14 runners and 1 walker run to Colchester Foodbank to give it a deep clean

Wednesday evening could only mean one thing. Goodgym! Tav, Naomi and Ian were waiting with bated breath for their shiny red shoelaces, which Elephant had used as a wig.

Susie and Allen came back for their 2nd runs which was great, and Dominic, who competed for Team GB in the 2012 and 2016 Olympics joined us for his first run as well. We're also really glad to have Hannah return, who we haven't seen in a while.

We were all excited as tonight’s task was to clean Colchester Foodbank, which is where we went on our first ever task. So after a quick warm up which we started inside, because I’m a wuss who hates the cold, we made our way to the foodbank via the ‘safe’ route. We decided it was best to leave the ‘jungle adventure’ route until we have daylight again for our runs.

Naomi challenged Dom to a race, anything to try and get him to run, but he just kept walking, and still won the race!

Anything to try and get him to run!

We were warmly welcomed when we arrived at the foodbank, and we delivered our mars bars offering for the treat shelf.

We diligently got to work cleaning the entire foodbank whilst learning about the work they do. Currently they don’t want for food, there are plenty of donations, but there is a cost in running the foodbank that they are looking for just £1 a month from 1400 people. You can learn more about that HERE

We’re so good at cleaning this space now that most people were finished with time to spare. All except Chris who had the gargantuan task off mopping the floor of the warehouse, so we all crowded in to give him plenty of encouragement, before all posing for some group photos.

Out of the foodbank and full of a great sense of that warm fuzzy feeling of being appreciated for doing something good for others, we made our way back to leisureworld, although some peeled off to go to the pub - unfortunately they weren’t serving any haggis for burns night.

The rest of us made our way back to Leisure World pretty quick, as it was really cold! And we had a quick stretch to call down whilst I remembered the many news items:

• Goodgym run on Saturday with Rivercare; we will be learning to fish people out of the river sign up here

• Colchester Half Training Run on Sunday with I Run Success sign up here - sorry my website’s a bit sqiffy at the moment… That mischievious elephant!

• #Runandtalk next week for mental health awareness join our regular group run -sign up below, AND join the session that Parkside Running & Fitness are hosting on Thursday Run (or walk especially for Dom) and Talk Facebook event page here

• Next week’s run we’ll be doing a task for Colchester in Bloom sign up here

• EXTRA Goodgym Colchester Social Silent Disco at Three Wise Monkeys on 17th Feb, Mark it in your diaries and more info will follow shortly

Always a pleasure leading runs with you lot. You make it really special, so keep coming back and keep doing good!

Angela x

Run Report by Angela Isherwood