What a super Saturday bonus run!

We welcomed no less than FOUR new runners to GoodGym today- that's the bonus of a lunchtime run: people who find evenings tricky due to work commitments get the chance to come along and see what we are all about! Hopefully we will see Maddie, Amy, Oli and Steph back again soon.

There were some fabulous partner balances shown off in the warm up- the final poses of everyone carrying each other or in piggybacks should have been caught on camera and I am disappointed in myself! We had a little audience outside of Hotel Indigo looking aghast which I take as a positive. One of my favourite bits of Newcastle - the high level bridge - featured in our route today and the small but perfectly formed group stayed together all the way to the task.

We were helping out at the Dementia Hub for Age UK Gateshead where we visited to do a bit of painting a few weeks ago. We love this task as Julie the task leader is always so organised and chilled! As always, Julie had everything ready for us and had even colour coordinated stuff so we didn't have to keep asking questions! How amazing is that?!

Tasks today were:

• Taking desks apart and moving them downstairs

• Moving new computer furniture upstairs

• Looking important with screwdrivers

• Showing amazing mental strength by not giving up and just playing swingball

• Tidying and reorganising two large cupboards containing gardening equipment, games and crafts

• Moving items of large furniture on to the stage area

• Hoovering - there's a prize for guessing who wanted to do this...

The cupboards were basically like a massive game of Tetris, fitting lots of bits together to make better use of the space, and it was quite amazing to see the difference made by the team on this job! Kudos.

This was a task with a LOT of heavy lifting and the boys really got stuck into it, with desks dismantled and carried up and down the stairs in no time. I have a feeling everyone will be aching tomorrow! Julie said this was a job that would have taken their team of volunteers days to sort out and we were done in just under an hour. Despite the freezing cold headwind it was a lovely run back to base and a familiar afterglow of using our run to do great things.

Well done everyone!

PS: It was Carol Anne who did the Hoovering, and your prize is yet another free group run this Monday at Eslington House for Changing Lives

Anji x