With the festive season almost upon us, 8 eager goodgymers gathered in high spirits at Colchester leisure world. The group was welcomed by Angela who had come along to give Fay a hand, bringing the first aid kit and a bag full of gardening gloves. we were all very excited to see Hannah back after her wonderful run at Dublin marathon!

Like all good Christmas parties there’s always one guest who turns up uninvited….tonight that was us! After running up Balkerne Hill and through the town we arrived at Cheviot Care Home to be met by a very lovely, and very surprised member of care staff. Not to be deterred the team explained they’d come to help sweep up the leaves in the garden and driveway for the residences and made their way around to the back of the home where they found a vast array of leaf collecting tools. Soon we were busy sweeping and collecting up the few leaves we could find from the patio (even though most of the leaves had been cleared away earlier that day by the caretaker!)

It was a short task and we headed back to the hill for a fab fitness session, led by Tav. Tav, Fay and Emily marked out three points along the hill and the team set off one by one to do interval sessions. There was no rest as the group awaited their turn and Tav put everyone through their paces with some strengthening and conditioning exercises. Feeling fabulous and fit the team headed back to leisure world for a quick cool down and stretch. We look forward to welcoming run leader Ian from Ipswich next week.