What a night of celebration we have tonight as 15 goodgymers, old and new, join to take on the task at the community orchard.

Firstly we welcome our 2 new runners, welcome to the Cardiff crew Evie and Simon.

CROESO

Then we had our pre-celebration for a very special birthday for Llion, followed by a night of fun celebrations at the flyte club.

Penblwydd hapus

After initial greetings and chats, we set off the walkers first on a slightly shorter and quicker route, before Lucy led the runners off through the park on a different route. We had the return of our water rolling barrel baddies, the bowsers, which allowed us to transport 80 litres of water in total at a time. Michael ran with them initially, until we hit the park and then the running challenges could begin. Each runner took a turn of running with a single bowser, and this certainly engaged the concentration as those contraptions had a mind of their own at times.

Our first stop along the way was at the cricket changing rooms, where the outside tap was situated. we picked four people to stay back and fill up the bowsers, whilst the rest ran over to the orchard to meet up with the walkers. Michael gave a quick briefing on the tasks, and a quick overview of the orchard project - which was really looking well settled on just its second year.

We had a couple of tasks tonight, so we split the group up to tackle them,

• running the bowsers back and forth to get filled
• watering the orchard
• collecting seeds from a couple of plants

Michael handed out brown envelopes for the seed collecting, and showed everyone which plants we were collecting from and how to get the most seeds. Our plants of choice were foxgloves and honesty.

Did you know?

The Welsh for foxgloves is "Ffion", remember that next time you meet someone with that name. Other translations are "bysedd y cŵn" and "Maneg Ellyllyn".

After a good half an hour of running back and forth, collecting seeds and Michael eating blackberries from the bushes like a feral animal, it was time to collect everything together, including ourselves, take a group photo and head back. Michael had to leave us at this point to drop off the bowsers at another location so that he could then join everyone for the birthday celebrations and darts.

Thanks to everyone for coming, expect some foxglove planting sessions in the orchard next year thanks to all of the seeds collected.

Sunday morning of Love Trails 2025 saw Goodgym again team up with The Green Runners and Trash Free Trails to run to Whiteford Sands for a litter pick.

A breeze in the air was taking the edge off the heat, and five goodgymers were joined by 23 others to run 6km to Whiteford Sands for another seemingly beach clean.

With another three prizes provided for the best finds of the day, the group split into pairs to tackle another seemingly clean beach. After a 40 minute search to group gathered together to tally up the items of litter collected (1,503) and vote on the top 3 finds (1st - BB gun and plamobile man, 2nd - loafers, 3rd - goal posts).

With 10 full sacks of rubbish collected from what was at first glance a clean beach, the Goodgym run showcased the power of using your run for social good and the impact less than an hours volunteering can have en-masse.

Despite following his social media, attending his talk, and having tracked his Cape Town to London journey, run leader Nathan managed to miss that runner and activist Deo Kato had joined the run and chosen to spend some of his time off stage at the festival to join a Goodgym beach clean.

Goodgym was back at Love Trails and this year teamed up with The Green Runners and Trash Free Trails to run to Broughton Bay for a litter pick.

With the sun blazing down, 10 runners headed out 8km to the beach, which at first sight was litter free, however closer inspection of the dunes and tide lines revealed there was lots to be collected.

With a prize on the line for the largest or oddest item found, Lucy dug deep to reveal an abandoned plastic tub, and backed up this find with a wooden stair spindle. Other finds included shorts, shoes, tshirts and seemingly endless amounts of rope off cuts.

After a sweep the length of the beach, the group had collectively found and removed 500+ items of rubbish.

A great start to the festival. The group then headed the now 9km back to the festival site and hunted down some well earned shade.