It was a Sally-themed night in Wandsworth last night, as we said a tearful goodbye to one of founding members and task force. But don't worry, Sally will still be part of the GoodGym family in Bristol!

We had some good news to temper the tears, with a whole gang of lovely new runners joining us for the very first time. Put your hands together and give a cheer for Davinder, Rosie, Imran and Greg. Great to have you join the team! We also had the pleasure of having lovely York and Barnsley trainer Egg along for our run.

After a bit of news (don't forget the last social of the year this Thursday for all GoodGym groups) and a well done to those who raced at the weekend (congratulations Nick for coming 6th in the poppy run this weekend!) we headed outside for our warm up. After some dynamic exercises to combat the cold and get our heart rates up, we did a head count and found out our favourite things about Sally, as wel as our best puds. We unanimously agreed that Sally is friendly, welcoming, modest, funny, an inspiring runner, has great curls and a lovely smile. She is also a big proponent of a word that shall not be mentioned in this run report, but rhymes with lobnut. We also decided that the best desserts were ice cream, banoffee pie, apple pie and anything chocolately.

Tonight we were splitting the group (sniff), with two tasks to choose from. The larger group were heading off to tackle a massive painting task at a local school, led by ace King's trainer Alyx, while a smalled group were running to an amazing refugee support charity, KLS, to lug a whole load of packets of flooring up 3 flights of stairs.

This latter group headed off into the night and thanks to a nice downhill start, at a fair lick. We soon arrived at the charity to find the flooring waiting for us, and got cracking straight away shifting the boxes up the stairs. Within minutes we were done, and so we finished off the job by clearing a whole load of broken tiles out of the bathroom. Great upper body work out team. Now - legs. It was a short run through Battersea to a nearby hill, where, in twos and thinking about form (especially those arms - it's all about the positive backwards arm drive) we knocked out three quick but tough hill sprints. This was only the start, and we made our way to the common for some more lovely fitness.

Meanwhile, the painting team were busy at work at Allfarthing Primary School, where they were tasked with finishing a job we had started this summer. Here's what Alyx said about the task...

The celebration party took Dave and Sally on a 3km run down to Allfarthing Primary School to paint more of their playground fences. There was a bit of confusion over the colours needed for each fence as it was pretty dark by the time we arrived, but a couple of runners 'sage'd the day and realised there were two different colours (safe and forest) just before we made any mistakes! We got most of the fence done and there are just a few left that we can go back to finish another time. Once done we split into two groups to run back to Clapham Common to meet Ana and the crew for a gruelling fitness session.

The fitness

We met up at the common, and the real hard work began. We started with a quick time trial featuring two hard laps of the common, and then got stuck into some conditioning exercises including planks, sumo squats, and Egg's marvellous press up challenge, before hitting the same route to see if all that firing up of glutes and abs had made a difference to our times. And it had! Great running team.

All that was left was to sprint back to the BAC and complete the run with a proper Wandsworth finish which saw Sally making her way through the full guard of honour. It was back to the bar for a cheeky lemonade and to say our goodbyes. We'll miss you Sally!

Next week we're doing a spot of gardening at our favourite community garden. Go one, sign up here for some more GoodGym fun.

WELCOME!

This week we welcomed 2 fantastic new runners to the @GGSHEFF crew. Please put your hands together and welcome

• Elizabeth Townsend AKA BEANY
• Emily Stoker

Give em a cheer!

TASK TIME

This week we set off on a slightly longer run to another site under the supervision of Heeley Development Trust called ASH TREE YARD.

Finishing on a tough hill we met FANTASTIC FRANK who gave us a brief of the evenings task which was to fill 5 tonne sacks full of wood that has been sat in the yard roting away and creating access for a spate of break ins. Heeley Development Trust have secured funding to develop the site and are therefore clearing the space so it can be put to better us in the community.

The @GGSHEFF team got straight to the ROOT of the task, quickly forming a human chain to twist and pass logs from person to person creating a fantastic TRUNK workout! A small team quickly TWIGGED we had a few too many people in our chain and soBRANCHED off from the main group to tackle the big logs using some fantastic teamwork to lift and shift the heavier logs using a wheelbarrow. Did you CEDAR ammount of wood we shifted?

WOOD you BELEAF it, we smashed the task and managed to fill all of Franks sacks in the alloted time! A really strong team effort with no DEADWOOD to be seen.

Oaky kokey SYCAMORE jokes? time to move on from the puns and onto the...

FANTASTIC FITNESS

With a slightly longer run this week we had limited time for group fitness, however we did get some good work in with some on route loop backs with great efforts from SENSATIONAL SAM & DANGEROUS DAN.

Once we got to the light of a park we got paired up and did some JOHN PEEL PAIRED SPRINTS followed by a DEAD ARM HANG CHALLENGE with MAGIC MIKE taking the crown this week alongside his PUN MASTER title!

On return to the Showroom we finished with the HOWARD ST STRAVA SEGMENT SPRINT for those that fancied it, stretched off and headed inside for liquid refreshment and puntastic conversations.

1 YEAR ANNIVERSARY

We will officially be 1 next Mon! To celebrate we are going to go out for some food after the run so won't be running straight back to the Showroom after the run next week.

You can let us know you are coming to the meal by completing the Doodle Link here

Until next time,

Happy Running!

18 excellent @ggsheff runners ran 3km to help the CATHEDRAL ARCHER PROJECT tidy up their community garden.

After hearing about the teams efforts on Sundays run at DIG DEEP we set off into town taking on a few obstacles on route to the CATHERDRAL ARCHER PROJECT.

On arrival LOVELY LYNN welcomed us with cold bottled water and a brief about the project and the tasks for the eve which included a lot of cutting back of overgrown plants. The aim is to be able to use the garden as an activity for the project and its users who will hopefully take ownership of the garden.

After a good 45mins of hacking away the area looked a lot clearer and ready to be used once again. Lynn gave us a lovely thank you before we headed back off into the city for the fitness session.

This week we took advantage of the cities structures and landscape and focussed on some stair sets, box jumps and a killer hill rep session to finish off before heading into the SHOWROOM for a well earnt drink and natter.

Until next time.

HAPPY RUNNING