After a week of autumnal gloom a sunny evening brought a bumper turn out of runners to East Oxford.

With one eye on the clock so that we could make it through the gate to the University Parks before locking up time, we got the run briefing underway early. Double garlands of joy were awarded this week, as both Rachael and Trev had raced at Blenheim Palace in awful conditions on Sunday. Soggy socks and blisters definitely deserve an award! We're always delighted to welcome new Oxford GoodGymers, and tonight we had a hat-trick joining us for their first Oxford Good Deeds; lovely to meet you Tom, Peter, and Callum. And with no further ado....

...we were off!!

Dodging freshers week madness in South Park we dashed past the Islamic Centre and made a beeline for Mesopotamia Walk, sliding through the gate just as it was locked behind us. It was worth it to squeeze in one last evening group run on the trails before autumn and winter restrict us to the tarmac! A beautiful run along the river, and a brief distraction on the zip wire (Sarah showing us how it's done), lead us to Raymund Road and a large pile of daffodil bulbs.

The plan by Councillor Mark Lygo is to plant spring bulbs along every grass verge in Marston over the next 18 months, to add a splash of joy and colour to the area (a use of his councillor priority fund that will make a big visual impact on the area come the spring). Our task was to get the project started by planting the length of Raymund Road, which is the main route to St Nicholas's Primary School. Instructions received from Mark, and tools kindly supplied by Alistair from Marston Community Gardens, we split into pairs, grabbed spades and bulbs, and set to work.

Half an hour and hundreds of daffodil bulbs later (and only one pogo-stick tumble; always guaranteed some fun when Aoife's around) we had planted along the length of the road, with clusters under the couple of trees at the end of the street. We'll be keen to return in March to check out the flowers! As an unexpected prize for helping out we were gifted a jar of honey by Alistair, which had to be awarded to Rachel for coming back to her first Group Run post-injury tonight, and completing her 10th Good Deed!

With darkness crowding in and an autumnal chill in the air we stashed the tools and got moving again on the run back to base. The road route is far less scenic, but with lots of chat it was still plenty of fun. Well it was until we got to South Park with 10 minutes to spare.......HILLS! HILLS! HILLS! It's so rare to find a hill in Oxford that when you do you're obligated to run a few relay hill sprints. Them's the rules.

Great work once again team.

Same time next week.

What a weekend it was! We had the biggest OCR group yet following the success of the Spartan Races. We managed to gather a big fun team that was full of life and ready for many of the challenges even though I know most did not trained for it.

We managed to adopt Serca who volunteered the day before by herself but quickly became acquainted with Alice, Jonathan and Kapil who invited her to run with us the following day. Now she is a believer of Goodgym after she told us she was afraid due to assuming we had a fitness criteria. We also had one of Callum’s friend join us as well as Rachel’s friend Gaia.

This was a 10 km course with 16 obstacles. The team took each challenge with a smile and bravery. The most challenging obstacles seemed to be the most fun one for some runners. Bouy Zone got attempted by all 17 of us but only 1 person made (It’s much tougher than it looks). Balancing on a plank of wood also seemed to be harder than expected (More core workouts will be needed after this). Our upper body strength was tested when it came to the 3 formidable. This Big tipper which was a yellow inflatable that would have the runners trying to jump over an awkward hump in the middle of this inflatable. This took quite a bit of grip strength. Up and Under had the runners trying to navigate over a pool of water with only some nets to hang on to. As you go over some nets you also have to go under some too. This was quite a technical challenge especially towards the end, but you can see that some people was not giving up, especially Alice who seemed to be hanging on for dear life. But team worked prevailed. The hanging tough was the one that people remembered from Gladiators and could do as a child but doing it as an adult is another story. Everyone tried it, not everyone made it but no got hurt. It was all smiles

Now the final obstacle was the travellator which was the finisher to our 10 km adventure. There were free speeds at an incline. 5mph, 4 mph, 3 mph and then reverse. We all tried to do the fastest one first, but it wasn’t to be for everyone. You can see many people have the ability to do it but there was a technique to trying to get onto the massive treadmill. With everyone making it to the top. We all took a triumphant dunk into the pool at the bottom of the slide. The end was insight and we did a triumphant GoodGym Chant to cross the finish line. As the day draws to an end, everyone seemed happy with the new people they have met, the challenges they took on and the support that they got. A big thank you and congratulations to everyone who turned up to Volunteer as well as Run. They day would not of been made without.

Welcome to the world of Obstacle course racing. Next one will either be the Spartan in October 5th and 6th or the Mordon rough Runner.

23 GoodGymers ran 5k to St Andrews Youth Club to paint the performance theatre and clear out and organise the overflowing store cupboard.

Thank you all so much for coming along on the run!! Big shout out to all the first timers who made last night their maiden GG voyage!!

We got underway with a big shout out from the always energetic Chi who let us know about a great beginner obstacle course weekend coming up in Finsbury Park. Click here for all the information on how to get involved!!

We then danced out way South the the St James’s Park area with a lovely 2.5k run to St Andrews Youth Club. It felt very weird to be there with non of the bright, bold and bubbly kids enjoying their evenings activities as they were on School holidays. But it allowed us more space to get working!

We split into 2 groups the painters went upstairs to get cracking with bringing the theatre some brightness for the new term while the sorters had a mountain of a task emptying, clearing and organising an overflowing store room.

With the painters off to a cracking start, with rollers rolling and brushes brushing the main parts and the fine detail of the walls were expertly taken care of with speed, efficiency and precision!!

With the room sparkling we cleared up the the minor paint drops on the floor, washed up and headed off.

The sorters produced an epic organisational performance!! Removing everything from the store cupboard, cleaning it so it gleamed, sorted all the contents into like for like boxes then in perfect order up the stuff back so it was so easy to use and view. A monumental improvement in 40 minutes of action!!

All that was left was the run back, basking in the glory of a brilliantly completed task we chatted and run up to in famous Green Park Drag where we tested our fitness with a 2 minute, 400 metre up slope effort from the bottom to the top of the park!!

With the drag dominated lead by Rhys we finished off the Sexy Fish way back to base to complete a fun filled evening!!

Next week we will be helping Open Age to for fill the mission to get Westminster’s senior community more connected and active!! Sign up and see you there!!

Joel