Well, I never. On the first day of May, we had *58 GoodGymers *come out to play! Breaking Bristol GoodGym (and - TBC - GoodGym) history, this massive group of helpful and fit peeps got dug in around Bristol tonight. A big welcome to all of the new runners who joined us tonight, and it was great to see the Bristol Uni Medical Students back again.

Fifty-great

The group split up to do two tasks. Charlie and Sally did a wonderful job taking 18 runners up to join forces with Bristol Waste and Streetscene. The group were handing out information to student accommodation in the area on how to recycle and properly dispose of their things before moving out at the end of the month. They did not stop there: while the group ran the streets of Redland and Cheltenham Road doing this, they got stuck in de-tagging lamposts and wheelie bins around the area.

Fifty- 'wait, how many?'

Meanwhile, the other 40 of us went to Emmaus for Round Three of the great tale of *GoodGym v. Prickly Bush. * Big thanks to Tom, Mel and Matt for their skillful run-leading and back-marking to get us all over there and back safely.

Xanne from Emmaus met us to greet the many new runners and tell us about the wonderful work they do at Emmaus to help homeless people rebuild their lives through their holistic approach. We then set to work - while some of the group did an exceptional litter picking job round the area, a group gave the two Emmaus vans a quick clean up and the rest of the team got down to the bushy business.

The prickly bush put up a very good fight, but with a 30-strong group working on it with all manner of tools, it finally gave way just as the clock struck the time to fit in our run home (strangely enough, it seemed to take just enough time for no-one to have to do a burpee this evening at all...).

Fifty-ate

Following all of this running around it was time for our monthly GoodGym Eats. We descended on Las Iguanas for burritos and cocktails ahoy. Thank you for organising a great night Liam!

Word has obviously got round about the lovely hidden orchard at Manor Woods Valley as a massive 30 people joined us today - in spite of the prospect of an 8k round trip in hot sunny weather. This included 7 new faces (welcome!) and the return of a few of a couple of our favourite Bristol Uni Med students from Tuesday - welcome back chaps, great to see you again!

With Jack back marking we managed to navigate our way along the Malago Greenway to meet our amazing MVCG host Martin on site at the orchard.

Martin explained that we were to prepare some areas of the orchard for wildflower seed planting by using shears and rakes to remove any nettles and bramble 'risings' (new sprouting brambles) before digging out 2m diameter circular beds for the seeds.

With so many people we were also able to deploy a team to clear an additional space of somewhat more (risen?) brambles by the path entrance and a special shout out too to Art, David and Rosalyn who selflessly took on the less glamorous role of litter picking around the meadow.

Great work everyone and kudos to Jack for not cutting any human limbs with his rather menacing looking slasher implement - although he did manage to break a rake!

Lovely to have Caroline back on a visit from Sheffield today and all the best to Fi who joined us today at the task in spite of a dodgy ankle - hope you're back running with us soon, Fi.

If you enjoyed today you should definitely join us next week when you can choose between the equally idyllic Haven or a shorter run to Windmill Hill City Farm.