Storm Eleanor had brought Ipswich to a standstill earlier today with the closure of the Orwell Bridge causing traffic chaos throughout the town centre.

With the wind still gusting strongly and the traffic chaos abating slightly, 6 hardy souls - JJ, Robin, Lucy, Tony, Nicola and myself, found their way to the Waterfront and lined up for the first Goodgym Ipswich group run of 2018.

We headed off on a 2.5 mile run across the town centre and along Norwich Road to one of our regular sites at Castle Hill Community Centre. The task was painting one of the rooms and Garath, the centre manager, was surprised to see our smaller than usual group arrive as we have been "mob handed" on previous visits.

However, although our numbers were smaller tonight we still managed to achieve a huge amount and completed one coat of paint on all the walls and my nose. Even the strong coloured green feature wall, which needed a white undercoat was done.

On the run home we dropped JJ off as we passed his doorstep and headed back to our waterfront base to finish the night with some gentle stretching to ease the effects of one of our longer runs.

So 2018 is underway and we've started our contribution to the Goodgym National January challenge of 5000 good deeds and 50,000kms running

It's a great challenge and there's some added spice as we've set up a friendly local derby element with Steven and his team at Goodgym Norwich - Who can contribute most to the National Challenge Ipswich or Norwich?

So we need everyone in Ipswich (yes everyone - bring along you family, friends or even people you don't really like) to get out on a Goodgym run in January - in the immortal words of a tipsy Delia "Lets be Havin Ya, Come On!"

There's a starter session this Saturday, aimed at new runners but everyone is welcome, and all good deeds count towards our total. https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/weeding-borders-and-tidying-sheds

Next week we go back to our regular Monday night slot with a short run to the Survivors in Transition Centre. Again this is an ideal session for new runners, but absolutely everyone is welcome. https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/survivors-in-transition-helping-a-wonderful-charity