Clocks have gone forward and the temperature has dropped - it looks like winter is here! But the dark evening didn't deter 12 Ipswich Goodgymers this evening.

Massive congratulations to Robin who was sporting his brand new black Goodgym T-shirt marking his 50th good deed - the first person in Ipswich to reach the milestone.

Our task tonight was at La Tour Cycle Cafe - a community hub that was playing host to displays and activities as part of the SPILL Festival in Ipswich. Our mission was to help clean and tidy the venue ready for more activities tomorrow.

With the Cafe being only a short distance along the Waterfront, we headed off in the opposite direction to run a loop before arriving to be greeted by Anna. She welcomed the group and called out the various jobs that needed doing - furniture moving, floor sweeping, hoovering, dusting, mopping bathrooms and general tidying up.

As part of the festival huge banners were displayed all around the inside of the huge space that is home to the cafe, as well as sculptures and a wooden boat that will be set alight as part of the festival finale on Saturday.

With the task complete it was back out onto a very chilly Waterfront for a circuits session under the floodlights. With each exercise aimed at working running, muscles, balance and core stability - 45 seconds on / 15 seconds recovery.

A final gentle run back to base and we all rushed home to watch ourselves on TV - BBC inside Out visited us in the summer to film one of our sessions and it was being broadcast this evening.

Watch from 11.00 minutes in: (https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bp1222/inside-out-east-29102018?fbclid=IwAR1NgoW5j2LUBkUPo6PtMiWefIG9ac-zyUbeNRCfpC_awUJq3AwYuL1-cs8)

Sadie made her Goodgym debut this evening, joining us on one of our longer runs to Castle Hill Community Centre. Hope you enjoyed it and we'll see you again soon.

A fairly steady run out took us across the town centre and out along Norwich Road. On arrival Trevor showed us this evening's task to paint an entire room magnolia, including one feature wall that was currently a very dark teal colour

I thought it was going to be a real challenge, given the size of the room and the dark wall. However, as usual the Goodgym guys exceeded expectations and managed to make a massive impact, working quickly, efficently and with fabulous teamwork. Brushes and rollers were flying across the walls - you can see the "before" and "after" version of the dark wall in the attached photos.

We ran back into town and regrouped for session of "trains" running through the town centre and back down onto the Waterfront. - Excellent work from everyone tonight to get so much done on the task !

Before tonight's run I spoke about the introduction of a walking option on some of the shorter Group Runs - this link explains more about the idea and why Goodgym is introducing this nationally. This will only apply to shorter runs and will depend on some one (who is a task force member) volunteering the be " walk leader" - to find out more about becoming a task force member - see this link

Tonight's task was a return to delivering flyers on behalf of Age UK, promoting their recently open shop on Prince of Wales Drive.

We earmarked a number of Roads in the Stoke Park area which gave us a mile to run before some frenzied leafleting got underway. With a smaller number of runners and a fairly compact area to cover we managed to be a little more organised in our delivery this time than our previous task for Age UK. In fact tonight I pretty confident none of the houses we visited would have received two leaflets!

With this better organisatiion and keeping the group mainly together we covered the whole area in a reasonably quick time finishing at the top of the hill on Belstead Road, which provided a lovely down hill run back towards the Waterfront.

We took a slight detour to enable a short "fartlek" session using lamp posts as markers for efforts and recovery before one last long effort segment along the river.

Highlight of the night was receiving a "Congratulations" card from all the team to celebrate my completion of the Ironman Triathlon in Barcelona last Sunday - Thank you so much - had I mentioned I was doing an Ironman ?

Apologies for the lack of pictures tonight - although a very worthwhile task, posting flyers in the dark doesn't present many photo opportunities! However we did get a group shot back at the ? with my card!

Next week we'll be heading back to the Castle Hill Community centre for a longer run and some painting - find out more and sign up HERE

Tonight saw our first trip to Castle Hill Community Centre for a few months. This is one of our regular winter task venues where we have painted several rooms.

Marianne joined us for her first Group Run along with 11 other GoodGym regulars.

Castle Hill is just about the longest run we do - a 5 mile round trip - so we set off as the clock struck 6.30pm (or would have done if there had been a nearby striking clock!) making our way across town and out along Norwich Road. Darkness is coming earlier every day now and tonight was the first appearance of the winter for our GoodGym hi-viz vests ( kindly donated by Ipswich Building Society), and it was already dark as we arrived at the Community Centre.

The task was to paint a fairly narrow corridor and it was quite a squeeze to fit in with brushes and rollers being brandished - one of the photos looks like the team are behind bars - this is because the photo is taken through the viewing panel in the door as I couldn't get in!

The walls were coated quickly and the paint seemed to dry even faster so it was tricky to see where we had painted - I'm sure some patches were painted more than Twice! It's inevitable that when painting, there will be paint splashes and tonight was no exception. Unfortunately due to the restricted space and number of people there were quite a lot of splashes. Fortunately it was water based paint on a tiled floor - Tom went above and beyond the call of duty by getting water and cloths and was on his hands and knees removing the spillage marks - what tremendous work!

**>The hall painting was completed in true GoodGym meets 60 minute Makeover style

We headed out for the return leg of the run taking the opportunity to include some train running intervals and a little "wall sit" treat on arrival back at the Waterfront.

A fab night's work and a nice long run complete - Great stuff everyone!

We started the evening by giving big congratulations to our Goodgym regular buddies - Lesley, Daniela and Nicola - who all ran the GNR on Sunday. Also to Kerry who PB'ed at the Langham 10k on the same day - Tremendous work!

Tonight's task had a last minute change of venue. We had originally been asked by Danny at Activ Gardens to go to Chantry Park Walled Garden but he had a big job he needed help with at The People's Community Garden - so we headed out along Wherstead Road enjoying a small portion of the Great East Run route prior to the event this Sunday.

On arrival we found Danny and Trevor already hard at work cutting back the hedge that extended right along the boundary road of the PCG. Our task was to help clear the debris, and remove weeds on the path below the hedge. Another job was to trim a willow tunnel inside the garden.

This was going to be a big job! Immediately we all set to work grabbing gloves and wheel barrows to transport the excess to the compost heap. It soon turned into a series of wheel barrow races with Andrew setting the pace running with his fully loaded barrow along the boundary road.

It needed all hands on deck digging out weeds, loading the barrows and brushing the footpaths clear - I didn't even have time to take many photos.

This was probably the most physical task we've done as a group - and due to the scale of the job we extended the time so we could get as much done as possible.

As darkness descended we had managed to make a huge impact, but had to leave Danny and Trevor to finish off the final sweeping. With the task being pretty full on and time marching on, we skipped the fitness element for tonight and head back to base at a steady run pace.

Really great work from everyone tonight!

We were back out litter picking along the river again on behalf of Rivercare tonight but covering a different area of the river path to last week. Although the location is close to our meeting point, I didn't really want us to run while carrying litter picking sticks (even if it does feel like being some kind of special forces squadron running with rifles!).

This took some strategic planning and and an pre Goodgym run on my behalf - parking a car with all the litter picking equipment close to the area we would be covering, and then running back to our meeting point. I have to say I was rather pleased how well it worked.

After our usual meet and greet and a warm up to challenge balance and core stability we set off for the first stage of the run looping round and back onto the waterfront, passing the bank holiday diners and drinkers in the various establishments on our way. With just over a mile done we arrived at the strategic rendezvous point (my car). Litter picking sticks and bags were dealt out from the boot - it must have looked bizarre to any onlookers..... A group of people dressed predominantly in red shirts come running into a car park, crowd round the boot of a car and come away with black bags and what looks like a toy gun!

So with all the necessary tools we set off along the river path, dividing into two groups at the half way point. One group began retracing our steps while the other moved further along to the bridge before turning back.

Last week we were surprised at how little rubbish there was in the the more populated area of the Waterfront. This week there was no surprise as this stretch of the river bank had a few hot spots that were heaving with debris mainly drinks bottles and cans and fast food wrappings. There were a few unusal finds too - disposable nappies and some rather fetching underwear!

Needless to say we filled several black sacks and struggled to find bins for all of it. Although sad to see the amount of rubbish people had discarded, it felt like we had done a worthwhile task in removing it and preventing it from ending up in the river.

A quick re-vist to the car park to drop off the litter picking equipment back to the car and we headed off for stage two of our run taking in parts of the Ipswich Twilight 10k course - around Portman Road and through the town centre. Tom commented that I was taking a few short cuts and wasn't sure my time from the race could be legitimate give the route I was following!

The evening ended with a short but fairly intense circuit based on leg strength endurance, before we departed and I went off to retrieve my car from the dodgy car park.

Don't forget next week is Goodgym Ipswich's first year anniversary and we'll be going to Issac's after the task for a little birthday celebration - everyone is welcome to come along. You can see more info and sign up for the Group Run - Here

We had a little change from the norm this evening. Usually we run to a venue, do a task then run back. Tonight the task was literally right outside the door of our meeting point, so we did the task then went for a run.

We had two "newbies" making their Goodgym debut - Julie and Sinead - hope you enjoyed your first Goodgym experience.

The task was for Rivercare - litter picking along a section of the waterfront aiming to prevent rubbish getting into the water. We walked to the furthest point away and then made our way back collecting litter on the way. It was surprisingly litter free - something perhaps to do with the Maratime Festival that had taken place over the weekend and the major clear up that followed!

However, armed with litter pickers, we still managed to collect a number of bags and remove the risk of it ending up in the river. During the task we were approached by a couple of people asking how they could volunteer to litter pick the area on a regular basis - great to see this!

We also met Jason Alexander who was passing and saw our efforts - Jason is the founder of Rubbish Walks a brilliant project with a very simple idea - Go for a walk and pick up a bit of litter along the way. Jason also recently organised the Beach Clean Marathon - Walking 12 Suffolk beaches in 6 days collecting plastic waste and other beach litter. Chatting with Jason there may be opportunities for us to link up in future.

With the litter pick done we set off for our run with the warning that it was going to be a hilly ride! The route took us up Bishops Hill - one of Ipswich's more challenging slopes - into Holywells Park (to take in part of the forthcoming Great East Run course (only 4 weeks to go!). Holywells Park is also quite "slopey" but the exit onto Cliff Lane provided a welcome downhill section before re-entering the park for a section of trail running. Then back towards the Waterfront where we split into teams, forming 2 trains for a little "back to front" sprint training.

Hills and sprints - what's not to like!!

A big welcome to Kaveh who made his debut group run last night - luckily he spotted us just before we set off! Great to have you on board and hope you enjoyed the evening.

We were heading to a new venue and task for us - Spring Road Allotments. There was some debate beforehand on whether a non-hilly route could be devised to get to Spring Road. The answer is that there probably is a non - hilly route....but where's the fun in that!

So we headed up the nearest hill taking in a circuit of Alexandra Park and another smaller elevation up to the entrance of the venue during the mile run.

We were greeted by Stephanie on arrival and taken by surprise at the scale of the impressive site, with loads of plots laid out on in terraces sloping up the steep incline. Stephanie explained our tasks which were to dig out and construct a stag beetle residence and to move lots of cut down branches to build a dead hedge. She led us up several terraces to where the cuttings had been piled. The branches and other off cuts of trees needed to be chopped into manageable sizes and transported down a level to be placed into the dead hedge.

Initially all was well with most of the team getting stuck into picking out branches and lopping them down to size before being wheelbarrowed along to Jo and Hayley who were strategically placing them all to form a long and evenly balanced hedge.

Unfortunately the team's enthusiasm was curtailed by the unfortunate discovery of a wasps nest in the pile of branches. When I say discovery it would probably be more accurate to say the wasps discovered Goodgym...... and weren't keen!

Robin and Keith were unlucky in being the first to realise these local residents weren't keen on red shirted giants trampling across their manor - and were warned off with a traditional waspish greeting. At this point we abandoned the task in hand and beat a fairly hasty retreat.

A little further down the terraces the construction of a stag beetle home was a lot calmer. The area was cleared of brambles and a small trench dug and various old pieces of wood laid down and recovered with soil. This will create a perfect environment for stag beetles that depend on old trees and rotting wood to live in and feed on.

Once this was complete we retraced our outward bound tracks, stopping in the park for a hill interval relay session - everyone loves hills sooo much! In teams of three focusing on technique of driving with arms and lifting knees. The downhill element proved to be a little challenge in itself...stopping in time to high five your partner.

An eventful evening ended with an easy short (downhill) jog back to base.