Warning! This group run contained a cloak, a tourist, a newbie, a Japanese relay race and 300 leaflets

Firstly, can I just say, I presume it was SO COLD TONIGHT to fully give our Camden tourist Beth a true taste of the North East?! As always we started the evening with loads to celebrate including a new runner (Hello Ellen!), a visiting runner (Yay Beth!) a cloaked runner - happy 51st Good Deed, Andrew! Not to mention a 6 month streak celebration for Charlotte and a super warm up in which we discovered Dave can make himself the tallest person in the group, and Abi has great balance until you actually tell her that.

We were off tonight on a task that thankfully required us to keep moving, as we embarked on a huge leaflet drop in the Arthur's Hill area of town for Vertical Veg for Greening Wingrove. There had been a slight panic that we had been given 2000 leaflets instead of 200, and here I must shout out Louise who spent a very rock and roll Saturday night counting them, to thankfully discover there were "only" 300. These leaflets are a vital way of getting the message out to the local community about a new project encouraging people to grow their own vegetables in their back yards. The super projects on offer from Greening Wingrove can be found on their website if you want to read more.

We scattered off in trios and pairs and managed to cover all the streets listed in the task request in a very swift 15 minutes, leaving extra time for the fitness session - yay! A quick reminder of some sprint technique, a quick warm up using lamp posts and a confusing five minutes arranging ourselves into teams for an Ekiden attempt. It's basically another name for a relay but since reading The Way of the Runner (Finn) I have been a little obsessed by the whole thing.

Ekiden (駅伝) = a long-distance running multistage relay race mostly held on roads. The Japanese term originally referred to a post-horse or stagecoach which transmitted communication by stages.

Our Ekiden comprised three short legs and one long sprint finish in which Nick and Darren were victorious, winning our praise and admiration rather than the classic Japanese prizes of household items such as bin bags and cling film. Well done to everyone for putting in loads of effort and cheering each other on, it was awesome.

The social tonight looked pretty good too as the social-ites headed off to The Stack, complete with a bag full of individually sliced cake courtesy of Andrew to celebrate his 50 good deeds. See photos for amazing cake evidence!

Don't forget, there are two fantastic community missions this week. Tomorrow where you can spend a chilled Tuesday morning tidying a school library and Sunday where there is digging to be done for Newcastle Parks. Get involved if you can.

Finally, it's a huge GOOD LUCK to Task Force hero Charlotte who is running in the PARIS MARATHON on Sunday! Have fun and smile every mile. Bon chance Charlotte!

Happy running and walking. See you all next week,

Anji x

The true beauty of GoodGym is the reflection that much like life being like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get.

Is that too deep for a Monday?

We LOVE helping NEST at Newcastle University as they always have a creative and diverse range of tasks for us that always offer us opportunities to show great team work. NEST is a volunteer project offering educational support to refugees in our city, and I have to say I have never met NEST students that aren't the happiest people you see all day!

It was a huge welcome to a big group of 30 including 3 newcomers tonight, all of which did a fantastic job and hopefully will be back to join us every week now the lighter evenings are almost upon us. We caught up on some great mission news, from Richard and Liz's older person mission last week which allowed someone to return home from hospital safely, to a huge clear up that happened in Harbottle Park yesterday we started the night glowing with pride!

Katy led the Simon Says themed warm up while I joined Charlotte's walking group and tried my best to not bore everyone with my injury woes which I know are mainly in my head. I heard reports that the warm up included "millions of squats" so the gang were well and truly warmed up on arrival to Newcastle University!

Task owner Bridget ushered us into a classroom at the back of the university where there were so many of us we had to move chairs around and perform some army rolls under the tables just to fit in. One side of the room looked like an interview panel and I couldn't decide which job they'd all be going for. Bridget explained that the NEST sessions are growing, with a turn out of 170 students at a session over the weekend.

How brilliant is that?!

NEST hold regular parties for learners and their families and tonight our task was to make decorations, in a brief throwback to our Christmas task there were I witnessed the most terrible snowflake-making by Peter. One side of the room were to make glorious mulit-coloured paper chains, while the other created quote cards for the NEST students to read. These are simple tasks for a group of our size that make a massive difference to groups like NEST ahead of this week's party. This chilled-out task gave everyone a lovely chance to catch up while showing off their creative flourish, or lack thereof.

We had an unexpected late edition to the group when Tom arrived at 7:10pm (late but worth the wait) taking our head count to 31!

Task done and out to the fitness session which was a fast interval session disguised as a children's game- always a winner. Excellent sprint and dodging techniques were on display and we crowned James King of the Cops at the end of the game. The energy was infectious tonight and everyone was smiling as we left.

There's a double Nunsmoor task coming up as we head to Nunsmoor Park for the Community Mission on Saturday followed by our first light task of the year on Monday at the Nunsmoor Centre so it would be great to see you at either or both as we get stuck into some hands on physical work!

Have a great week everyone, you smashed Monday!

Anji x

You'd be forgiven for thinking as you walked into Hotel Indigo tonight that Andrew was sitting there knitting, and that's because he was.

This whole new knitting obsession is a common "thread" between tasks at the moment as Charlotte is being encouraged to take up knitting by her fabulous coach. The knitting is so "in" right now that Andrew even took his knitting needles to the pub tonight for the after-task social. Check out the photos!

After a weekend filled with Community Missions and LOTS of running, we had a quick catch up of everyone's achievements while Charlotte led the walking group up to Newcastle University. The main catch up that wasn't directly running-related is that Andrew has been making everyone cry today following the publication online of his brilliant piece about overcoming anxiety, which you can read here We are so proud of you Andrew, thank you for sharing your story in such a positive and open way.

We welcomed 4 new runners and walkers tonight thanks to a group joining us from Zero Light Newcastle as part of their volunteering and wellbeing drive- a massive thanks to Cathy for organising. We'd love to see you all again soon, you were all awesome.

Sweetie-themed warm up done and off we went to Newcastle University where tonight we were helping out NEST- the university society that supports education for refugees in the city. Task owner Bridget gave us the lowdown on tonight's tasks:

• A mammoth shelf-building session

• Blowing up footballs

• Putting together book bags

• Wrapping books in paper so as not to be judged by their covers

• Sourcing photos for picture dictionaries

The commitment shown tonight presented in sheer grit to get the job done by Peter and actually climbing INSIDE the shelves by Aimee. There's never any giving up from this bunch. Some awesome drawing and wrapping seen from the book "club" too while I was super impressed with the speed and efficiency of the photo sourcers and the immediate production line from the book bag group. Dave and Peter also did some rapid football inflation making sure everyone knew that it was extremely hard work.

Time was tight to get the shelves finished but everyone piled in and in just 40 minutes 5 sets of shelves were completed. What was brilliant to see was that a member of NEST actually stayed after his learning session in order to take part- and brilliant he was too. Bridget said the tasks we did this evening saved her and the NEST volunteers around 7 hours of their time which can now be spent on other worthwhile things.

Amazing!

We made a return to one of our favourite games for the fitness session showcasing all manner of cheating and dirty tricks as we played a game of dishes and domes, finishing off with a triple finisher including the dreaded wall squat. High energy, loads of laughing and the evening came to a close. Hopefully everyone enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed watching the tactics in the game! A group went off immediately to the pub for the weekly social where Evan provided a mammoth Rocky Road for everyone to reward themselves with.

There's another new Community Mission this weekend if you'd like to spend your Saturday morning doing a good deed for Newcastle parks, and we are back to [Newcastle Cricket Club] for the group run next Monday.

Happy running, walking and knitting!

Anji x