16 sunny souls ran between 3.5 km and 7 km to blast two deeds at the Philip Street Community Garden and an alleyway behind North Road.

Our services seem to be in great demand at the moment as we had been asked to help out at two tasks today and given the great turnout that we are now achieving every Saturday, we felt confident that we could accomodate both.

It also provided the opportunity for those seeking either a short or longer run to come along and show just what GoodGym does best.

We had most of the bases covered today covering many of the things that we love to get involved with the weather also obliging us with a beautiful sunny GoodGym Saturday morning.

With a warm up and welcome to Ceri, who was joining us for her second run in a week, we all headed off to Philip Street, being joined there by Sarah and Fi - who had already bagsied painting duties! - and were welcomed by the wonderful Julia, our host at the community garden.

We split ourselves into two groups, although Julia seemed to be handpicking certain individuals who shall remain nameless (!), following which I took a team over to the North Road area of Bedminster, where we had been asked to help out with tidying up a private alleyway that had become a dumping ground for all sorts of rubbish and had also become overgrown with weeds and brambles.

So once we were gloved up we set about picking up the litter, cutting back and removing the brambles and weeding the alley with a group of volunteers who had also come along for the morning. One of the houses had set up refreshments with lemonade and cakes (the rice krispie with marshmallow cakes were ace!) which was most welcome.

Along the way we were joined by Emma (fresh from Ashton Court parkrun) and her lovely dog, Charlie, who seemed to want to help get involved with the tidy up. Meanwhile, Chloe, Alice and Chris seemed to be having a Gandalf "who's got the biggest staff?" competition - Chloe the clear winner here and Chris? - well judge for yourself by the photo!

After an hour of blitzing the alleyway the team headed back to Philip Street and what a transformation they encountered! The gang there had continued the digging and weeding that we had started a couple of weeks ago and had also managed to completely paint the wall that had previously been covered in graffiti - the area now looks wonderful and Julia was clearly delighted by our efforts! Fantastic job guys!

We all headed back to base for some stretches and a quick round up of the forthcoming group runs on Tuesday (Windmill Hill City Farm) and Saturday (Bramble Hill Farm) - it's going to be GoodGym Bristol Farm Week by the looks of things! Both are fabulous venues with brilliant tasks so you'll want to get signed up for either or both of those.

We also wished Debs all the best for the London Marathon tomorrow with a big Bristol cheer to send her on her way (with a shout for Paul too who will be there supporting her)!

Thanks to Debs and Chris for backmarking today and to Paul and Emma for the extra photos!

Nice one gang - we cracked the double!

11 runners, 2 cyclist and 1 wheelbarrow operative traversed 8.4 km to Easton Community Garden to carry out a general tidy up of the allotment area

After a week of seemingly incessant wind and rain we were thankfully greeted by a bright and sunny, if slightly chilly, morning for a glorious run along the Bristol to Bath Railway Path to visit our good friends at the Easton Community Garden.

It was a big "hello" to Tom, joining us for the first time and "welcome back" to Nick, who has been away from running for a while - really good to have you with us chaps and hope you enjoyed today's task!

We maintained a steady pace, helped I'm sure by encouragement/whip cracking from Caroline on her bike, and made light work of the gradual climb up to our destination, joined by Alex and Paul as we arrived, to meet our hosts, Sas and Garvin at the allotment.

The Easton Community Garden is a fantastic group, running a weekly volunteer day, where members of the local community come and help at the allotment and then can take home some of the produce with them at the end of the session. We always love our visits here!

It was a somewhat emotional affair as this was our first visit to Easton Community Garden since the untimely demise of the wonderful Cristina, but started with a happy moment as Paul very kindly donated his wheelbarrow to the group. This is the same "possessed wheelbarrow" that has been the centrepiece of the fancy dress themed GoodGym races in 2016 - it was a lovely gesture Paul, and the wheelbarrow certainly got some GoodGym use today!

On arrival our tasks were explained, which would involve 3 sub groups:

Team Fridge set about clearing the roadway of a pile of chippings that had been dumped there recently, before moving into the allotment to re position an upturned fridge.

Team Trimmers, armed with shears, set about trimming the tree line along the road side to tidy that area up.

Team Bramble, carted a huge pile of brambles, twigs and general foliage in barrows from one corner of the allotment out to a big ditch over the other side of the road, taking care not to actually fall into the said ditch!

Watching all this was like poetry in motion.

Rewarded with drinks and snacks, we headed off back to base, this time enjoying a slight descent most of the way, stopping on Castle Green, where Alice, Maddy and Deb gave us some yoga and strength type moves to both loosen us up and make us stronger - top work girls, thanks!

More stretching back at base, with announcements of runs this week on Tuesday and next Saturday, as well as next week's run/cycle race to Oxford, with this week's award of Red GoodGym Laces going to David for bringing along Tom.

Thanks once again to Chris for backmarking, with assistance from Jack, thanks too Jack! And well done Alice for today's pun and good to see you so excited by your offering being voted top!

A lovely task on a lovely morning with some lovely people - there's lovely! Isn't life great!

A smaller than usual group missing several regular do-gooders assembled at Roll For The

Soul on a beautiful but very warm Saturday morning for a run to the East Bristol Foodbank

in Lawrence Hill.

Led by the inexperienced duo of David H and David G and welcoming newcomer Ann for her

first GG outing our intrepid eight headed off on a familiar route over Castle Green towards

the Bristol to Bath cycle path before veering off under the St Phillips Causeway to the Big

Yellow Storage unit in Lawrence Hill where the Food Bank is situated. Here we met the

wonderful Andy and Brenda who were able to allocate tasks to what turned out to be an

almost ideal number of enthusiastic GoodGymers.

These included weighing crates of various different foodstuffs, and cracking on with packing,

unpacking, stacking, unstacking and re-stacking of crates and shelves. The crate task suitably

smashed in true GoodGym fashion we bid adieu to a crateful Andy and Brenda and headed

off on our merry way (almost) back the way we came, with enough time for a relay race

around the bandstand in Castle Park followed by some press ups before heading back to Roll

For The Soul for as many stretches as we could remember.

Crate Job gang!

P.S Pru here! Great job from Team David, thanks for stepping in to make sure the run went ahead! Thanks chaps!