Happy Pancake Day

What is your favorite things to have with your pancake? As we did our headcount, each runner shared with the group what their favorite topping was to accompany their pancake. Stuart loves to have spicy beans with his pancake, whereas I like blueberries and cream... nom nom nom! Lowri even made pancakes for the run this week, using her grandmother's secret recipe! The feedback was unanimously positive - Diolch yn fawr Lowri.

Achievements

• Mikey reached 250 good deeds - soon he will be getting a GoodGym knighthood. It's super tough to keep up with all of these milestones.
• Lucy, Ellen, Emma, Darren, Nathan and Martin all ran half marathons on the weekend. Some of them are still recovering. We are so proud of you all.
• On the weekend there was a community mission cleanup in Bute Park - There was an overwhelming positive response from the Cardiff community who are all super impressed with our efforts. Read about it here

Let's get our run on

This evening, Ellen led the walk running group, Ben led those wanting a more relaxed pace and Darren led the speedy runners!

We've arrived

Lorraine greeted us with a warm welcome. She invited us in for a drink of water to rehydrate and after a couple of minutes then brought us into the hall area. Lorraine told us that the centre is currently celebrating the Tibetan New Year, also known as Lhochhar. Lorraine facilitated a 5 minute mindfulness practice with the group.

Our tasks this evening included:

• Weeding
• Painting the doors of the flats
• Painting the banisters in the building
• Hoovering the steps
• Planting Strawberry Plants

We managed to do all of the above within 30 minutes - Lorraine and Yin were both super impressed!

Memorable moments during tonight's task:

• I have this horn that I occasionally use for fitness exercises at GoodGym. Whilst in conversation with Lorraine the horn fell out of my pocket and onto the floor, Lorraine said "What on earth is that?" to which I replied in a manner that tried to normalize the situation "It's my horn."
• Sue's legs dangling from the attic... and I set Lorraine the challenge of identifying who's legs they were
• Do you have another memorable moment from the run? Write it in the comments below!

It's time to head back

As much as we love helping at Samye, we can't stay there all night (However they do have 2 vacant flats at the moment).

After the run we went for drinkypoos at the Glassworks.

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2020 Tweet Off

Marie has upped her game and scored another point by retweeting first this week.

• MJ - 4
• MOH - 4
• Razzle Dazzle - 1

RunPunStiltskin award

This week Imy and Marie collaboratively came up with the pun for the run! Wooppeee. Well done. A point to each of you!

• BA - 4
• MO- 1
• IH - 1
• EW - 2
• AS - 3
• MG - 1
• GD -1

All hail GoodGym Cardiff

Being prepared is about expecting the unexpected. And today, unexpectedly, the unexpected that we expected happened, Unfortunately the YMCA couldn't have us help there this evening.

Let's get warmed up

Runners ran up and down the street outside Big Moose, touching the wall by Trespass and then Prince Harry. Runners then did butt kicks, high knees and some old style 90's dance moves to get warmed up.

We run as one!

We headed to the Samye Foundation as a group, Ben led the way and Emma backmarked. Seconds after we started running it started hailing.

The good deeds this week

This week Mikey and Welsh Dave were leading plogs. 'Litter'ally the best people for the job! Ben looked after the runners helping at the Samye Foundation.

A message from Lorraine

Unfortunately Lorraine couldn't be at the Samye Foundation this evening to give us our tasks, however Lorraine had wrote out a list of tasks for us to complete. There is a picture of the tasks she had for us in the slide show above. Unfortunately, due to mother nature, we were unable to do much of the painting tasks.

Our tasks this evening included:

• Hoovering the office and stairwell in the first building
• Installing tarpaulin on the shed in the back garden
• Weeding
• Tidying the side of the building and more!

Whilst some of the walkers/runners were doing this at Mindfulness centre, Mikey and Welsh Dave both set off leading 2 separate groups to litterpick the streets of Riverside and Pontcanna. They managed to collect over 5 bags of litter combined - What a superb effort!

That's a wrap!

After helping out for 25 minutes the time had come for us to run off and back to Big Moose. After arriving back the time had come to warm back.

After the run, as per usual, walkers/runners headed to the Glassworks pubs for drinkypoos.

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2020 Tweet Off

WAHOO! Megan you have won the tweet off FOUR consecutive times and are extending your lead. Marie is going to have to up her game. It looks like we are going to have a new winner this year!

• MJ - 4
• MOH - 2
• Razzle Dazzle - 1

RunPunStiltskin award

Woopahhhhhh Ben,yes that's me, came up with the pun for the run this week!

• BA - 3
• EW - 2
• AS - 2
• GD -1

What a turnout, 40 runners came to GoodGym this evening and for 7 runners it was their first time ever GoodGym run! It's amazing that nearly the whole population of Cardiff came tonight, okay, not literally, it was actually 0.011% of Cardiff's population, however that is a good number and the most we've had to date.

The new runners to GoodGym this week were: Rosey, Ben, Clare, Emma, Skye, Vicky, Lawrence and Lauren! It was ABSOLUTELY LOVELY to have you come along. I really hope you come again as you already feel part of the GoodGym family. I know we are quite a lively bunch and the warm up activities aren't the most 'serious' warm up drills, however I really believe it's important to have fun whilst we get fit and do good in our community!

Achievements

• A huge well done to our two red lace winners. Well done Sara and Alice! #LifesGoals. Alice and Sara both brought friends to GoodGym this week and therefore earned themselves a single red lace. It is a fact* that wearing a red lace makes you run faster.
• Adam, one of our lovely regular GoodGym runners has had a baby (Not Adam himself, but his wife) - Congratulations Adam x
• Awesome that some of you volunteered at junior parkrun on Sunday - You are helping the athletes of the future.

Warm up

To warm up before the evening's run we played 3 different games. We played the game 'Fish and Chips', 'Captains Coming' and 'Marmite, Digestive and Staycation or Vacation'.

Let's get our walk/run on

Mali led the walking group. She had a contingent of 4 walkers! Ellen led the more relaxed paced runners to the Tenovus Charity Shop. Ben led those runners who wanted to run a bit further this evening. They went plogging and leafletting.

*Welcome to the Tenovus Charity Shop *

As runners arrived to Tenovus, Carl explained the mission of the Tenovus Cancer Care charity. If you have cancer or you’re close to someone who has cancer, it can be frightening and stressful. Tenvous tries to help. They bring expert advice, emotional support and life-saving treatment to the heart of communities. They help cancer patients and their loved ones cope, and our their vital research gives hope.

After Carl explained about Tenovus charity and the tasks. 24 runners jumped into action and helped get the shop ready for spring. They sprung into action, steaming clothes and tagging them up ready to be hung out on the shop floor. Some of the runners helped to tidy up the racks of clothes, and dusted down the shelves. Others put price stickers on the cds, dvds and lps. We dressed mannequins and sorted sizes. Others looked like they were having story time around a pile of books - but they were just pricing them up 😀 All in all, they carried out tasks that would have taken the staff and volunteers all morning to do.

*Litter picking and leafleting runners *

9 bags of litter were collected in total in approximately 20 minutes! 4 streets were leafleted with flyers about GoodGym.

We then played Bring Sally up and Bring Sally Down - It's not something any of us will forget in a hurry.

Time to head back

After returning to Big Moose it was time to stretch out and reflect on the evening's run. Ben led the warm down and everyone clapped runners as they returned.

After the walk/run everyone headed to the Glassworks for post run drinkypoos.

2020 Tweet Off

WAHOO! Megan you have won the tweet off THREE consecutive times and have overtaken Marie. Marie will be nervous now. Lucy, last year's winner hasn't made the leaderboard yet - but there are still 11 months to go and a lot can happen between now and the end of the year.

• MJ - 3
• MOH - 2
• Razzle Dazzle - 1

RunPunStiltskin award

. Ding Ding Ding. Gareth came up with this weeks pun for the title of the run report - You, my friend, get a point!

• EW - 2
• BA - 2
• AS - 2

• GD -1

• May not actually be a fact