The Sun Streak continued for week 4 of GoodGym Newcastle

The sun shone on a massive group of Geordie GoodGymers on their visit to Brims House, a home for veterans in our community with Changing Lives Newcastle

In a slight bit of route trickery by Paul we made our way up Westgate Road in a slightly less uphill direction, chatting as we went and making sure all 9 yes NINE of our new runners were made to feel part of the family.

We were met by the lovely Alice and Stuart at Brims House and after a quick registration and brief we were set to work. Two garden tasks including mowing a lawn by hand, painting (yes this is possible) and a discovery of potatoes by David while an indoor team did a kitchen spruce-up and a deep clean in the living room. Precious also did a grand job of the windows which I'm not even sure was on the list! No wonder they want us back! Stuart thanked us and admitted he didn't think we would do such an amazing job in just 30 minutes!

Off downhill we went with the promise that this week the fitness spot prize was up for the taking. A huge game of dishes and domes began with 80% of people saying they weren't that competitive.

they lied

Team 4 were victorious and we celebrated by wearing the hats as cones before awarding Chance with the fitness prize, the coveted Drumstick Lolly for services to cone tactics in the competition. The envy of everyone on the way back, I'm sure you'll agree.

Great work everyone! See you next week for the Canny Quayside Clear up with Sustrans NE, and all-important bank holiday drinks afterwards.

28 group runners avoided the temptation of beer gardens and barbecues and ran to do good for Changing Lives in Newcastle last night, despite it being a beautiful Bank Holiday Monday.

Mulubrhan confessed to having two excuses not to run and ignoring them both, he even forgot his trainers and went to buy a new pair so he could take part in our second group run and task at Francis House commitment

We took an indirect route to Francis House so we could get the famous landmark and Newcastle United fortress St James Park on our Strava maps, before being met by staff from Changing Lives and swiftly set to work. Three groups doing good deeds tonight: a big deep clean in the kitchen, a garden tidy-up and an important chance to see Carol Anne brandishing a hoover in the communal area clean-up. After a giving the house for vulnerable women a massive makeover we headed off to Summerhill Park to get our fitness session in!

It was a mini runners circuit on the cards: squats planks and the all-important lunges expertly demonstrated by Paul with everyone multi=tasking and giving their all at the same time as getting to know each other. Another detour run back to get our 4K distance in before stretches and our first mini social- drinks at our start venue Hotel Indigo

Awesome work everyone!

See you for our mega-bag-drop-challenge next week! Sign up here: Mega Byker Bag Drop

A fabulous squad of GG Yorkies tackled lots of mud to start work on a new footpath and wildlife scrape at Heworth Holme.

We welcomed along two brand new runners to the family, so let's give some big, hearty cheers to John and Katie.

50 good deeds!!

We celebrated two people earning their black t-shirt and hitting 50 good deeds, massive congrats and high fives to Bev and Barbara who have both been running with us since the very beginning. Bev was awarded the Cape of Good Deeds first and wore it with pride all the way to the task.

Last year we started from the other side of Heworth Holme and built a beautiful footpath, but tonight we started at the far end, which is mostly a very muddy path of mud. Our new runners quickly understood what everyone else was talking about when they said they were wearing their "GoodGym trainers".

Our tasks tonight were to start lining the path with border planks and down the end, to start digging out some holes to build a wildlife scrape, which is a sort of multi-depth pond to encourage insects and in the future, wading birds.

The holes need to be about a metre deep, and it can be a wavy sort of hole, rather than a perfect circle or straight line - Jonathan

Jonathan obviously knows our strengths and weaknesses. Digging anything in a straight line or perfect shape of any kind is not something we tend to be very good at, so the idea of a wavy, haphazard sort of shape definitely appealed. Saying that, as soon as he walked away, I saw Leanne, Emma and Tim dig the straightest bit of trench I've ever seen.

Back at the top end, planks had been gathered and everyone was very happy about using massive hammers to bang stakes into the soft ground. Brett and Chance showed their St Nicks experience with brilliantly accurate stake placement.

Once the stakes were in, the planks had to be nailed in to create the perfect border for the path. The hardest part of this was probably walking up and down the path to get bits of wood without falling over on the mud.

Over in the hole-digging zone, I noticed that Nikki was inadvertently filling in the hole Becky was digging, so progress in their area had been somewhat hampered. New runner, John was doing an excellent job though and newish runner Lucy was starting to clear bits of turf to join up all the holes.

Time was up and we had made a great start to this long-term project. Nick didn't want to stop because he was enjoying hammering nails so much, but there's plenty of time for that in a couple of weeks. Everyone tottered back, doing their best to avoid the mud, and Bev handed over the Cape of Good Deeds to Babs for the run back.

Exiting through the gate, we surprised a dog walker with such a large group of runners doing the mud shuffle, which is a strange hybrid of running and scraping your muddy feet on the floor.

Back at base, we finished off our session with a few plank walk-outs and a sit-up challenge before Babs broke out the 50 good deed brownies - a perfect end to a good run!

On GoodGym York's ONE YEAR anniversary, we had a record-breaking attendance and completed two tasks for the local community.

We welcomed three brand new runners to the gang tonight, so a big shout out to Brett, Hayden and Chance - give 'em a cheer!

With the two teams for the two tasks set, we headed off in opposite directions as a genuinely concerned member of the public told Leanne that some people had gone the wrong way. The traffic lights to cross Micklegate take so long that we often get to talk to members of the public and many a random pedestrian has been educated about GoodGym there.

Task #1 Glen Gardens: digging and leaf clearing

26 runners met Iain at the gates of Glen Gardens; he wanted us to entirely dig over a corner plot in the park so that it was ready to be seeded with grass. He also wanted us to clear all the leaves along the outside of the tennis and basketball courts.

A squad of four leaf clearers grabbed their big scoopers and ventured off to fill many bags of leaves whilst everybody else got straight into the digging. When over 20 people are digging, it really doesn't take very long but everybody was happy to keep it going because digging keeps you really warm.

Digging, however, is also very hard work and the minute I called for some extra support for the leaf team, Bev, Helen and Maddy were straight in there - Bev even did some extra running getting more of the big green bags.

In just 25 minutes, the whole patch had been entirely dug over and raked to smooth perfection by Shelley, Amy and Leanne. The leaf gatherers had filled 8 bags and our work was done.

We ran back to a tunnel on the cycle path to complete our *flashback workout', repeating some of the exercises we did at our very first run one whole year ago. First up, it was wall sits and sprints in teams of two. Poor Rob was partnerless so I jumped in to keep him company and we (mostly Rob) were a dream team of quad strength.

After the tunnel, we ran on to Morrisons Tower for the final part of the flashback workout, where six teams completed six rounds of exercises including:

• Bench press ups
• Tricep dips
• High steps
• Star jumps
• Jumping sit squats

There was some seriously hardcore effort going on as Shelley showed her press-up prowess, Alaya did some brilliant clapping bench press ups and new runner Hayden beat his own record for number of press ups in one go.

The push ups made my face hurt! - Hayden

Bev also showed us her best thrusting, which we all loved.

Task #2 Painting lines on the sports pitch at Woodthorpe Primary School (report by Tim)

6 intrepid good deeders struck out on their own to lay down some beautiful (if not quite straight) football pitches. Led into the school by expert football pitch line designer Michal we grabbed our paint and some string and got working. After some good (and not at all wonky) work from Ellie, Carl quickly took the helm of our painting.

I'd be happy with just one line not doing all of them!" - Carl

Carl's expert manoeuvering saw us zip round the two pitches only running into slight trouble with the centre oblongs... sorry circle.

It's a lovely... apple! - Michal

Before we knew it time was up and we left Michal to lock up whilst Paul led us home at an excellently swift pace allowing us to all count it as speed training!