In our largest turn out of the year so far 30 runners helped on a triple challenge at the Children's Scrapstore in St Werburghs.

The Children's Scrapstore is an Aladdin's cave of things that can be used by children for creative play. The items are donated by local businesses and then the wonderful team at the Scrapstore sort and make them safe for children to play with. They had plenty for us to do this evening so it was great that we had so many runners. Including 5 new faces, welcome Lucy, Kirsty, Simon, Nik and Ellie!

After splitting into two groups for the run to St Werburghs, the meandering pacey group and the easy strollers . We timed it to perfection and met at the lights just up the road so we all arrived at the task together. Kelly from the Scrapstore welcomed us in and explained our three challenges.

• 1 - Distribute leaflets around the local area
• 2 - Move furniture from a hallway into the back office
• 3 - Process loads of items ready to be used
  

Alice led the 7 leafleteers into the streets to spread the word about the fun the could be had at a Scrapstore birthday party. While Woodwose Matt directed the 10 furniture shifters and everyone else took a work station in the warehouse and sorted that scrap.

The furniture team had an added challenge in the fact that the staff are very fussy about how things are arranged on their shelves and would not be happy if everything did not go back in it's right place. Being the sharp focused they are they took photos and, once relocated, put everything back on the shelves in the right place (hopefully...). In the warehouse Fi and newbie Kirsty took on the totally tubular task of cutting pipe into lengths. As you can see from the photos they got a bit carried away and started pretending to be robots at some points, well who wouldn't!? Others cut thread from bobbins, sorted phones, took apart chairs and cut nets. It was busier than carnival at Clapham Junction during rush hour.

As the time ran out the tasks were all pretty much complete and we had achieved far more than anyone had expected. We took a group photo (minus some of the leafleteers who were stuck outside because the door was locked, sorry!), split into two groups again and headed back to Queen Square. On our return the first group completed some drills of lunges, skips and grapevines before we all assembled at the end for a stretch. After a news update and Dave's genius pun suggestion we said goodbye to some while others came for out monthly eats, which was a lovely curry at Tikka Flame organised by the wonderful Paul.

Thanks to those who came along tonight, I hope you had a great time. We really showed how much a group of eager runners can do in such a short space of time. Good luck to all you Larmer Tree runners this weekend.

Scrappy Running,

Gary

17 GoodGymmers ran 9 km to the Bristol Children’s Playhouse to tidy, build, plant and weave in a variety of tasks.

A new task for us today, organised by fellow GoodGymmer, Cathy, and you can generally tell as soon as you arrive how good a task is going to be. On arrival at the task today, we just knew that this was going to be a great one.

A big welcome to our newcomer, Jane, for today’s run and to Steph, our awesome GG Bath trainer and welcome back to Bris to Sion, who has recently moved up to Sheffield (almost perfect timing with the fairly recent launch of GG Sheffield).

Our run, on a lovely, sunny Spring morning took us up the Bristol Bath Railway Path through Easton towards Eastville, to the Bristol Children’s Playhouse, a voluntary pre-school which provides a supportive and stimulating environment for the whole family. It’s aim is to safeguard and promote the welfare of children within the family and provide quality preschool education allowing children to gain positive experiences to improve their confidence and self-esteem.

Cathy welcomed us in to the outdoor play area on a piece of land that had kindly been donated by the school next door and outlined a variety of tasks, set to test the versatility of the group:

David, Sarah, Steph and Fi set about building a compost storage pen out of pallets, using their collective know-how to wire this together and make it sturdy using tree branches as stakes and reinforced with a wooden block.

Caroline, Becky and Sion were tasked with creating an area in which to then design and build a planting box from wooden planks – with expert sawing advice from Sion, sterling organisational direction from Mel, and a bit of expert drilling from Cathy.

The appearance of a wheelbarrow (along with it’s very little brother) allowed Paul (naturally!) and Maddy to transport two apple trees into the play area, where they, Dave and Mel, dug holes to plant them in – some stubborn roots to get through here.

Chloe, Nick and Jane were busy collecting leaves that had been blown into the play area, and moving these to the compost pen, ready for storage. I don’t think Paul noticed that Jane had swiped the wheelbarrow for this task :-)

Last, but very definitely not least, Lisa and Will coppiced a tree, then using the thinner branches that they had liberated to weave through the railings at the entrance to the play area, which not only looked fantastic, but would apparently stop one particular young fellow from getting his head stuck between the railings!

The sun shone throughout, which just added to everyone’s enjoyment of the task – the only sad part was having to leave after a very productive hour.

Huge thanks to Cathy for arranging such a wonderful set of tasks for us, requiring as much brain power as muscle. We very much hope that we can come and visit again soon!

Also big thanks to multi-tasking Mel for not only coming up with some great suggestions on the task but also for getting Steph safely back to base as injury struck – very much appreciated. And to David for backmarking today, ensuring that we all got back safely, particularly through the protest marches, police and dogs – it was all going down in Bris today!

Finally, very many thanks to everyone for making this such a fun and rewarding morning and also for looping back on the run from time to time so that we could all stick together. Teamwork throughout!

All the best

Dave

21 fabulous runners braved the cold to run 3 km to help The Friends Of Brandon Hill tidy up an area following a fallen tree

Firstly, for the run pun, work with Ritchie Valens's "La Bamba"!

Boy it was cold out there today! One of those days when you might be excused for staying in bed or opting for a bit of sofa time! So how come we recorded one of our best turnouts for a GoodGym Bristol Saturday run?

Maybe it was a sense of adventure at the sight of a sprinkling of snow outside? Perhaps it was the knowledge that today's run was a short one to one of the most beautiful areas in central Bristol? Or was it just another great opportunity to get out and do some good with like-minded people in the local community? For sure, the postponement of the planned cycle ride to Oxford saw some opt for a Plan B on the hill, but whatever the reason it was simply brilliant see so many of you getting fit by doing good this morning.

Today's task was arranged and superbly organised by fellow GoodGymmer, Fraser, who, on our arrival at Brandon Hill led us up the climb to the equipment shed area to outline today's task. Next to the shed was a large area covered by leaves, twigs, branches and sections of tree trunk and our job was to move this to a storage area around 30 yards away.

Given our large number and the potential hazard of crashing into each other with arms laden with bits of tree, thorns and another GoodGym favourite, brambles, Fraser had cunningly planned a course that involved carrying bits of the tree to the storage area, carefully filling from back to front and then running around the other side of the equipment shed back to the start.

Not only did this provide a good exercise session, it had the added benefit of keeping everyone warm during the task.

The pile that we had to move was huge, just as well we had a shorter run to allow sufficient time to get the job done! As the larger branches were transported, the lower, heavier layer of mulch beneath revealed itself, so out came the forks, rakes and garden sacks to continue the clearance. With Gary organising the pile in the storage area and getting absolutely filthy in the process, and some classy chain forking going on back at the tidy up area, we were moving like a finely tuned machine.

However, it was one of those tasks that just kept giving and there were doubts that we would get the job done in time, but with time running out, Fraser's announcement of "5 minutes of humphing left!" was met not only with a few raised eyebrows, smirks and titters (and in Deb's case, thoughts of Brad Pitt for the second time this week and in Paul's case "what are the other 4 minutes for?"), but with renewed vigour for the final, er....push!

By the time we had finished, the two areas were transformed - a tidy, clear area where the previously buried bushes could once again thrive and a tidy full storage area. Yes, we were a little cold, yes, we were very dirty, but man, we were happy!

A short descent back to base for stretches, warmth and food - great to see so many of you staying behind to eat and chat.

A big welcome to Mark who was joining us for the first time today - I think you were second filthiest today Mark, well done for getting stuck in and hope you enjoyed your first GoodGym experience.

Also, welcome back to Sally, Charlene and Cathy coming along for their second runs and also Richard G, back from a rather nasty shoulder injury.

And a big shout out to Charlene, who not only came up with her first pun for today's run (and for giving me the opportunity to work "Falafel" into it!) was also brave enough to sing it to us - well done Charlene and to everyone who came along today. I don't mind admitting that I was struggling this morning and you guys really lifted my mood today - but then you always do! Thank you for being awesome.

Till next time!

Dave

On a January evening in Bristol where the traffic was moving as fast as a slug travelling through peanut butter carrying a backpack full of bricks, 22 runners sprang into action. They ran the streets of our fair city cleaning as they went.

We assembled at Vivo with 5 brand new faces to the group adding to the usual band of renegades. Our plan was to head to Portland Square and clean up the masses of leaf litter that covered the area. After a jolly jaunt through the streets we arrived but we could no be-leaf our eyes, the place was spotless. Somebody had beaten us to it! We split out like a search party across the square to tidy any litter we could find, but after a short while it was clear our efforts were futile leaving us with time on our hands to help elsewhere.

Plan B came into action. We walked around the local area collecting litter as we went ending up in the Bearpit where we found a big stash of trash to top our our haul. By this point we were feeling a bit cold so it was high time we got the blood pumping again. A run up Union Street did the trick.

On arrival at Queen Square for our fitness session we had something special planned. Matt, Lord and Master of the GoodGym Race Team, led the group on a route around the square that ended up drawing the GoodGym logo on Strava (check out the photos for evidence). This got everyone discussing what else the Strava map looked like. We'll let you make your own conclusions what we came up with. Great work on the pun Kim.

Thanks to everyone who came out, despite our planned task not providing mulch of a task you all stepped up and put bags of effort into cleaning up the streets. Big shouts especially go out to our newest recruits Alex, Toby, Cathy, Pete and GoodGym regular but Bristol first timer Alex. Hope you all enjoyed your first run with us.

See you soon you lovely lot!