No less than seven new runners for tonight's trek up Westgate Road to visit Changing Lives at Elliott House where we did our very first task back in April!

What a Group Run it was!

Using Paul extra-special hill-avoidance-but-still-uphill route, we ascended happily up Westgate Road and on to Elliott House with special mention going to Jasmine who did her first ever run outside of a gym. Nice work Jasmine!

As always, we were greeted with big smiles and clear instructions and sent straight off to work, with painting, kitchen cleaning and gardening the order of the day. There was absolutely no stopping Jonny from getting his hands on a paintbrush tonight!

35 glorious busy minutes passed by in the flash of a marigold and we were back off (downhill- yay!) to Summerhill park. The group once again showed their obviously competitive not competitive streaks in a quick game of Cops and Robbers, using their sprinting, turning and dodging techniques to avoid being "got" by the cops! Mark adding an extra edge of peril with his scary glossed-up hands. The hardest part was staying in the boundary of my poorly marked-out rectangle, that was actually a parallelogram, apparently.

More on names of shapes next week.

Excellent interval training!

Great work and energy tonight everyone. My face hurts from smiling. See you next week for the CVS envelope packing challenge. Sign up here

Happy running everyone! Anji

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

What a lift-off for GoodGym Newcastle!

After a big intro at our new base at Hotel Indigo from trainer Anji and not forgetting, of course, a massive group photo, 42 runners set off to do the first ever GoodGym good deed in Newcastle!

Back-marked by Ed, the group set off on what some described as a mountain up the famous summit known to others as Westgate Road, past the famous motorbike shops (did anyone teach our Southern visitors how to say mo-ta-bike in Geordie?) reaching the task venue for the night in just under 2K of completely uphill running- what a way to warm up!

We were met by the lovely Jill at Changing Lives who has really helped us to get GoodGym Newcastle off the ground. While some wanted to stay and enjoy the juice and biscuits being dished out, others were keen to get to work. There were four tasks in all: a huge garden clean up complete with jazzy gloves and tools and a kitchen clean then round in the main house, two groups got to grips with a communal area clean and a kitchen freshen up, complete with the dreaded OVEN CLEANING.

I wonder if they will pop over to my house later to have a go at my oven?

More juice, fruit and a few more photos and 40 minutes later we were off again, this time 2K downhill -yay

We stopped off to do a mini drill session led by Queen of the Drills Anji who really enjoyed seeing everyone looking super cool doing tip toe walks and trying not to trip over one another doing that cross-over-feet thing that footballers do.

We are back with Changing Lives next week (venue TBC) so join us for more uphill training, juice and jazzy gloves. We will be staying at Hotel Indigo for a bank holiday drink afterwards. Join us!

The mercury dropped again, some extra fresh temperatures last night. Luckily we were wrapped up, moving and grooving for community good.

One new runner joined our ranks this week, she even threatened to make it a habit, my old pal Paula, the girl has energy on tap and was an effective addition to the team yesterday. Welcome P!

Our quick warm up was finished with a quick chat. Kev and Sharon, getting out and doing good, a mission to be precise and a loong Half Marathon training run. Parkrunners were mentioned, after some superb Saturday displays and new PB's for Ruth, Dan and Tim. Love the feeling of getting a PB. Also noted that Dan, Ruth and Brad have picked up the miles recently, training for their respective target races, their 5k parkrun times are only going to plummet further.

Once at the task we were asked to move radioactive waste and clear some weeds. Not as toxic as Uranium, don't go quarantining yourself just yet, it was only Arsenic! Seems like it's a chemical contained in wood treatment, only poisonous in very large quantities. Reckon we're grand. If you do notice Spiderman like bodily mutations, please seek help, maybe catch a few bad guys first, obviously.

We had enough time this week to go through a great bang for your buck session, over in six minutes, but very useful in building some speed into your endurance engines. Everyone executed it with aplomb, some deliciously paced final reps were witnessed.

Jenny decided that she's had enough of London and is bolting off to Newcastle, we bid her farewell and good luck. Yesterday was her twentieth session, though that big personality had me think she'd been around longer. She'll be missed.

See you beauts same time next week, finally we're going back to Cody Dock, it's been blimmin' ages. Sign up here

A solid clan showed up last night, quite early in the year, so I foresaw a much smaller turnout, a very pleasant surprise to hit 17. After catching up in the Aquatics Centre, we went out and squared up to Storm Eleanor. Her desire for destruction seemingly had all but petered out. Good start.

We welcomed Scott and Sandra to GoodGym yesterday plus Dave to GoodGym Newham. Hoping your first session was enjoyable, in that uniquely masochistic way. Most sessions aren't as intense, honest! After we discussed some of your excellent recent running performances. Siobhan and Victoria waving the GGN flag proudly with PB's, they were first and second at separate parkruns. Jenny, Hilary and Graham out representing too. Tim and Brad whipping around a Folkestone Parkrun. The GG x Parkrun fusion is healthy and alive. Let's keep this up, Hackney Marshes this weekend, with i'm sure a great big breakfast to finish.

Due to Headteacher, Paul, being ill last night, we couldn't do our painting job at the primary school. Our substitute task wasn't all that obvious(!), providing 'natural surveillance' on a very useful active commute route, The Greenway. We've been asked by the council to increase our footfall here, in order to make it a friendlier place. As a one off, this won't achieve much really, but we'll aim to incorporate many more runs here. Through this regularity and our trend setting capacity we will hopefully make it a more frequented path.

A slight stench of sewage in the air and an ornate Victorian Sewage plant in the backdrop - this was to be our training spot! Next time we'll shuffle down away farther from the whiff. An excellently tackled speed session, with everyone hitting the target. Faster on the second set, making full use of that double recovery. Classy pacing.

That wasn't our lot just yet, we went back to the Olympic Park for some team core work and 8 vs 8 relay race. With Scott sealing the victory for team 2, oblivious to James' shortcut as he made use of the parks many paths. Sneaky little..... All in good fun. An excellent way to kick off the year I reckon, as always cheers for your efforts.

Sign up to next week's task here

Until next week guys

There was so much good news last night, we barely knew where to start.

First all hail team (Tom) Cruisin' About, Doing Good for they reign supreme as winners of the inaugural Mission Possible. That's right, Remy, Andy and Michelle saw off all the competition to complete two great deeds and a whole scavenger hunt on Sunday. Way to do good! You should have seen their human pyramid.

We had some fabulous running as well as good doing this weekend, with Remy smashing her 24th and last half marathon of the year. Some of the Hounslow team were lucky enough to be there to watch her do it, and can confirm that she powered across the line in fine form. Well done Remy, a fantastic challenge completed. Will 'PB' Yates also showed us how it's done this weekend, with not one but two personal bests over 5k and 10k at the weekend. Fantastic stuff, keep it up!

Yes, we were unprepared for some of the biggest news of the night, but that did not stop us being massively impressed by none other than the gorgeous Vix who casually rocked up for her 100th milestone. You total superstar! 100 good deeds is an incredible achievement and shows huge dedication to making other people's lives better. Give that lady a cheer, she deserves it!

Our task last night was a slightly different one, but we did our warm up as usual, finding out at the same time what the best winter drinks were. Peppermint mochas, black forest gateaux lattes, Baileys, mulled cider, mulled gin, mulled wine (anything mulled) and Harvey Wallbangers were all top of the winter pops.

We then ran around the corner to the library to pick up two huge sheets of aluminium which are going to make up the beautiful new mural under Turnham Green Bridge - the very bridge we had scrubbed free of graffiti a few weeks ago. We divided up into two teams, and after a very thorough health and safety briefing plus demonstration (ahem), we set off down the road to deliver the new artwork ready to be displayed in local schools.

Past the beautiful Christmas lights we went, under the underpass and along the A4, attracting a few odd looks as we went on our merry way. Precious cargo deposited, it was only a short run back to Turnham Green, doing some extra and unexpected good on the roads along the way. It took until this point in the run to discover that Andy had spent the day hobnobbing with royalty, having a very interesting discussion about chip fat with Prince Charles. WHAT! Two crowns in a matter of days, Andy, you are so regal.

After a short run we had plenty of time to do a lovely fitness session, which started with a game of Chase the Hare. Remy was our sprinting hare, just pipped to the post by Andy and Will. After that warm up we launched into everybody's favourite test of speed, the bleeping Bleep Test. This is a really hard but effective exercise, and great for speed and endurance building. If that wasn't enough, we finished off the evening with some conditioning exercises to build up strength to support all that lovely running we're doing. After that, it truly was job done, and we finished with some stretches and a chat about next week's task. Well done everybody, a task well done and a tough session to boot. Same again next week?!.