26 GoodGym runners came out in force this evening to run from Yr Hen Llyfrgell to St Monica's Primary School to help garden, sand and remove old paint from the fences

1 year on and GoodGym Cardiff is still going strong! Who would have imagined that it would have grown to be what it is today? We all met at Yr Hen Lyfrgell - The amazing venue that has been hosting us every Tuesday evening on a weekly basis since Tuesday 23rd May 2017 on our very first run. Once it was 6.30pm we headed outside. Ben gave a brief overview of the nights exciting events and then Councilor Susan Elsmore acknowledged the success of GoodGym Cardiff, reflecting on her meeting 3 years ago with the founder of GoodGym and recognising GoodGym as an amazing project that she wanted to be involved in bringing to Cardiff. Councilor Susan Elsmore also highlighted the different projects that the runners have helped in both Cardiff and the Vale and also reminded us of the memorable moments - Councilor Elsmore follows GoodGym Cardiff and Vale on Twitter so hears all about the good we do. A BIG thank you to Councilor Elsmore for coming down to GoodGym this evening.

Time to warm up, do our headcount and then get going -- but very quickly, what has been your favourite GoodGym moment to date?

It was then time to begin our run. We did our headcount and as per our usual standards, losing count and Ben almost missed out Ellen!!! - Oh BEN! Everyone stated their favourite GoodGym moment to date; Aimee mentioned about the GoodGym trip to Bath and wassailing. Lowri mentioned about the Snowdogathon and Angharad said that her favourite memory of GoodGym so far was running to her coach! We also welcomed Jenny who was running with GoodGym for the first time - WELCOME!! Tanya returned to GoodGym again this week after running with us for the first time last week and it was huge pleasure to welcome back Larry, who we have also missed greatly!

Time to run run runnnn!

We began our run to the task. It was a squat of fun and we did exercises which allowed the others to catch up. We also did Lunges, holding them until everyone got in the lunge position... which did mean there was some groans!

Welcome to St Monica's Primary School

Our Task organisers this evening were Abigail and Richard, the headteacher and deputy head respectively. They were both prepared for us with tasks and equipment at the ready! Richard led a group of Gardening enthusiasts to the school allotment known as 'The Table' and Abi orchestrated the other runners to sand outside benches and climbing equipment. Abi also allocated some runners to use wire brushes to clean old paint from the fences. Everything is always so organised which is fantastic! There we also biscuits and water too which everyone really appreciated.

Everyone worked hard at the task for 35 minutes. Darren had a couple of children throw some grass at him, however after some TLC from Ben he felt okay again to continue.

Stuart was quick to seize the opportunity to use the lawnmower, mowing the lawn and pretending he was Mow Farah and pretending he picked up the wrong bottle at drink stations.

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After completing the task we used the outside playground to play a game of 'Runner Runner come and get your PB'. This game is slightly different to British Bulldogs, and by that I mean not only does it have a different name as British Bulldogs which is a banned game at St Monica's Primary School, but other than tagging the person nobody gets spearhead tackled to the ground - phew!... Fortunately everyone heard the rules too and the game continued without incident.

"Thank you so much everyone - You've been incredible and you've made a massive difference in such a short space of time" Abi and Rich both said appreciative of our efforts

It was now time to run back, sadly, as we love helping out at St Monica's Primary School with Hollie filming us as we left. On the way back we did some planks and sprints which was unanimous good fun!

Again, a huge thank you to Councilor Susan Elsmore, Abigail, Rich and Hollie who all helped make the run tonight a success (Hollie was from the BBC and was doing some filming).

Get signed up to next week's run by clicking here!!

From me, a personal note to say thank you for everything you have done to make GoodGym Cardiff what it is today.

Tonight we welcomed Ben to the group for his first Goodgym experience and Andy, a good gym veteran of a whopping 46 Good Deeds who was visiting us whilst on a work trip to Brighton. We also welcomed back Rose who joined us for the first time since our epic launch back in July. A big well done to Rose who, during the run, told me about her triathlon at Southwater over the weekend. Awesome effort!

I shared the news during the speech, that earlier in the day I’d walked past the BHT task we did a few weeks ago in Oriental place and I was delighted to see they now have a planter full of flowers, so I think our tidying efforts there kick started a new found pride in their outdoor space!

After the speech and the warmup we headed up the big Dyke Road Hill to tonight’s task at Exeter Street Hall. Thanks to Helena for leading the speedier group and to Beth for back marking. And it was great to have Tess back after a few weeks off and she did a fine job of leading the moderate paced group (now christened The Mods!) with myself back marking.

Dave met us at Exeter Street Hall and told us about how the local community pulled together to raise the funds to buy the hall and keep it as a valuable community resource. They have recently completed some building work to improve the hall’s accessibility and our task tonight was to have a general clean and tidy up before they reopen. We set to work vacuuming floors and curtains, dusting ledges, getting sticky stuff off tables, washing down walls and painting new door frames. A special mention to Frances and Rachel who tackled the newly accessible loft area which had some particularly dusty beams. I was informed that the dust up that was actually from the Victorian era! Ew!!

We did a great job and Dave and team were very appreciative of our efforts which will help them get the hall reopened and back in use for later this week.

A much easier downhill run home and a quick fitness session on the Old Steine where we focused on some one leg strength and stability moves to help keep us ‘strong and stable’ during our runs!

See you on Saturday for our first monthly parkrun outing to Preston Park and next week where we will be returning to The Bevy for some gardening or a shorter option to One Church where we will be nailing the railings! And after we will be staying behind for a drink for our monthy social.

12 GoodGym runners triumphed in the Cardiff 10k today. There was blood, sweat and beers! (Okay, Beers were after the race, but they were involved...). Keep reading to find out what went down in Wales' Capital this Sunday..

Race day of the Cardiff 10k. Runners looked out their windows and were all greeted by rain... However, knowing there was no turning back it was all about dancing in the raindrops and splish, splash, sploshing in the puddles (Well running as fast as we could but I thought the former description sounded funnier!).

Runners all met outside Cardiff City Hall at 9.10am. It was reassuring seeing everyone and knowing that everyone had made it to the race start safely and on time. To keep warm we huddled together, ran on the spot and gathered under Martin's umbrella - Thank you for bringing your umbrella Martin!

Let's get our legs warmed up and the blood flowing

Bringing all of what we learned at GoodGym to the forefront of our minds, we remembered rule number 1. A good warm up prepares the body for exercise and reduces the likelihood of injury, and so we proceeded with a warm up.

At 9.40am, feeling warmed up and raring to go, we wished each other well as we headed off to our allocated starting pens. Ben bumped into Mark at the start (another runner who has attended a GoodGym run previously) and said "hello and run well!"

3...2....1... GO

We were off! James Thie of Welsh Athletics was the race commentator. He gave a special shout out to GoodGym at the start which we all heard and helped our motivation levels (James is a strong supporter of all the good we are doing in Cardiff!).

The course was challenging at parts, with uphills and downhills, people to dodge at the start and mental battles along the way.

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Ben's race reflections: A great course! I had to really use my arms on the uphills to help me maintain a good pace when the course became more challenging. Having the support of Sam, Hannah and Mikey, runners of GoodGym Cardiff who weren't running the course but were supporting instead, was invaluable - They did AWESOME at providing much needed words of encouragement. I couldn't have run harder today and I felt I ran a good race, maintaining my pace and enjoying the atmosphere... I can't wait until the Cardiff Half Marathon in October.

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After we all finished the race some of us met afterwards for a group photo. We posed with our medals and did 'jumping pictures'. In the process Martin's medal impacted with his head... Moment of Suspense... He was okay! PHEW!

Ben's efforts in the race also contributed to a bleeding toe... EWWWW (I've added a photo just to make you go yuck!).

We all then went for food and got 'cosy in the cosy club' with well deserved beverages all round!

WELL DONE ALL! Congratulations on your epic achievement! GO GOODGYM!

A Lovely summers evening on the riverbank at Goodgym BATH for a sweet 16 who weedy enjoyed themselves at on a 5k run involving some hill climbing with bags of mulch and weeds for The Canal and River trust.

A few announcements to kick off this evening:

Well done Pascale and Alison who ran the Salisbury 54321 on Sunday 42 & 33 k

New Taskforce - Lucy, Emma and Alison .. WHOOP!!

Welcome to Holly and Ben

Nicola and Dora were chatting away in spanish (i think so anyway) something about Mexico i think and the possibility of a night out on the plus side..keep you posted team!!

As promised a nice flat run along the canal or at least until we arrived at our destination when 7 merry men were required to head up that hill and carry bags of mulch back down to the riverbank.

The remaining members were already hard at work chopping back ash and weeding an overgrown area, Ben was in fact working so hard he broke his garden trowel...Ooops!! lot's of banter and laughter along the way.

30 minutes later

Time to spread the bags of mulch over the cleared area before filling the now empty bags with cuttings and weeds before a group effort to carry everything back up the hill where its transport was waiting to carry it off to the compost heap in the sky.

A touch of fitness stuff and looping thrown into the mix for good measure and because they enjoy it so much, although you would never guess it from their little faces...HA!!

A suitably short run back down the hill and along the river back to the leisure centre for a nice stretch and chat, perfect end to a beautiful day.

Smashing job achieved yet again team,

fabulous...fabulous...fabulous!!

GOOD LUCK to everyone racing the TWO TUNNELS this weekend especially Rhiannon on her first 10k ...GO GIRL!!

GOOD LUCK to everyone racing the train from Goodgym this weekend, can't wait to read all about that one.

Until next time, keep running and stay safe

In at the deep end

Well you might think so, but certainly not for 15 runners in Bath this evening and they took the 4k run to Cleveland Pools in their stride. Find out more about this amazing place and see how you can help with getting it reopened http://www.clevelandpools.org.uk/ and at their heritage open weekends.

The task tonight was Pollarding

Hmmm!! What might that be? I hear you say, well it's a method of pruning shrubs and trees to keeping them smaller than they would naturally grow along the riverbank. This prevents them from getting too big and slipping into the river itself.

Welcome to Danielle

Joining the Goodgym Bath crew tonight.

Congratulations to David from GG Bristol on his 100th Good deed this evening... Three cheers ...Hip...Hip..Hip..Hooray!!

Nice to have David joining us from Goodgym Bristol and Sarah our very own coach run queen along.

A beautiful summer evening so the obvious choice of route along the canal path to the Heritage pools. A treat for some of tonight's group who are visiting for the first time.

On arrival Sally our host gave a brief insight into the pools history before arming team Goodgym with the tools for the job. One group took on the pollarding task, whilst the others tackled the weeds in and around the children's pool.

Tim proved to be a master at pollarding showing an artistic style and Danielle got stuck into the pool weeds showing she wasn't out of her depth on this job.

Lucy found tiny frogs, she seems to attract them wherever we go.

35 minutes in total on the task

One very happy host and 15 satisfied runners = A Win Win situation.

Time flies when your having fun and that was certainly the case tonight with just enough time to catch that snap before heading back to the leisure centre.

Thanks to Mary for back marking and to Sally for tonight's pun which was a winner with the ladies.

‘Thunderstorm and hail warning for Brighton issued by Met office’ said The Argus, Brighton’s local newspaper. Surely not again! After another week of dry and balmy weather could it be possible that the only bit of rain that we’ve had in a whole week would coincide with our second Goodgym run?! The first spots were felt early on but the full deluge held off until near the end. Although the thunder and lightening felt a little ominous in the end we got the nice running rain, the welcoming kind that cools you down and refreshes.

It was a longer run tonight, 4km each way and uphill on the way there, so we cracked on with quite a pace to maximise the time at the task. The speedsters went ahead led by me and back marked by Dani, with Tess (who wrote a fantastic blog about last weeks task) read about it here leading the rest, back marked by Gillian from head office.

Our task tonight was banishing bind weed at The Bevy. I LOVE the Bevy! The pub was previously closed down because of anti social behaviour but the local community raised the funds to refurbish it and now it serves as a community pub and hub for the Moulsecoomb estate. There are all sorts of things going on there from quiz nights and live music nights, and ‘Brains at the Bevy’ where local academics come and give short and enlightening talks. The food is pretty good as well and even cheaper than chips in some other parts of town! And the locals are super friendly! Check out their website for more info and if you haven’t been there before, go check them out here. There is even a parkrun on its doorstep, of the hilly and off road variety, and the Bevy hosts coffee and breakfast after.

So there was a massive amount of bind weed that needed to be pulled up and that is exactly what we did. Whilst Jonathon & Tom did great work weeding the raised area above the pub garden (and thankfully not falling off the wall!) everybody else tackled the bind weed in the kitchen garden to the side. And after just 20 minutes we had removed 2 massive building sacks full of the stuff. Great work gang!

Bind weed banished we headed home, this time downhill. On the way back we injected a little bit of speed into the proceedings by running fast for a couple of timed intervals, stopping when I blew my whistle (that was fun, I felt like a school sports teacher!) and recovered by jogging back to join the group where we continued as one until the next burst of speed. If you want to run faster you have to, well …run faster! But by doing it in short bursts you get your body to adjust to the faster pace until before you know it that has become your new normal.

As we stretched at the end Gillian reminded us that Goodgym is about more than the group runs, so if you want to get involved with Missions and Coached runs then please join up and bring your documents along so we can get you DBS checked and doing even more good!

Well done to you all, that was a long run in hot conditions, please come along for next week’s shorter run with another great task and it might not even rain!