We welcomed Pas for his first run, and we ran what didn't feel anything like 500 miles to help clean up at Survivors in Transition. Due to our amazing work before, the centre already looked very clean, but nonetheless, the 12 of us got going searching out any stray pieces of dust we could.

After our cleaning session, we made our way back to the waterfront for an intense fitness session which involved 12 minutes of cardiovascular exercise. Star jumps, burpees, needless to say we were all steaming by the end of it!

Join us next week for another fun run!

Sadie made her Goodgym debut this evening, joining us on one of our longer runs to Castle Hill Community Centre. Hope you enjoyed it and we'll see you again soon.

A fairly steady run out took us across the town centre and out along Norwich Road. On arrival Trevor showed us this evening's task to paint an entire room magnolia, including one feature wall that was currently a very dark teal colour

I thought it was going to be a real challenge, given the size of the room and the dark wall. However, as usual the Goodgym guys exceeded expectations and managed to make a massive impact, working quickly, efficently and with fabulous teamwork. Brushes and rollers were flying across the walls - you can see the "before" and "after" version of the dark wall in the attached photos.

We ran back into town and regrouped for session of "trains" running through the town centre and back down onto the Waterfront. - Excellent work from everyone tonight to get so much done on the task !

Before tonight's run I spoke about the introduction of a walking option on some of the shorter Group Runs - this link explains more about the idea and why Goodgym is introducing this nationally. This will only apply to shorter runs and will depend on some one (who is a task force member) volunteering the be " walk leader" - to find out more about becoming a task force member - see this link

We had a little change from the norm this evening. Usually we run to a venue, do a task then run back. Tonight the task was literally right outside the door of our meeting point, so we did the task then went for a run.

We had two "newbies" making their Goodgym debut - Julie and Sinead - hope you enjoyed your first Goodgym experience.

The task was for Rivercare - litter picking along a section of the waterfront aiming to prevent rubbish getting into the water. We walked to the furthest point away and then made our way back collecting litter on the way. It was surprisingly litter free - something perhaps to do with the Maratime Festival that had taken place over the weekend and the major clear up that followed!

However, armed with litter pickers, we still managed to collect a number of bags and remove the risk of it ending up in the river. During the task we were approached by a couple of people asking how they could volunteer to litter pick the area on a regular basis - great to see this!

We also met Jason Alexander who was passing and saw our efforts - Jason is the founder of Rubbish Walks a brilliant project with a very simple idea - Go for a walk and pick up a bit of litter along the way. Jason also recently organised the Beach Clean Marathon - Walking 12 Suffolk beaches in 6 days collecting plastic waste and other beach litter. Chatting with Jason there may be opportunities for us to link up in future.

With the litter pick done we set off for our run with the warning that it was going to be a hilly ride! The route took us up Bishops Hill - one of Ipswich's more challenging slopes - into Holywells Park (to take in part of the forthcoming Great East Run course (only 4 weeks to go!). Holywells Park is also quite "slopey" but the exit onto Cliff Lane provided a welcome downhill section before re-entering the park for a section of trail running. Then back towards the Waterfront where we split into teams, forming 2 trains for a little "back to front" sprint training.

Hills and sprints - what's not to like!!