On the 30th June our mission was complete... We hiked Mount Snowdon.

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.

A tremendous time was had at GoodGym Cardiff tonight! 20 brave runners showed up, and with shoes on their feet, legs pumped and hands ready for painting and planting, nothing was going to get in their way.

Runners came in their numbers to GoodGym tonight… just like flies to… I mean bees to honey. They were all keen to get fit, do good and see one another - A week apart is just too long!

As the clock struck 6.30pm it was time to get warmed up. We headed outside and started with our headcount and shared our most favourite word! Here are a few from the list:

• Utility by Nathan
• Wicked by Emma
• Awesome by Adam
• Bubble by Louise
• Tenacious by Aimee
• Serendipity by Ben
• Elocution by Lucy
• Chicken by Rachel
• Contrafibularities by Martin
• Discombobulate by Darren
• Apothecary by Su
• Haberdashery by Mikey

Martin has been challenged to use his favourite word in the next research article he writes :) - Excited face- .

After the warm up and headcount we split into two groups. The speedy group, led by Ben, and the sexy runners, led by the sexy man himself, Mikey! Lucy egged on both Rhian and Louise to run with the speedy group and then we were on our way. Mikey led a direct route to the Samye Foundation and Ben took a longer route which took the most scenic route of Cardiff which included the infamous and world renown Chippy Lane – A place people have eaten more times than they can remember! Kudos to Laura and Pablo for running with us again for a second time and Louise and Rhian for really challenging yourself tonight in the speedy group.

Welcome to the Samye Foundation GoodGym Cardiff

A warm welcome awaited us at the Samye Foundation, and after hearing about the wonderful goings on at the centre we couldn’t wait to get stuck in!

Teams a go go

Runners got into three teams. One team went to the top of the Samye Foundation building and began painting and sanding the walls and skirting boards. The other team laid soil and began planting ferns, all part of the instalments to create wonderful outdoor garden. The final team potted pants with fresh soil at the entrance to the centre.

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Riddly Diddly Fiddly Doo, I have a riddle for you! – A toughy this week

*A man is looking at a photograph of someone. His friend asks who it is. The man replies, 'Brothers and sisters, I have none. But that man's father is my father's son'. Who is in the photograph? *

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With the riddle set in the last 10 minutes brains were now as active as movement as all runners were eager to get the task finished and work out the riddle at the same time!

Goodness gracious GoodGym!

Lorraine could not believe how much was done in such a short space of time- 30 minutes!. The garden patch was now ready for the next stage of development and immense progress has been made on the renovations to the top of the building.

Afterwards we ran back, stopping to allow everyone to regroup and finishing by reflecting on the evening’s run.

The RunPunStiltSkin award goes to Darren and Mikey... Well done! Jess made a blooming awesome suggestion and I have a feeling the competition for the RunPunStiltSkin award is going to increase in weeks to come!

22 runners tonight attended GoodGym Cardiff, all ready and eager to get fit and do good by helping out at St Monica’s primary School.

First and foremost! A huge welcome to 2 new GoodGym runners; Sarah and Pabs…HEY GUYS! 🖐 Sarah is Ffion's friend, and so...Well done to Ffion who earned herself ONE red lace for bringing a friend - A huge achievement - well done! We also had Ivo join us from GoodGym Tower Hamlets, London, he heard all about our epic banter and hilarious, second to none antics and all we’ve achieved to date and so when the opportunity arose to run with Cardiff, Wales, he could not resist it. 🖐 We also reflected on our FANTASTIC beast of an accomplishment in the January Challenge... A HUGE achievement! 🏆 Our usual headcount also included naming our favourite school subjects. From History to Maths... there was a range! We reminded nobody should shout out in class, joke, this is GoodGym; we encourage participation in a way that is LOUD AND PROUD! Our warm up consisted of the Mr Men (and Ms Women) warm up routine, from Mr Bounce (jumping on the spot) to Ms High Knees. Mikey said he was feeling like Mr Lost without Darren, we reassured him that Daz would be back next week :)

After the warm up runners divided into two groups. The sexy and the speedy runners! Who were the speedy runners you may be wondering? Ben, Lucy, Lewis, Pabs, Rachel, Lewis, Jess, Jack and Charlotte. The other runners were all sexy! Who were they? Give a shout out to: Mikey, Ivo, Aimee, Ellen, Rhian, Louise, Su, Maya, Rachael, Jess, Sarah. Jess and Emma - Twit twoo, you bunch of good looking runners, you are looking fineeeeee!!

The speedy runners covered a slightly longer distance, running up to Maindy pool, doing a couple of sprints and then meeting the sexy runners at St Monica’s School

Welcome to St Monica’s Primary School 🏫

We had all arrived to St Monica’s Primary School after a joyful run! Abigail, the school headteacher, was there to greet us with a warm smile, she told us a bit about the school before informing us of our tasks for the evening; The school is set in the vibrant area of Cathays in Cardiff. The school provides a welcoming, caring and secure environment in which Christian values are central to the ethos of the school and the local community. At St Monica’s Primary School, every child has the chance to shine.

Tonight we helped clear a school building of old furniture and carpets. Some runners also painted outdoor railings and others removed mould from walls. Runners also moved the biggest beam made of wood ever seen!!! Ivo removed a precarious looking cupboard from the wall, increasing Ben's heart rate and displaying some epic balancing skills... (the pots which were balancing on the top of the cabinet were actually candles which had become stuck to the top... ) Mikey, Su and Pablo were taking up the wooden floor pieces which used previously to attach carpet to the ground.

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Riddle Diddly Doo, I have a Riddle For you!

You bury me whilst I’m alive and you dig me up when I’m dead, what am I?

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5 Minutes left!!

With only 5 minutes to spare runners made a final push! A mountain of furniture was now located outside of the building to go into the skip which arrives tomorrow.

TIME IS UP!⏰

Fantastic efforts from everyone! We had a group photo, and some of us had warm drinks before we embarked on our run back! We said goodbye to Abi and the caretakers who provided us with an AWESOME task!... It definitely gave us a good work out. On the way back we did some sprint drills. Ivo stood in front of us and had us run towards him whilst he filmed us, luckily nobody ran into him although there were some close calls! Jack also had a bell and was ringing it during the sprints to encourage everyone!

At approximately 8pm we were back at Yr Hen Lyfrgell! Jack was again ringing his bell, congratulating runners as they finished... I guarantee that bell will be at the next parkrun he marshalls at! 🔔 We did our warm down and gave ourselves a round of applause for our efforts. Well done Pabs and Sarah for completing their first run with GoodGym and Sarah for joining us for her first run EVER! Ivo, a big thank you to you too for coming to run with us; Your incredible use of initiative enables us to be part of an amazing running club family that seeks to improve the community.

I hope you found the run report entertaining

Come along to the next GoodGym run - Click here to sign up

Afterwards we headed to the glassworks for a well earned beverage!

WOOOOW! Folks it is Tuesday and GoodGym is in town! (or The city of Cardiff, town just sounded better)

What an epic turnout! More people ran with GoodGym than have ever been on the moon... You guys are out of this world 27 of you made an appearance at GoodGym this week. We had 2 new runners come along too… WELCOME to GoodGym Jess and Katie. We are a lovely bunch (Or at least that is what we claim to be). We hope you enjoyed the cheers for you during the headcount – Well deserved I must add! If you bring a friend to GoodGym you will earn yourself 1 red lace – Blooming exciting I know…and do not underestimate the red lace... some people have fainted before when they’ve received a red lace. No names; Darren. It was AMAZING to see both Rhian and Louise running with us for a second time too...! It's great to see you both getting really stuck in and pushing yourself to get fitter.

Part of the headcount also involved runners shouting out their favourite cartoon characters…. Mikey said his was some "Bat thing" and we now know Fiona is a massive fan of Winnie the Pooh. There was a slight anti-climax when Lydia said she didn’t like cartoon characters… What! I know, I know… (Secret fan of the smurts… It was such an epic cartoon… “Watch out papa Smurf, it’s Gargamel!”)

There were two tasks planned for this evenings run:

• 1 – The sexy runners helping out Keep Wales Tidy with litter picking in Riverside
• 2 – The speedy runners running to Rumney to help out Seedlings garden

Mikey left first taking runners on a 7.5 mile round trip to Rumney Furthest GoodGym Cardiff run to date alert and Ben led the sexy runners about 5 minutes later.

Run 1: Keep Wales Tidy butt

Ben led 16 runners to Riverside, taking more of a snaking route to get there and stopping to take a ‘ghetto’ style photo with the graffiti art in Cardiff. You didn’t banksy on that one happening did you? Runners tricep dipped on the way and also planked at some of Cardiff’s best planking hotspots. Google it if you don’t believe me!

Hello Lorna!!!! … “Hello GoodGym!”

Lorna from Keep Wales Tidy was there to greet us with bin bags at the ready and litter pickers which looked like inspector gadgets arms (GO GO GADGET ARM! – Emma Wilkins’ favourite cartoon character… I’m surprised she didn’t say a cartoon character from Disney.)

After a couple of minutes we were all armed with Go Go Gadget arms, big bags and gloves (From sexy runners to the sexiest runners… we were now all looking the height of fashion). We then all got stuck in straight away… the streets called our names! Litter be gone! All 16 of us roamed the streets of Cardiff picking up items of litter… Lorna did make us aware in the safety briefing that some litter we had to steer clear from though… dirty diapers, sharps, broken glass, dead animals... (many zebras roam the streets of Cardiff) and I think that was it…

After 30 minutes of litter picking at least 9 bags of litter was collected.

"Goodness Gracious GoodGym... You guys are so quick...!" Lorna said.

Items we found included:

• Socks
• Coca Cola cans
• Shoes
• Gloves
• And a Maynard Bassetts container! I wonder if this Maynard was in the road longer than the other Maynard was in the jungle? Anyway I bassett you not that we picked all this litter up in great speed!

On the way back, by popular request, we stopped to do some sprint drills. Sprint, recover repeat x6 reps. There was friendly competition between Fiona and Aimee. Everyone was totally fab with the sprint drills though! I know they aren’t everyones favourite thing to do, but you will improve by doing them!

Group 2 – The run to help out Seedlings Garden

Tonight 11 goodgym runners – Extreme, took to the challenge of the longest run yet on a Tuesday session. The challenge to run the Rumney partnership hub 6km away, in the rain and do what we could from a list of possible tasks.

Off we went, on our trek to meet up with the organiser for the community garden, Mark Seed – yes that’s his name.

And so we arrived, no time to chat, twenty minutes on the clock. Without hesitation Mark went through the tasks, 2 runners (Lucy and Lewis) over to paint the wooden borders a luminous lime green. The next 4 over to the island in the road, (Emma, Emma, Darren & Dave) on border patrol with hammers to stomp it in good. There had already been an incident with a car taking out the lavender, this would help followed by the luminous lime green borders once the paint had dried. Another 3 on weeding duties, if they could decide which were weeds! (Charlotte, Rachel & Ffion) and Joseph moving and recycling before joining the ‘ground force’ crew.

It’s like an episode of 60 minute makeover

20 minutes soon passed by as Mikey cursed the rain for ruining photo after photo, so just one more chance to try for a group shot. Sorry Darren, for the horror movie effect on your face, so a handshake each from Mr. Seed and off we went on our trek back.

A well done to all tonight for the epic run for a group task, and especially to Emma after her run on Sunday.

Riddly Diddly Poo… I have a Riddle for you

A man is pushing his car along the road when he comes to a hotel. He shouts, "I'm bankrupt!" Why?

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After we finished our group run we had a look at what this January Challenge thing was about...

We've done it!!! We thought we may have to 'up our game' but no, we've reached, surpassed and SMASHED our January Challenge target... That is how you do it! WELL DONE GOODGYM CARDIFF - YOU GUYS ARE INCREDIBLE

With the week commencing with Blue Monday, GoodGym runners took to the streets to make Cardiff green (or should that be red?!) with envy at our ability to do so much good in such a short space of time!

Following on from the successful début performance of GoodGym runners on ITV Wales news last week, new members flocked to join us! We welcomed Katie, Rachel, Sarah and Amy to the Tuesday night shenanigans. Great to run with you all! We hope we didn't scare you and that you join us next week! :D... Remember to bring a friend and you get a red lace too!

GoodGym leader Ben put us through our warm up paces. In amongst the usual high knees and butt kicks, we were tasked with demonstrating our ‘favourite pose’. Some opted for a yoga theme (child’s pose or the dolphin), others went for a Bolt or a hands in the air. It won’t come as a surprise that Emma’s favourite pose is covering her face with her hands!

We were nearly joined by two additional runners. Inspired by our warm glow (or their cans of cider), two men jogged on the spot with us and demonstrated their impressive rapping abilities. Perhaps they will join us next Tuesday...

Jack then led the group who wanted to go further and faster with Ben heading up the group wanting a more direct route to the task.

Aimee was doing a great job of back marking with much chatter about the weekend’s GoodGym tourist run in Bath and the Castell Coch trail run. Having learnt from other runners’ recent experiences, Aimee was mindful of the dangers of crossing roads and, seeing an approaching car, stopped the group...or so she thought. One of the Emma’s (can you guess which one...?) nearly took poor Aimee out by running straight into her and pushing her onto the road! Fear not Ben, we learnt a valuable road safety lesson and continued undeterred (and uninjured) to our task.

The shorter route group arrived at the Severn Primary School and did a short, sharp HIIT session - press ups and jump squats. Ben explained that arm strength was important when running up hills. This will definitely come in useful for our next run in Penarth!

The faster group then arrived and we met Karen and Bev who work at the school.

Karen and Bev explained that the school now has 511 pupils with 50 different languages spoken by pupils! Karen explained that she leads the forest school programme which is aimed at getting children outdoors and supporting their wellbeing. Such a great idea - who ‘wood’ have thought?!

Without further ado, we headed through the school to the outside area. Karen and Bev had done a great job of getting everything ready for us do we could hit the ground running!

Teams set off to give the planters a fresh lick of paint and to paint a series of tyres ready to be used as a plant bed (Everyone looked like they were having wheely good fun!). Some runners were also allocated to painting benches. Others turned their attention to moving one of the sheds. In a scene not too dissimilar from World’s Strongest Man (where they push a double decker bus or plane), an entire group of runners used all their might to lift and shift the shed. Many hands make light work (🏋️♂️) and Karen was thrilled with the new location of her shed! After the shed experience of moving one shed they then moved a cwtch shelter and afterwards Lewis, Emyr Rachel and Jack all gathered together for a cwtch - check out the photo evidence... Darren was waiting by the cwtch shelter for Mikey but Mikey never showed...

Wow, come again?

In almost no time at all, our tasks were complete and it was time to bid farewell to Karen and Bev who are already compiling a list of tasks for our next visit.

Before running off we split into two teams and did a quick challenge where we had to race eachother by rolling tyres around a glove which was approximately 5 metres away and then roll the tyre back! Well done to Jack's team who managed to do this first although the bigger tyre was easier and well done Ben's team who sang "We're singing in the rain" the best - Simon Cowell will be in touch!

Our return run involved battling through hail showers and puddles plus the Strava GoodGym sprint finish segment. Running is tyre-ing! (Thanks for that one Maya!).

Well done GoodGym Cardiff and Vale and to the combined efforts of Darren, Aimee and Maya for today’s run pun; Your combined efforts mean the virtual RunPunStiltskin award is being split into 3 this week!!!

Don't forget to log your run today on Strava or RunKeeper so it counts towards our monthly total. If you have Strava and forgot to record it you can add it manually! And if you haven't yet linked Strava or RunKeeper to your GG account you can do it here