Last night the Brighton Goodgymers took on storm Brendan, gaining some strength training as we ran against the swirling winds! A colossal effort from everyone as we ran along the seafront! Welcome to Tom who joined us for his group run; hope the weather hasn’t put you off joining us again as part of your training for the Brighton Marathon.

Last night was a night of two tasks; helping out at the Scope shop in Hove and delivering newsletters to the residents of Landsdowne Road for the Extinct Rebellion.

Eleven of us ran to George Street, meeting up with Tabitha, to help the lovely Heather with stock checking and sorting. Scope is a charitable organisation who support those with disabilities be recognised as contributing members of society. Emma and Bernard stock checked Christmas books and cards, Abi pulled out a selection of ladies’ belts from stock to be added to the accessories display, Roy and Jacob sorted through stock and helped David, Michelle and Tabitha pull winter clothes out of deep storage. Ollie was temporary lost to the back of the stock room while Sherman and Tom labelled ladies scarves, pulling out their favourites to share with the others! With some headway to the never ending work that Heather seems to have to do, we ran on back to the Brighton i360, completing a fartlek type run with the use of the lampposts along the seafront. Fartlek, which means speedplay, is a form of continuous interval training used to improve our reactive speed so we don’t get pipped at the post on raceday!

Tara, Frannie, Andy, Daisy and Rosie had the second task in hand as Rosie reports: A smaller group ran a shorter distance (or so we thought) to deliver "Hourglass", the appropriately-named Extinction Rebellion newsletter. Running up the steps and front paths of every house on Lansdowne Place and surrounding streets in Hove was a workout in itself and meant extra time for Tara's gruelling routine on the concrete blocks in front of the i360.

Back together again we shared in the other team’s fun; Tara put us through a series of body strengthening exercises, which this Goodgymer is very much feeling today! Back to base and stretching done, we headed out for our monthly social to the Dead Soul Wax bar.

Make sure you sign up for next week's run to St Lukes for some kitchen cleaning on behalf of the Real Junk Food Project.

It never rains in Brighton it….no it really never rains, at least not on a Tuesday evening. The forecast for tonight was dreadful, I was sure none of you would turn up despite the offer of soup, but as it turned out the promised deluge turned out to be a fine mist and with an indoor task we managed to stay pretty dry. Shout outs tonight went to Rosemary and David (and me!) for taking on the Mince Pie 10 on Sunday, well done us!

A slightly different format to proceedings tonight as we did the blustery run into the wind along the seafront, including hill sprints up the slopes and fast feet up the steps, followed by the fitness session before the task. Using the shelter of the i-360 we partnered up with one running whilst the other dipped, stepped and squatted and practiced some wall angels which are great for shoulder mobility and posture.

The wonderful Jo welcomed us into the warmth of the wonderful community kitchen and we set about our cleaning tasks for the evening. Ovens got cleaned, windows got washed and cupboards got wiped, 12 people working hard for just 15 minutes equals 3 hours of work and to show their appreciation of our efforts over the year Jo and the team at the Community Kitchen had prepared us some delicious carrot soup along with crusty bread and various nibbles, which we enjoyed immensely along with some wine and beer.

As Jo explained the paid cookery courses at the Kitchen fund the work they do with other communities including people with dementia and the less well off. So if you would like to spend a great evening learning how to prepare delicious food from around the world then the code GOODGYM618 will get you 20% discount. The courses make great gifts as well, what with Christmas just round the corner and all.

Don't forget its our parkrun meet up at Hove Park this Saturday, followed by a community mission, then our last task of the year next week, and the Christmas Social on Thursday.

A busy week!

Last night's run was my first, but what a great experience! 16 of us met up at Brighton YHA and although I was a little nervous to start with, everyone was so welcoming, chatty and well up for a positive evening of doing good and running I shouldn't have worried about anything.

After a short run along the sea front, we arrived at the Brighton Table Tennis Club which runs all sorts of fab clubs and projects within the community. Here, we helped clean and tidy the kitchen, the showers and bathrooms, as well as the Parish Hall. Skirting boards, floors and cupboards were scrubbed, smiling pictures of past ping pong successes were dusted, and bathrooms descaled...Not to mention our intrigue (or fascination?) with the spinning mops and mop buckets which too were put to good use!

One of the highlights for me though was how the Ladies' Ping Pong practice (which was taking place whilst we were there,) let us join them at the tables. We GoodGymers paired up with their members to play a couple of games... and what a happy site seeing a hall full of people playing and laughing together.

A very special way to spend a Tuesday evening! Emma and now over to Tara....

Thank you so much Emma for jumping right in and writing this week's run report, its great to get the perspective of a first timer and last night we were spoilt rotten as we had 3 of you! Along with Emma we welcomed Benita & Jacob. You are all very welcome additions to our band of getting fit by doing gooders!

I'd just like to mention as well the fantastic achievement of Frannie. Frannie's been running with us since our Brighton launch in July 2017, often taking on the essential role of back marker which we all very much appreciate. So a huge shout out to Frannie for achieving a 10k PB at the weekend at the Silverstone 10k. Well done and much more to come, I suspect Frannie will be front marking before too long!

Christmas Party News! We got as far as deciding what to do and when to do it and now we need to commit!! So its Globallsat Brighton Marina on Thursday December 19th at 6.30pm followed by eating and or drinking at TGIs after, Helena is organising for us (thank you!) so if you would like to come along we need you to confirm by paying £5.50 into Helena's account with your name as reference. Details are 30-84-68, 12299268. This will cover the cost of the Globalls and then we can pay for our own food and drink at TGI's. All are welcome but it would be very helpful to commit ASAP so we can plan for numbers.