twenty two ✌️ terrific GoodGymmers gathered at the Phoenix to run to Northway Gardens to help in this brilliant local space.

In what was quite the busy evening, we were joined by: Joanna and Julian for their first good deeds. Welcome! We welcomed Danny who is on the injury comeback trail, and we were joined by our marathon hero Rob who made it through the Norfolk Coastal Marathon at the weekend despite some particular difficulties along the way. Give him a massive cheer!! It was a particularly blustery, rainy, stormy day so kudos to everyone for making it along.

We quickly posed for a group photo with our flag while we had the light, before setting off to Northway Gardens. I led us down there with the dream team of Sally, Fiona and Danny back marking.

It's a 2k run so we dashed along to meet up with Brian. Northway Gardens are a lovely open space completely managed by volunteers so Brian really appreciates our help in doing some of the heavy lifting so the gardens can stay in great shape.

Today's task was: soil. A car full of soil to be precise. Brian had managed to cram 25 bags of Soil Improver into his car so our task was to: transport the soil to the flower beds, open the bags up and spread the soil around the beds. It's pitch dark in the gardens themselves, so we were pleased to have our giant torches with us which we hung from trees to illuminate our work space and we got going. We used wheelbarrows to shift the bags before opening them up and spreading the soil.

We moved so many bags! But as ever, we showed that many hands makes light work as we got through all the bags and spread all the soil with 20 minutes effort. Brian said the same job took him all day on his own the week before. The power of teamwork in action.

After clearing up and saying our goodbyes, we made our way to the tennis courts for our fitness session. With Danny and Rob doing their best floodlight impression (see photo for evidence) we set about running laps. The workout was: two laps easy, two laps medium, two laps easy, two laps hard, two laps easy, two laps hard, followed by squats and calf raises. There was some hard work and some tired faces at the end. Great work team.

From there is was a simple easy run back to cinema for stretches and high fives. Thanks for coming guys. See you next week.

D

Eighteen goodgym runners gathered to run and do good but also in celebration of ten years of Goodgym! It’s grown from one mans idea to 15000 people looking to use their energies to help their local communities. We welcomed Samuel (possibly our youngest runner), Simon, Agnes (good luck with your Half marathon at Eden.. hopefully we helped!), and Justine. Give them a cheer! We numbered up and as is now traditional answered a simple question. This time a favoured restaurant or cafe ( Sorry I should have made notes so could you reply with your suggestion?.. they all sounded great!) Our group run was to Coldfall woods to help the friends by litter picking the recreational area. The walking group set off first lead by Fiona with the added task of distributing leaflets for Stephens House and Gardens. (A beautiful charity park with a great cafe)Then the runners set off with Damian on point and Sarah as the back marker(possibly her last as she moves abroad for work… give her a cheer!) We set off at a gentle pace and stayed together as a group. We ran through the streets and then the woods to stop at the recreational ground. We then used the flat open playing fields to do some speed work. Picking up pace for tens seconds, driving with the arms and legs and then relaxing into a normal pace for another ten seconds repeated until the end of the fields. We then gathered to meet Linda ( from the friends) who distributed pickers and bags to paired runners. It was a beautiful twilight evening to litter pick. We covered a large area and collected a good haul including a tea pot! Tea rrific! ( see evidence in photos for tea-rrible pun!) The walkers joined us and we warmed up with some aerobics ( No Good by The Prodigy) and then some static core work and lunges. We then headed home and after walking through the woods (very dark!) we split into two groups for the run home to the Pheonix. Hope you can make some of the community missions over the weekend.

Thanks for coming you were Tea rrific!