This evening we got our 'butts in the right place" to save the environment.

A smallish group of 8 runners this evening, due to christmas festivities and a downpour, ran to clean up the streets of Leamington.

Meeting at the Fat Pug, we gathered in the warm, but wet garden to hear how about "No ifs, No Butts" and how we could 'save the environment one butt at a time'. Simon Perkins joined us to talk about the benefit of portable ashtrays, he is leading on a project to get more smokers to use them instead of littering the streets, our task was to find the smokers of Leamington and offer them a free portable ashtray in return for completing an online questionnaire, an extra bonus would be for each questionaire filled in, £3 is donated to Leamington Night Shelter for Homeless.

So with our bags full of ashtrays and all our christmas lights turned on, including some antlers and a festive hat we did a little warm up and headed off to find the pubs.

Due to the rain and it getting slippery underfoot we headed to the park do do a Parlauf session before it became to wet to race. Splitting into pairs, everyone had a go at sprinting as fast as they could around the park till they met their partner who was walking, they then tagged and swapped, a great effort session that was lots of fun in the rain. Great recovery and some very fast running from a few.

Once we were all sprinted out we started out own pub crawl. We had a slight lack of smokers on our route, it appears only the hardy smokers were out. So with our we "Don't like fag butts and we cannot lie" routine we managed to chat to 7 smokers on our route of 10 pubs/eateries, getting them all to sign up raising £21 for LNS.

Simon, who had a captive audience in The Fat Pug beer garden also signed people up.

On our return leg we had a little breakout group who enjoyed a little loop back on the last hill, a good test of the legs before Christmas.

Once returned to The Fat Pug we did a little stretch and a few of us stayed for a Christmas drink.

Happy Christmas, see you all in the New Year.

Tonight after a quick show of hands for the Myton Dash on December 8th, a total of 13 Reindeers, Elves and runners got together to help out and provide some GoodGym expertise to help LIGHT UP the way into Christmas. Iain led off and all began to follow the lead (a recurring theme throughout the night).

WATT our task for the evening, we had to put up the Christmas lights at Lord Leycester Hospital where we were eagerly welcomed.

After a quick briefing and allocation of LIGHTS, Liz (who traveled from Coventry to temporarily replace our Fallen Leader this week, get well soon Becky) made sure that no one was LEFT IN THE DARK, we split into groups and quickly set to work.

TREEmendous work was spent decorating the trees in the court yard before we could move onto the Great Hall where they were running an auction, although by the time we had untangled lights they were FAIRY close to finishing.

Then there was yet more LIGHT work to be made, in a shop stall befitting of the first Christmas (There were lights are on but nobody Wass home).

Once the auction was finished a brave few were entrusted to hang the decorative bunches of little sticks (I don't know the Christmasey name) from the chandeliers in the Great Hall, fellow runners held the ladders (making sure no-one was ever HERTZ)

We couldn't leave until it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas and we over ran our time sLIGHTly, but as LUX would have it no-one was in a huge rush to return.

A stretch and cool down back at base and a reminder of next weeks task, a mention of a community mission. (Thanks again Liz for being sub leader) We hope to be back to full force next week with Becky recovered from the darstardly Flu.

15 runners joined us this evening to run to Lord Leycester Hospital to meet Master Heidi

In true Halloween style we had ghosts walking on our graves this evening causing a fair few shivers once we left the warmth of the fire. But they don't call us hardy fools for nothing...

After a quick warm up of speedy feet, jogging, windmill arms including a disco dance round the garden we were ready for the off.

Our longest run so far - 3.2 Km there, including** 'that hill'. **

Running through Warwick was a mean feat due to smelling all the food on offer that evening, who knew Warwick had so many lovely eateries, some potential social spots where noted in Rebecca's head.

We arrived with plenty of time to take a few photos of the huge door, and then had our first test - find the Master.

The task tonight was a little different to planned, due to the hospital raising funds for a new greenhouse they had a surplus of donations - books, a horse, (see photo) cookery items and other brick a brak. This needed to be taken out of the tiny shed and repacked into other boxes and bags and delivered to the local charity shop.

Heidi had been worrying about this task for ages due to the amount of crates and donations that needed to be shifted.

But it's amazing what you can do with 15 sets of hands, within 20 minutes we had an empty shed, a pile of donations at the shop and everything sorted into its type. We also had a few items we were allowed to keep and take home. Luckily only books were chosen and not the giant lamp shade.

The Lord Leycester Hospital is still being used to this day and has years of history, we were incredibly lucky to be given our own private tour once the task was complete. Heidi, along with her little doggy, took us through her own house and into the courtyard and up to the chapel. We learned about the brethren still living there and about the recent filming, Unfortunately we missed Tom Hardy.....

If you have a free day go and explore this amazing hospital and take in the hospitality of the Master. They also do amazing scones during visiting times.

On our run back to the Fat Pug, those speedy legs ran the hills twice for an extra workout.

Massive congratulations to those runners that completed their furthest distance last night - and especially the ones daunted by it but still came along. You were amazing. Cheers to James for leading out the group and Alain for being backstop.

Following a little cool down 6 of us went for a little drink at the Fat Pug - 2 had the most amazing looking burgers I've seen. Might have to eat there on the next social.

Next run is back into Warwick to help Way A Head, and don't forget to sign up for The Myton Hospice Santa run on the 8th December. Its sure to be fun.

Till next week - keep running.

39 runners joined us on the first ever GoodGym run in Warwick and Leamington Spa, running a total of 6K to Bring Back Guys Cliff. We had an electrifying evening, where luckily no one sat on the fence and everyone got stuck in, including removing 20 meters of old electric fencing.

We started our run with the local paparazzi, its nice to be famous... although I'm not entirely sure we were as 'dynamic' sitting in the garden, so order was restored and we set off on our 'marathon' (can't wait to see the photos)

Due to the amount of runners our warm-up became fairly creative on the first part of the run, a nice little stop of fast feet before crossing the road warmed us all up.

Anne met us on her trusty steed (bike) and led us to the ghostly Guys Cliff. This amazing building is being bought back to life with much love and care from the local community.

We soon got stuck into a range of tasks from removing electric fencing (thanks to Simon for checking it was definitely dead) , to weeding, clearing leaves, cutting down plants and moving concrete.

Before heading back we did a little fitness session, including celebrating John's 100th good deed, he came all the way from Birmingham to support us. So of course we had to sing 'Happy 100th to him'

We finished off the session with some classic games - Sharks and Fishies, amazing how many fishies could be caught in one go when the area is fairly small. One runner even threw themselves to the sharks to let their fellow fishies escape.

Our final game involved getting each team member across the area by moving in a different way. There was some interesting use of arms and legs by some members and some beautiful high knees.

On our return run there appeared to be a bit more hill than we remembered. All safetly returned to The Fat Pug we had a little stretch whilst David told us about how to get involved in Mission runs and coached runs.

Massive thanks to everyone for creating a great launch night, we can't wait to see you all again next week. Don't forget to tell your friends too.....