It's a stretch of a pun like the stretch of our stomach lines!

It was a festive midday check in after an active morning for some. Jo and Matt braved the bracing temperatures in the morning to greet the day while Yan baked fervently. The catch up was a welcome pause for all to discuss our mornings and dinner plans.

Matt beguiled us with some witty festive poetry before we went our separate ways to either get a run in or plan out festive feasts.

Wishing a warm and content Christmas day to all

HAPPY 10TH BIRTHDAY GOODGYM!

Big whoops to our mighty GoodGym Trafford Group runners who ran 4K last night to help at the lovely Victoria Park in Stretford. Celebrating 10 years of GoodGym in style were the dynamic duo of newbies Jo and Jo and super trooper Mishy who joined lots of our lovely regular runners to really get stuck into our task.

While we were all assembling we had time to chat about the different ways that GoodGym helps local communities, listen to a few tunes and to look at the lovely Fit Togetether 10th birthday books. Then when all ready, we welcomed everyone and read the letter from Ivo, the founding GoodGym member which was great!

John modelling the birthday sign-in table.

After we had limbered up and headcounted in we ran to Victoria Park to meet the lovely Sarah from Friends of Victoria Park who met us with all manner of tools (hurrah!) including THE CLAW which were to put to good use. She explained the history of the park, how the Friends of Group run Wednesday morning wellbeing sessions and what we could do to help.

Tools in hand, we set about weeding the beautiful flower beds and finding out more about the park and the local area.

We were helped along the way by numerous doggy pals who were very intrigued by what we were up to and some of whom fancied a chew on our flag.

Following a good 40 minutes on the flower beds the transformation was brilliant...

It's looking lovely, thank you!

and we topped off our evening by celebrating the raising of the park's brand new Green flag by putting ours on the pole too! Hurrah!

We ran the long way back home to get more mileage on our Stravas and stretched off back at the ranch (St Matthew's Community Hall) chatting about our next community mission on 21st before heading off for our social at the nearby Head bar.

big well done and thanks

to everyone who helped us celebrate in style!

WHAT A NIGHT!

GoodGymTrafford launched into the stratosphere last night. An incredible 71 runners/ walkers turned out in the distinctly unpredictable weather to kick off GoodGym’s newest area from our regular start location - St Matthew's Community Hall. 71 is the biggest turn out ever for a GoodGym launch and goes to show how awesome people in Trafford are!

I'vey never seen such a big group of volunteers!

We were joined by the Mayor of Trafford, Mr Rob Chilton who welcomed GoodGym to the area. We were also joined by many Trafford Councillors, Trafford Borough Council colleagues and friends from running, charity and community groups across the Borough. We even had a visit from our four-legged mascot, Freddy who got in on the action in his red GoodGym bow. GoodGym is funded by Trafford Borough Council so a big thanks to them for their ongoing and significant support to us - we couldn't do it without you.

What a lovely bunch!

As well as meeting new people while we all assembled some runners also got their documents checked so that they can start doing coach runs (regularly running to see an isolated elderly person), or so that they can take part in mission runs (running to help isolated elderly people with one-off practical tasks). Big thanks to Lisa for helping with the document checks!

After our welcome chat, we warmed up in fine style including the thundering of 142 trainers as we did fast feet to get our heart rates up. Once warm, we ran/ walked from St Matthew's over to Stretford Meadows, dodging puddles and completed a slow uphill drag where we all convened for a fitness task led by Kate. Divided into two teams we squatted and balanced ourselves to give our leg muscles that extra workout and then ran back to St Matthews to complete our gardening task. A big thank you to Liv for leading the Walking group and to John for backmarking along with all the other GoodGymers from across the country who chatted to everyone and explained what GoodGym is all about. Thanks guys!

Helen, the Community Hall Manager, provided us with the kit to get going and even opened up the doors for us to listen to the Band that were practicing - the music helped spur us on even more!

Once we had allocated the tasks everyone went to it like mad things for 40 minutes really using those muscles to:

• Pull up bushes and weeds from a massive raised bed, and to our surprise revealing some old headstones;
• Dig out flower beds;
• Weed and replant planters with bedding plants;
• Weeding, digging over and planting Gladioli near the main entrance ;
• Cutting back ivy from the long car park wall;
• Sweeping the ground and car park;
• Raking and sorting waste; and
• Tidying the surrounding area.

I cannot BELIEVE the difference you have all made - thank you!

Helen was blown away by the amount of energy and how much we achieved - well done to you all!

After we had finished all our tasks, we closed with some stretches and a chat about next week's task which is a poster dash to support the publicising of an event by Calm Connections (a local children's mental health charity) in September. Click here to sign up

We all celebrated our success with cheers all round and left with a spring in our step.

It was fabulous to see so many smiling faces throughout the evening and to see you all getting to know each other, doing some fitness and of course, transforming St Matthew's which was massively appreciated by Helen.

We will meet at St Matthew's every Wednesday at 6.30pm from now on.

Once again, well done to all and we very much look forward to seeing you all at St Matthews next time!

Keep running, Kate