On a wet and blustery Saturday morning, 12 GoodGymmers met to run to help Herbert Thompson Primary School… Storm Brian was not going to rain on their parade!!

The meeting point was at the Snowdog in Victoria Park – for some a chance to see a Snowdog they didn’t get to see on the 5Km and 10Km(ish) Snowdogathon course and for others a painful reminder of how they felt on reaching the Snowdog last Sunday. We had three special GoodGym tourists with us today! A huge welcome to Deb, Paul and Chloe from GoodGym Bristol and thanks for coming over the bridge to foreign lands to run with us. Whilst waiting to see if any other runners would arrive to join us, we played a little game called ‘Squirrels’. Ben gave us a minute to go and hide in the close vicinity and then when he shouted ‘Squirrels’ we each had to poke out our heads from behind whatever we were hiding then hide again quickly. Ben would then try to spot us and if he did he would call your name and you were out. I’m not sure the windy conditions helped everyone to hear ‘squirrels’ being shouted but the victor was Emma... Congratulations!!

Let's get warm!

Next came our warm up with the usual heel walking, tip toes, lunges and hip flexes before an interesting head count. Our favourite thing to name today was ice cream flavour. It proved to be highly controversial with some people having very specific answers including a brand or colour.

Now time for the school run...

Without further ado we were off on our run to the school. The rain came and went as we were on our way following Ben and his trusty woman on Google maps (she did a great job). After 1.3 miles and a couple of stops to re-group with wall planks and wall sits we reached Herbert Thompson Primary School. The sight we were greeted with was Fiona (a regular GoodGym Cardiff runner and Herbert Thompson teacher) fighting against the winds of Storm Brian with an inflatable tent – I’m not sure who won that battle!

It's school time!

At the school entrance we were met by Seren, a young lady who introduced herself to us as ‘Mrs Marsh’s assistant’. We said hello and Ben asked her if she knew who we were to which she replied ‘no’ so Ben explained. Behind Seren, another door opened and Fiona, Sheena and Mim appeared and invited us in. Sheena (aka Mrs Marsh) introduced herself to us as the headteacher of the school, Seren as her daughter and Mim as the assistant headteacher. Sheena thanked us for running to them to help out and explained to us that they are a relatively large school with limited funding so any voluntary help is greatly appreciated. Next she explained our tasks to us. We needed to take new bookcases upstairs and paint them and also paint the walls of a room that was to be turned into the new emotional support room for the children which will be named ‘The Haven’. With that we got stuck in, four people on each bookcase to get them up the stairs (thankfully no walls were scraped en route). Black plastic bags were put on in their usual fashionable way to protect our precious GoodGym t-shirts and paint brushes and rollers picked up. Tom and Lucy made a start on one bookcase whilst Ellen, Fiona and Paul got painting the second with everyone else starting the task of covering the pale pink walls of the emotional support room with a white paint. Seren continued very ably in her Headteacher Assistant role offering out chocolate Heroes and asking us to smile for photographs to record our hard work – maybe we can take her on all our runs?? Bookcases complete, everyone moved onto painting in ‘The Haven’ and got more of the walls painted than we had been expected to by Sheena. As a final job, Fiona provided us with wipes to mop up any drips onto the windowsills and frames (Ellen and Lucy admitted to making a couple of splashes onto the windowsill and skirting board… luckily it came off).

Before it was hometime, we went to have a sneaky peek at Miss Guy’s (Fiona’s) classroom. We each took a seat at the desks and she taught us a few Welsh words including ‘ond’ meaning ‘but’ – thank you for upping our knowledge of the Welsh language. It was so school... I mean cool! We had a couple of group photos and a very special thank you message from Seren wishing us a safe journey home too .... very sweet! (She did say we couldn't leave without our parents or guardian being there, but Ben assured Seren he was going to make sure they all got home safely). With one last chocolate to keep us going we bid a fond farewell and began our run back to Victoria Park battling the wind and occasional spots of rain that Brian was throwing our way.

Run home

Once back at the Snowdog, we had a cool down stretch and reflected on our morning’s work and the task as a whole. The consensus was that we all had a really great time helping at Herbert Thompson Primary School. Hopefully they will have us back again to do some outside tasks for them (when Storm Brian isn’t knocking around). As a reward to ourselves for a job well done we headed to Chapter for a well earned drink, some food and a good old natter! A little while later, Fiona joined us having cleared up at the school. She headed to the bar and bought herself a cheeky glass of red only to turn round to a child saying ‘hello Miss Guy’! Caught out by a child in her class – the dangers of being a teacher. Fiona gave us feedback from Sheena that she was really impressed with the work we got done for them and would definitely have us back. Great job Saturday class – A*s all round!!

Schools out Folks!