12 fabulous runners took to the streets of Colchester to help their community.

We met at Leisure World and spirits were high. As we arrived Ella organized our World Cup competition and people drew their teams with much controversy and it seems that Louise took a slight issue at drawing the mighty Tunisia and I somehow managed to draw Argentina. Cheer Louise here to console her! Colchester's Goodgymers had plenty to celebrate with Bob achieving another PB at Parkrun Colchester, Michelle in full training mode for a marathon at Loch Ness and Ian, Michelle, Catherine (good to see you running so well), Parksy, Tommy, Ella and I taking part in the brilliant and long awaited first ever Colchester Stampede 10k run at Colchester Zoo. The animals loved watching us humans sweating and battling the hills. Finally it was great that my 'coach' received a certificate that was proudly on his wall saying well done for motivating me to run to him. We left leisure with Ian back-marking and warmed up and stretched on a rather bouncy bridge (except Helen who sensible did not risk squatting and jogging on the bridge). We jogged alongside the park, through the historic castle wall, up East Hill to Firstsite where we hydrated and were instructed in our tasks on the front lawn of the gallery. In small groups the team set about sweeping the cycle rack area and the side road (well done Carl and Louise), trimming and sawing back the tree growth at the base of the trunks, litter picking (Helen wombled and plogged with gusto) and Michelle worked on her strength by battling back the overgrown grass on a path. From start to finish it was a remarkable effort with clear results. Two wheely-bins worth of green waste demonstrated the effort put in. Admittedly I played with a ball whilst encouraging and supervising but world cup fever seemed to be todays subplot.

The Firstsite staff were very pleased with the results and they look forward to having us back as much we look forward to helping out again.

The work rate meant we had plenty of time to train and everyone put in a decent shift. We began with partner sprints, with squat holds and squat pulses on East Hill before moving into Castle Park. Some excellent upper body and core work took place using those vital running muscles to hold planks, v-sits with a little static and scissor style leg raises.

After some good stretching we continued to Upper Castle Park were we showed our love for Goodgym by forming a man-made heart on the hill under the backdrop of the Bandstand and Castle.

Finally the jam packed session concluded with a little work om technique to help on the Parkrun Hills and further cool-down stretches under the trees.

As always we thought of puns as we finished an awesome evening and credit to Louise for out headline. Surely a winner.

Keep running, stay hydrated and see you at Parkrun and Goodgym soon.

A lot of great news this week: Massive congrats to Hannah and Doc for completing the Brighton marathon; also congrats to Bob for a parkrun PB and Tav for a 10k PB in Brighton too! A big hooray to Emily for her 50th GoodGym Good Deed! Finally a very happy birthday to Michelle who we will have to sing to next week!

Lovely sunny day = happy GoodGym faces and even a few tanned arms turning up at Leisure World.

Limbered up outside Leisure World with some high knees and stretches, led by Tav.

Our front marker Emily led us off to the allotment where Pam was eagerly awaiting.

Trimming, weeding and watering were the tasks of the evening. Pam was, as usual, very happy with the work we carried out and excitedly showed us the fruits of our last labour which we had spent digging holes for the planting of trees.

Marathon heroes Hannah and Doc were celebrated in our fitness challenge: to run 26 railway bridge sprints between us in two teams.

Excellent competitive sprinting from all, we then made our way back to Leisure World to complete Tav’s task: the creation of a human GoodGym logo.

Never underestimate the skills of Good Gym Colchester’s human masterpieces. A great group effort (and Ian finally in the right position 😉) resulted in an almighty GG we should all be thoroughly proud of.

Training ended with a squat hold competition. Well done to four winners: Vanessa, Helen, Bob and Carl!

Stats:

14 runners

Run: 4 kilometers

Sprints: 26 in teams

Tricep dips: many

Squat hold: up to 2mins 30 seconds

Smiles: loads

Spade, trowel and fork action: epic.

It's no yolk, this evening's run was egg-ceptional! First we welcomed our newest hatchling to the group, little Allegra - it was great to see David and Angela, too. Angela was egg-stremely impressed with how much the group has been growing recently. We also welcomed Kate to the group, joining us for her first Goodgym outing, and Beth visiting from GG Wandsworth.

Congratulations were given to those that attended the Little Bromley 10k on Sunday and well done to Ian and Susie for getting egg-cellent PBs.

After a quick game of knee-tag to get ourselves warmed up we made our way to Firstsite, with Ian leading at the front and Michelle back marking.

Upon arrival, Eddie greeted us and was egg-static about the number of GGers there to help. We made our way to the room we would be painting, but as there was such a good turn out, Eddie hatched a new plan and opened up a second room to be painted, but in a slightly different shade of white! We scrubbed, we sanded, we painted and we rolled and Eddie was left shell shocked at the amount of work we were able to get done in such a short amount of time, a task he wouldn't have been able to get done on his own. Once tidied up, many of us enjoyed a cup of tea before heading outside for some egg-ercise in preparation for the upcoming Goodgym Olympics.

We started with a 'Not-quite-100m Sprints' and then moved on to what we were really egg-cited about... egg and spoon racing! We raced forwards, we raced backwards and we even hopped, but there were very few eggs dropped. Watch out Goodgym Olympic area teams, you have competition! That said, I saw a few people cheat at egg 'n' spoon, but omlettin' it slide...

After that some of the group peeled off to enjoy some egg fried rice and other delicious non-egg based foods at the Noodle Bar, whilst the rest of us made our way back to Leisure World.

Many thanks to our egg-spert punners Ella, Tav and Fay, for giving fine egg-samples of puns, it was egg-sactly the egg-stravagence this report need!

As always, it was an egg-cellent evening Rollin' with my homies...!

What's the verdict, would one egg pun have been un oeuf?

With the longer days and lighter evenings an impressive 17 GoodGymers gathered ready to tackle the evening task. The group welcomed newcomer Fran who joined us for her first ever run and congratulated Michelle on her new black t-shirt! In other news, a massive GoodGym Horah for Angela and David and many congratulations on the safe arrival of their beautiful baby girl!

The team completed a quick warm up with some high knees, squats and lunges before heading off along the river ready to pick some litter. Tav **led the way, with Ella and Carl in hot pursuit. Once at the site the team spilt up in to two’s and threes and working together made their way back towards the leisure centre collecting all the rubbish they could find. Once back at the leisure centre *Bob and Carl *took the litter to the big bins whilst **Michelle and Ian returned the equipment. The rest of the team headed off for a trip down memory lane. We lined up in pairs for a round of ladders (which only the brownies amongst us could really remember how to play) and then enjoyed a quick game of Duck, Duck, Goose – only Chris was quick enough to catch his goose!

Following our childish escapades it was time to return to the real work. Ian had requested some hill reps so the team jogged over to tackle the challenge of the energy sapping North Hill, made worse by Fay’s inability to remember our usual starting point – the hill seemed a lot longer that it has done before! Hat’s off to everyone for completing three rounds of that beast, once up it for the Colchester Half Marathon is quite enough for most!!