Well, I never. On the first day of May, we had *58 GoodGymers *come out to play! Breaking Bristol GoodGym (and - TBC - GoodGym) history, this massive group of helpful and fit peeps got dug in around Bristol tonight. A big welcome to all of the new runners who joined us tonight, and it was great to see the Bristol Uni Medical Students back again.

Fifty-great

The group split up to do two tasks. Charlie and Sally did a wonderful job taking 18 runners up to join forces with Bristol Waste and Streetscene. The group were handing out information to student accommodation in the area on how to recycle and properly dispose of their things before moving out at the end of the month. They did not stop there: while the group ran the streets of Redland and Cheltenham Road doing this, they got stuck in de-tagging lamposts and wheelie bins around the area.

Fifty- 'wait, how many?'

Meanwhile, the other 40 of us went to Emmaus for Round Three of the great tale of *GoodGym v. Prickly Bush. * Big thanks to Tom, Mel and Matt for their skillful run-leading and back-marking to get us all over there and back safely.

Xanne from Emmaus met us to greet the many new runners and tell us about the wonderful work they do at Emmaus to help homeless people rebuild their lives through their holistic approach. We then set to work - while some of the group did an exceptional litter picking job round the area, a group gave the two Emmaus vans a quick clean up and the rest of the team got down to the bushy business.

The prickly bush put up a very good fight, but with a 30-strong group working on it with all manner of tools, it finally gave way just as the clock struck the time to fit in our run home (strangely enough, it seemed to take just enough time for no-one to have to do a burpee this evening at all...).

Fifty-ate

Following all of this running around it was time for our monthly GoodGym Eats. We descended on Las Iguanas for burritos and cocktails ahoy. Thank you for organising a great night Liam!

A day of many happy returns today as we were not only wishing Tom a happy birthday but also had two group runs on offer returning to two of our favourite task venues. Could today's big turnout have been influenced by the promise of cake from Tom? Or was it the choice of a long and short run option and two fabulous tasks, giving everyone something to look forward to?

We welcomed Russell along for his first GoodGym group run and hope you enjoyed the experience Russell!

We also congratulated Chris and Alison on their London Marathon heroics last week and Hugh who had completed the Paris Marathon a couple of weeks earlier - well done guys!

The longer option was wonderfully led by Richard who expertly guided us through town and along the gentle ascent of the Bristol Bath Railway Path to The Haven.

The Haven is a 1.3 acre oasis of countryside near Greenbank cemetery where people who have issues around their mental health and/or drug/alcohol misuse can have a safe space to relax, socialise and be involved with activity's such as gardening,art,sculpture, woodworking and nature conservation.

Here we were met by Julia and Alistair who got one group pulling out weeds and nettles from a raspberry patch, taking care not to get stung in the process and then barrowing the waste over to a compost pile. Working efficiently they soon had the patch looking clear whilst taking care not to pull out any raspberry bushes.

The other group helped out with building a dead hedge to encourage some wildlife to inhabit the area. Under the careful supervision from Alistair, including some excellent axe instruction, the group managed to strip down branches for the hedge and make stakes for supporting the hedge and by the time we left this was looking great.

All the while a duck busied itself foraging for something to eat - I'm not quite sure how successful it was but seemed very content getting it's beak dirtier and dirtier as it patrolled the area, whilst a chicken pottered around nearby.

Meanwhile, Jack led the shorter run option to Windmill Hill City Farm. Beth from the the Farm showed us the around and it was clear we were going to have to get out of a bind (weed)! The farm was in need of bindweed haircut and the team duly obliged. Grabbing the weeds and securing them in buckets to be disposed off, so they hopefully don't grow back. A robin made the best of the situation and was eating up the earthworms as we dug out the weeds!

Chris had a bit of a different environment to the hot streets of the London Marathon and found himself ankle deep in horse muck. Debs and Emma decided to test Chris's shoveling skills forming a rapid two woman wheelbarrow gang - racing to ensure that they never ran out at the other end, where it was emptied onto the ground so provide a bit of fodder to get the veggies growing well on the city farm. There was just enough time for a cup of tea and a look at the new spring animals and goat kids and lambs were very popular with all, we look forward to going back to Windmill Hill City Farm again soon.

Nice work everyone today and big thanks to Richard and Jack for getting everyone there and back safely!

Word has obviously got round about the lovely hidden orchard at Manor Woods Valley as a massive 30 people joined us today - in spite of the prospect of an 8k round trip in hot sunny weather. This included 7 new faces (welcome!) and the return of a few of a couple of our favourite Bristol Uni Med students from Tuesday - welcome back chaps, great to see you again!

With Jack back marking we managed to navigate our way along the Malago Greenway to meet our amazing MVCG host Martin on site at the orchard.

Martin explained that we were to prepare some areas of the orchard for wildflower seed planting by using shears and rakes to remove any nettles and bramble 'risings' (new sprouting brambles) before digging out 2m diameter circular beds for the seeds.

With so many people we were also able to deploy a team to clear an additional space of somewhat more (risen?) brambles by the path entrance and a special shout out too to Art, David and Rosalyn who selflessly took on the less glamorous role of litter picking around the meadow.

Great work everyone and kudos to Jack for not cutting any human limbs with his rather menacing looking slasher implement - although he did manage to break a rake!

Lovely to have Caroline back on a visit from Sheffield today and all the best to Fi who joined us today at the task in spite of a dodgy ankle - hope you're back running with us soon, Fi.

If you enjoyed today you should definitely join us next week when you can choose between the equally idyllic Haven or a shorter run to Windmill Hill City Farm.

A completely surreal but absolutely brilliant last run as trainer tonight began with the arrival en-masse of 13 Bristol University medical students who had all decided to join us for the night as part of their vounteering assignment. Thanks for joining us folks!

This made the warm up circle pretty large but feeling I had things nicely under control we moved onto the usual head count. However, when rather familiar looking faces began appearing and giving their names as Paul that I realised things were not quite as under control as I had thought. Each time I thought we were back on track another Paul would pop up and I pretty soon realised that possibly this wasn't the evening to plan on separating people into odd and even numbers :) Thanks for making me laugh though Pauls!

With 48 runnners needing to travel the 3k to the Pickle factory a group split was essential - so thanks to Dave for being ever-dependable and having claimed not to know the way in fact succeeding in finding all the short cuts that I had missed!

I'd prepared Stuart for a big turnout - but not this big, so it was fantastic to arrive and find he had come up with an array of jobs to keep everyone occupied - Stuart you're a star! One group cut and sawed a pile of branches down to size so they could be transported by car. Another dug out the earth at the entrance to one of the containers so it would be level enough for paving stones and rain water wouldn't drain inside.

The biggest groups were reserved for painting though. A group of 20 which included the students painted the hallway inside the Pickle factory. Conditions were cramped but I'm not sure that accounted for all the paint that seemed to find its way mysteriously onto the legs and arms of the painters. The last group worked on creating a green path that would match the green walls above it.

Excellent progress was made by all the teams and by the time it was time to go we'd certainly got the bulk of the jobs done. We posed for a group photo and I can't be sure, but its just possible that one or two Pauls appeared again behind me.

We returned for some stretching and then congratulated Deb on reaching her amazing 200 good deed milestone. Everyone loves Deb so it was no surprise that this was greeted with an enormous round of applause. Watch this space for associated fashion updates in GG red in the next week or two.

So all there was left to do was to give my sincere thanks to all the fantastic Task Force members and Run Leaders who've supported me over the last seven months - honestly I couldn't have done it without you - and to wish Shona all the very best for what I know will be a very successful tenure as captain of the good ship GG Bristol!

(Ps Thanks to Richard for my Pink Panther cake and for the mysterious photos left in my bag, a montage of which can be found attached to this run report. Richard and Clo you are completely mad - but in the best way possible x)