And we’re off! Brighton Goodgym has launched! What a night! What weather! What a task! What a great bunch of Goodgymers! What a lot of exclamation marks!!

So much to talk about where to begin? Let’s try the beginning.

As I arrived at our fantastic start location of YHA hostel I immediately spotted a red Gooodgym t-shirt. Deb from Bristol was continuing her tour of south coast GG’s having visited Worthing along the coast the previous evening. Thank you Deb for kindly offering to stand outside and welcome runners into the fold.

At 6.30pm we stepped out to the Old Steine for intros and warm up. Nigel Levine (Team GB 400m runner, proper, proper speedy!) came down with Team Personal Best to tell us how flippin’ tough and awesome we all were for turning up in such challenging conditions. I concur!

Group photos and a warm up round the fountain complete we set off along the seafront for our 3km run to the task. It was great to see so many red t-shirts on display. I spoke to a few of you who had previously been Goodgym members in other areas but having made the very sensible decision to move to Brighton, had been left without your Goodgym fix. The wait is over. We’re here. Thanks for your patience.

There were also many of you doing your first ever Goodgym so a very warm welcome to you all. If you would like a dashing, red t-shirt to let the world know what an amazing movement you are part of, then all you have to do is become a member and its all yours!

As we ran along the lower promenade the group became more strung out with Dom from Croydon doing a fine job of back marking and Run Leader Helena working the mid section. We reconnected by giving the speedier runners some sprints up the ramps on the seafront, some squats at the Peace Statue and some tricep dips on the seats in front of the i-360. After 3km we were pretty soaked through from all the rain, but happy and energised and keen to get the Doing Good going.

On arrival at The Brighthelm Centre volunteer co-ordinator Jacob and his team of volunteer gardeners explained the task ahead. In order to transform the pre-school garden we were split into teams with different tasks. Team Turf had the task of digging up the turf to make the pathway to what would become the wood chip seating area. The turf was put into wheelbarrows and taken away by Team Wheelbarrow. Team Membrane started laying the weed proof membrane over the ground and then moved on to lay it on the path area cleared by Team Turf. Team Woodchip were moving the, you've guessed it, wood chip to the garden area for laying on top of the membrane. There was also a Team Flower Bed and a Team Litter Pick working in the larger garden.

Once the turf path was clear a few of you were without a job and the litter pickers were getting chilly in the torrential rain so we did a little session on running technique focussing on efficient arm drive. We worked on not crossing our arms in front of our mid line, keeping our shoulders still and moving our thumbs from hip to lip. After running a few lengths of the garden where you all displayed awesome arm drive we did a little workout to celebrate the date of the momentous occasion of Brighton Goodgym launch. 11th July 2017 (11/07/17) was marked by completing as many rounds as possible of 11 Squats, 7 Bench Press Ups and 17 Jumping Jacks in the given time.

Back in the fenced pre-school garden fantastic progress had been made but it needed one last push to get the last of the membrane laid on the path and the wood chip spread out on top. The final task was to lay the rings of tree trunks with planks on top that will be the seats for the children. And with seconds to spare before our time limit the task was complete. What a transformation! Jacob and his team were absolutely delighted and couldn’t believe that we’d got the job done so quickly and in such challenging conditions. They are a very small team of volunteer gardeners working for just half a day a week so to get a task like this complete would have taken them several weeks. We did it in half an hour!

It was all downhill from there as we ran the final kilometre back to base, running through the picturesque Pavilion Gardens. Brighton really does have some amazing spaces to run in, we shall be exploring many more of them in the coming weeks.

So a huge thank you to all of you for coming tonight. After weeks of dry weather we had the rainiest evening in months for our launch but you didn’t let it phase you and you got out there, keeping yourselves fit and Doing Good. Feel proud, you were fantastic!