you feel at home.

Those of us that were able to make it to Catton Parkrun on Saturday bragged about our amazing breakfast at Cafe Brittania.

Dan decided to run in jeans this evening #lad and apparently my running bottoms caused a few topics to discuss... oops!

Laura and Carl were devoted back runners.

Simon had his docs checked so he can be DBS verified to go on our Coach and Mission runs.

It was nice route of just over 2 miles to The Norwich Foodbank, which saw us running down Grapes Hill (so yes it meant we had to run back up it at the end) and up the start of Bowthorpe Road... plus a few push-ups along the way.

We arrived at the task and was greeted by Pat who talked a little about what The Norwich Foodbank does and then explained what needed doing.

The GoodGym-ers split into 2 groups and one were date sorting beans and the other date sorting soup... it was like a Soup vs Bean war.

As I was going round doing a live Facebook feed and trying not to wind people up haha, Pat and myself were amazed how quickly everyone was working, so much that Pat had to find other food items for them to sort. In fact everyone did a great job that after about 25 minutes or so there was nothing left to sort!

Bill then tried to negotiate if he could donate some of his ever growing fresh produce (vegetables) to the organisation.

So we then headed back to The Forum with a mixed paced run back with a couple of re grouping spots. The stretch of Dereham Road I let the group loose and go at their own speed. Then it was tackling Grapes Hill again, which everyone smashed.

This week, Bill & Katy had some French beans and peppers to dish out to the group - it really is kind of you.

I think upon reflection of the task we did tonight, it does make you realise how fortunate a lot of us are to have food on the table, especially when Pat explained the situation of some people that is completely out of their control.

Please sign up to next week's task.

On a breezy late summers evening in not so sunny Worthing 7 runners set off for a warm up run to and around the pier before arriving just opposite Anchor Gardens for a ground force style garden makeover in double quick time.

Weeding around the bush

In a digging weeding and pruning frenzy of activity we found a plethora of hidden rocks, gems, gnomes and other buried treasure .It always amazes me just how much work a small and committed GoodGym team can achieve in a such a short amount of time and tonight was no exception.

Makeover makes perfect

Duncan got stuck into the digging describing his Go Ape adventure over the weekend but there was no monkeying around this evening !

Michelle applied some brute force on some stubborn remains of a tree as well as hands and knees weeding with our host Chrystabell .

Flowerbeds transformed from weed ridden to freshly dug over soft earth. Nick did some fine pruning on the evergreen bush known as 'Lemon Cypress Wilma' and even managed to provide Belinda with a shower of green highlights to compliment her recent haircut ( She almost got an extra trim ! )

Gill didn't need to make a besom ( broom ) this week so instead attacked the ivy with the same energy as she does bindweed with an impressive few bags of results.

Beth seemed to be keeping a low 'rafael ' this evening with intricate weeding thinly disguising some mobile tennis action :) However her GG superpowers are steadily growing.....

Efforts make us fitter

With some very happy faces and humble thanks we waved goodbye and headed off on another shortish run to Homefield Park for the fitness session centered around the outdoor gym.

This proved fast and fun with tag teams alternating with sprints around the park and circuits on the equipment. As the efforts on the running got harder I did observe that the seated options on the machines appeared to be particularly popular.

Some chin up strength work completed the fitness element before the group split into 2 for the run back to base and stretches.

Fun times ahead

We finished off with some planning for a GoodGym social. Watch this space for more details coming soon .

Thanks so much for your hard work and dedication team . Tonight was the complete essence of a good deed.

Julia :)

Tonight we welcomed Good Gym Ipswich Trainer Ian who was leading the session in preparation for their launch next Monday.

There was me thinking I'd get the night off but everyone else was like "you can join in tonight then".

We had 2 new runners so Richard and Henry were welcomed to the group.

Ian continued with the rest of the intro and then took us through a warm-up.

Catherine, Samantha and Michelle chose to be back runners.

We then headed off to Sprowston Community Hub, which consisted of a nice 5km+ run in 28 degress heat.

A couple of regrouping occasions on the way saw us doing some wall push-ups... and yes I did join in that too :-)

Once we arrived at the the hub, Task Owner Mike talked through what jobs he had for us, which were 1) Sawing off branches from the Leylandii 2) Shovelling soil into wheelbarrows to unload on flower beds 3) Hoeing the soil on the flower beds.

Everyone split into different groups for the task with Laura being the only hoe-er... there was only one hoe to use.

Ian set the task time for 30 minutes and everyone got hard at work.

It was definitely an evening for Innuendos but I won't go into that!

After 30 minutes of hard work, we collected the tools in, Katy handed out biscuits to everyone and we got ready for the journey back.

Just before we got to The Forum we finished the session with a 100-meter (or so) sprint up Gentleman's Walk.

A massive thanks to Ian for coming along and leading the session and I'm sure he'll make GoodGym very successful in Ipswich.

You can sign up to our next week's run here.