oh well hello there...you all really decided that February was where you wanted to start the year off! A massive FIFTY SIX of you turned up to the Square Pig in Holborn...good job I booked that area for...er...thirty! Anyway, what I really mean to say is thank you, not worth doing this without you all :)

To the report...

Heroes

• Topping the charts for January, like the keen bean we know she is Egg Cameron managed 25 good deeds last month - what a legend! Check out the rest of the heroes here or on the photo above!

• People are amazing and January was a month for amazing people. 28 earned their black tshirts for 50 good deeds and 5 earned their wings for 100 good deeds. Give these lot a cheer: Clo, Michael (apologies to Michael who missed a shout out on the night!), Sarah, Sarah K, Stephen! Finally we had a few who reached even bigger milestones - Matt, Steph and Adele who hit 200 good deeds and Paul Becker who passed 300!!! Amazing - congrats and so much respect to you all!

• Finally the area heroes! So we've got a bit of an issue as I've realised that Bristol have a Saturday run that mean they're always topping the attendance charts...well done those areas that have beaten them previously. I may look into rectifying this or just let it be more even impetus for you to get the runners to your areas! So congrats to GG Bristol with 313 attendances in January and congrats to GG Southwark who had a whopping 48 new runners in January - amazing!

January Challenge

• So results are in - we had two challenges: 5000 good deeds and 50,000km. We did amazingly well and everyone deserves a huge pat on the back. Distance we totally smashed with a recorded 68,218km, we probably ran more as many of you don't use run trackers - utterly incredible - that's further than London to Sydney and back twice! Deeds, well we fell a little short recording 4640 but it's bigger than any other month we've had before and massively bigger. Well done all of you and keep it up!

• In the divisional competition you can see how you did here but congrats to GG Bristol who had the most good deeds overall with 382 and GG Lewisham who topped distances with 4363km. Well done all!

(At time of social the figures were correct)

News

• The biggest news from January surrounded someone for whom there are frankly no superlatives left. I don't really know what to type but show some love to Beth Hoskins who last month was recognised by the Prime Minister as a Point of Light. Amazing! Congrats and can you stop it now ;) only joking keep doing what you're doing - you're an inspiration to us all.

• We have some new trainer announcements - from the 12th February Pritesh Mistry(yes that is me) will be leading GG Brent and Laura Williams takes over at GG Tower Hamlets. From 14th February Lucy Jeczalik takes over at GG Southwark. Go support them when you can (mainly me please)!

• We'll have new areas opening in Waltham Forest, Kingston, Liverpool, Newcastle and Portsmouth - do let people you know in those areas about how awesome GG is and how they can and should get involved.

Races

Well it was a race themed social but it probably didn't feel like we talked races that much. I know that lots of you know about them but just an FYI on the Big Six and Europe trip below. I'll continue to bring the races QR code sheet to the social so you can scan and find out more then.

• Colchester Half Marathon - 25 March

• Great Welsh Half and Full Marathon - 15 April

• Euro Trip - Bucharest - 12 - 15 May

• ** Lakeland Trails** - 03 June

• WSR East Farm - 25 - 27 August

• Rutland Marathon - 16 September

• Yorkshire Marathon - 14 October

Please note that all races offer options on distances aside from Colchester which is a half marathon only. Click through for details.

• Don't forget GoodGym Race Team. The UKA affiliated run club - join up before 31st March to maximise your membership. It's £25 for the year and you get a GG running singlet, £2 off at all races and in London you can enter the cross country running team too!

Guest Speaker

Big big thank you to Stephen Corry who spoke so passionately about how GG Lewisham had grown to be a second family to him after his move from Ireland and how he's gone from no races ever to running four marathons this year! Amazing. I hear on the grapevine that he'll be writing an article based on the speech for the GoodGym websites. Keep an eye out on the stories page for that!

Interational Pun of the Month...and YEAR!!!

What can I say - the competition grows stronger and stronger, the voting is more and more frenzied and you lot don't have complain a lot about things still! Anyway... here we go... It was a strong field this month, 5 of the 10 puns hit double figures for votes but... taking it... with 20 out of 101 votes, the winner... of Internationa Pun of the Month for January is...

Rake me up before you go go from GG Wandsworth

Congrats to GG Wandsworth - that is three months on the bounce - wow! Time for us to up our game, or vote more tactically...

Now to International Pun of the Year... this was the crème de la crème of 2017, twelve absolute monsters...the winner, you just can't keep a good area down... but taking it by one from March with 11 out of 75 votes, 2017s pun to rule all puns is...

Adjustin' Timber-ache from GG Bristol

Well done GG Bristol - that was a monster!

The reports aren't getting any shorter are they? Oh well, thanks as ever to all of you that vote and come along and are involved - there'd be no social without you. Thanks for humouring me with the QR codes, I'll bring both pun and races along next month where hopefully you'll have more room to check them out!

I'm pleased to announce that we now have a full line-up of socials for this year - check the info in the photos. Next Month we are back on tour, I'm delighted to say that GG Greenwich are hosting, 8th March at the Greenwich Tavern from 6.30pm... you can find all the details here. Hope to see plenty of you there!

Thanks so much and as ever do send me any feedback (other than "get a bigger room")!

Cheers, Pritesh

p.s. Thanks, as ever, to John for additional photos.

p.p.s. Don't forget the unofficial goodgym facebook group - we chat all things running, socials and everything else you might expect from the burgeoning GoodGym community. You can join here but please don't forget to answer the question about your area or we won't accept you!