19 sweaty runners tackled a balmy 1 km run to help Redcliffe Care deliver their quarterly newsletter

In what is likely to be the longest run of hot days in the UK since the 70's GoodGym Bristol completed what is likely to be the shortest run in our history. A full 1km to Redciffe and back. What kind of workout is that I hear you ask. Well, once they arrived at task they split into groups to deliver the Redcliffe Care newsletter all over the local. the newsletter brings the lcoal community together by letting everyone know what is going on with all the latest news and events for them to get involved in.

Blocks of flats were scaled with runners climbing stairs faster than a squirrel hurtling up a tree whilst being chased by a dog who he has just stolen a treasured broach similar to that of Caroline 'Puma' Wilson's from.

In a fantastic effort we even managed to cover an additional area to our last attempt at this task and delivered a further 200 newletters. Fine work team! Big shout to new recruit Neil who went flat out to deliver a towering performance. Give him a cheer you know you should!

After celebrating our success with a biscuit and some squash supplied by our grateful and kind hosts we took a photo (where the group reminded me about road safety by yelling "CAR!!!" at me as I completely failed to realise I was blocking the road, thanks guys!). Then we jogged the short distance back to Queen Square where we completed some grapevines to practice our balance and co-ordination and even took it one step further by adding in head pats and belly rubs.

It was a hot one, its was a successful one, it was a fun one. Thanks for coming out everyone. See you next time!

Tuesday’s spring-blessed run saw 31 GoodGymmer’s head back to Emmaus (pronounced Em-May-Us!) in Stokes Croft for a bit of lifting and shifting in their enormous furniture warehouse.

Emmaus provides both work and a home for 23 people who were previously homeless. Emmaus’ story is a fascinating one, and we were given a brief history of how they were founded as well as their aims and principles by Xanne when we arrived. If you’ve got a few minutes, you can find out more about their history on the Emmaus website.

Emmaus is a social enterprise and one of their sources of income is selling furniture and other household items that are donated by the public. Their warehouse is crammed to the rafters full of goodies and what they needed was some willing labour to shift things about and help create some Emmaus’ing space.

Any ideas we had of admiring what was in stock were quickly shelved as we embraced our first logistical challenge. With teamwork and brute force, we first cleared some industrial shelving units of their groaning mass, before dismantling them and moving them to another part of the warehouse. Emmaus had set aside a week for just one guy to do the job, we managed to do it in 30 minutes! The rest of the team also took to sorting brick-a-brac and books lifting more pages like an over-excited Harry Potter fanatical octopus in possession of a new JK Rowling novel in an active wind tunnel.

After re-assembling the shelves and making sure they were re-stacked, we took stock of our achievement and we were thanked for a good night’s work.

We then headed off to Queen Square where Gary took us through the usual array of fitness stuff, before deciding then to replenish ourselves with a cool drink. So then, as Shelvis Presley would say, thank you very much!

Thanks to Darren for writing the report and Alice for the pun. Hope you don't mind my little octopus addition, can't miss an opportunity for a simile.

What a night! Our biggest group of the year helped the Julian Trust to prepare their night shelter for the homeless and smashed some Fartlek training in the process.

With a humongous group of runners including a metric ton of newbies we all met and warmed up at Vivo. The run was short but our enthusiasm was not. We tackled the 1 mile run their like it was nothing and met our host Richard at the shelter in St Pauls.

5 nights a week the shelter offers 18 people a bed for the night, some food and washing facilities. They have no prejudice of who can come they just offer the places on a first-come-first-served basis.

Our job for the evening was to help Richard and the team to prep the shelter for tonight's guests. Richard took us through our tasks and then we split into teams to tackle the jobs. We had bed linen changers, laundry room attendants, floor moppers, bread butterers, table wipers and a big group of litter pickers to tidy up the outside area, especially a patch around the back where some fly-tipping had taken place.

A few highlights were -

• Emma and Charlie were keener than an over-excited puppy covered in mustard waiting for his first walk of the day to get their hands on the bread and butter. 4 loaves were some prepared with precision spreading.

• Jenny and Elly's completely baffled faces trying to work a dryer then realising they needed to switch it on at the wall.

• Mel getting incredibly into unblocking a storm drain in the yard.

• Sarah and her one-lady mission to clear the bushes of litter.

• Nick's domestic pride when it came to mopping the floor (sorry about the footprints at the end!)

That was not even the half of it. Everyone put in a good shift and Richard was really chuffed with our efforts. So after saying goodbye and running back I still had time to fit in some great running fitness training in the form of Fartleks around Queen Square.

We stretched and chatted before congratulating some milestones. Massive well done to Jon and Emily for hitting 50, welcome to the black t-shirt gang. Another big lump of red t-shirt respect goes out to our very own Paul Becker also for completing his 200th run on Saturday for which we bestowed him with the pink panther wheelbarrow custom 200 t-shirt. To celebrate we headed off to Atomic Diner and ate, sang and were merry.

Thanks to everyone who made it along tonight, especially those who came out for your first run with us, it was a marvelous effort.

See you next time,

Gary