If there's one thing about Geordie GoodGymers it's that they love a challenge

This week the challenge was on. 1200 envelopes to pack with newsletters and magazines for CVS Newcastle and avoid paper cuts!

It was overcast in Toon for our first ever fully-indoor task as we welcomed newbies Hazelle and Rebecca to the GoodGym family. We piled up the stairs in to CVS Newcastle offices and got straight into packing teams, the majority of the group choosing, suspiciously, the room where the biscuits had been laid on. Every envelope had to be packed with a magazine, a leaflet and a letter before being addressed with a sticky label. Easy work for this group of legends Much packing and sticking started, with Paul in charge of the Franking machine with his day, week and life made.

Happy Days

1200 envelopes were packed and piled in just 35 minutes much to the delight of Martin and Sally from the CVS who tried to work out a mathematical equation of the time we had saved them... this job usually takes two members of their staff two whole days!

We completed an epic paired session of agility ladder drills and 200m laps around Higham House where Louise also gave us all a handy German lesson (paarlauf is NOT Polish, it would appear) before heading back to base at Hotel Indigo

Thanks everyone for proving that many hands do make light work. Again.

See you next week for our cycle path clear up with Sustrans. Keep an eye on the details as the distance may be subject to change. Sign up here

Happy Running! Anji

No less than seven new runners for tonight's trek up Westgate Road to visit Changing Lives at Elliott House where we did our very first task back in April!

What a Group Run it was!

Using Paul extra-special hill-avoidance-but-still-uphill route, we ascended happily up Westgate Road and on to Elliott House with special mention going to Jasmine who did her first ever run outside of a gym. Nice work Jasmine!

As always, we were greeted with big smiles and clear instructions and sent straight off to work, with painting, kitchen cleaning and gardening the order of the day. There was absolutely no stopping Jonny from getting his hands on a paintbrush tonight!

35 glorious busy minutes passed by in the flash of a marigold and we were back off (downhill- yay!) to Summerhill park. The group once again showed their obviously competitive not competitive streaks in a quick game of Cops and Robbers, using their sprinting, turning and dodging techniques to avoid being "got" by the cops! Mark adding an extra edge of peril with his scary glossed-up hands. The hardest part was staying in the boundary of my poorly marked-out rectangle, that was actually a parallelogram, apparently.

More on names of shapes next week.

Excellent interval training!

Great work and energy tonight everyone. My face hurts from smiling. See you next week for the CVS envelope packing challenge. Sign up here

Happy running everyone! Anji

The Sun Streak continued for week 4 of GoodGym Newcastle

The sun shone on a massive group of Geordie GoodGymers on their visit to Brims House, a home for veterans in our community with Changing Lives Newcastle

In a slight bit of route trickery by Paul we made our way up Westgate Road in a slightly less uphill direction, chatting as we went and making sure all 9 yes NINE of our new runners were made to feel part of the family.

We were met by the lovely Alice and Stuart at Brims House and after a quick registration and brief we were set to work. Two garden tasks including mowing a lawn by hand, painting (yes this is possible) and a discovery of potatoes by David while an indoor team did a kitchen spruce-up and a deep clean in the living room. Precious also did a grand job of the windows which I'm not even sure was on the list! No wonder they want us back! Stuart thanked us and admitted he didn't think we would do such an amazing job in just 30 minutes!

Off downhill we went with the promise that this week the fitness spot prize was up for the taking. A huge game of dishes and domes began with 80% of people saying they weren't that competitive.

they lied

Team 4 were victorious and we celebrated by wearing the hats as cones before awarding Chance with the fitness prize, the coveted Drumstick Lolly for services to cone tactics in the competition. The envy of everyone on the way back, I'm sure you'll agree.

Great work everyone! See you next week for the Canny Quayside Clear up with Sustrans NE, and all-important bank holiday drinks afterwards.