With a giant Christmas tree in place outside our meeting point on the Waterfront , we were reminded that Father Christmas is always watching. So Ipswich Goodgymers set out to do a good deed that might push our names higher up on santa's "nice" list ahead of the big day!

We welcomed Karl who was making his debut Group Run tonight - hope you enjoyed the experience.

Our task was to deliver flyers on behalf of Age UK, publicising their recently open shop. This was our third time flyering for the charity - targeting different areas within a short radius of the shop. Tonight we planned a straight forward big loop taking in the steep Belstead Road, Stone Lodge Lane and long downhill Birkfield Drive.

With this being our third time of flyering our delivery tactics have been refined over the weeks. Tonight was like a well oiled machine with the group split in half covering both sides of the road and each member of the team"leap frogging" the front runners to get to the next house. It was a joy to watch.

With the flyering done and the spares all finding their way into my backpack.... we had an easy pace run that too us past the local "Better GYM" Kerry was first spot the photo op - Goodgym / Better Gym !

From there we started on a loop following a very small part of the Great East Run route in reverse, incorporating some fartlek intervals before heading back to base along the Waterfront.

The final challenge of the evening was a quick circuit using the street furniture around our meeting point - squats, press ups, step ups and tricep dips - Greatly appreciated by all!! Andrew was quickly hushed when he suggested I may have lost count there should be an additional set to do.

Next week we will be going to Survivors in Transition for some clean, hoovering and polishing - I say we...... I'll be in Spain for the Valencia marathon (supporting, not running) and Angela from Colchester Goodgym will be leading the run. You can sign up HERE

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

A cool evening made it feel like Autumn tonight. With a slight chill in the air as the sun went down, long sleeve base layers came out for the first timein a while!

Claire joined us for her first Group Run and we celebrated the achievements of all those who ran and volunteered at the very soggy, but never the less, tremendous Felixstowe Coastal 10 miler on Sunday

Our task was delivering flyers on behalf of Age UK to promote their new shop on Prince of Wales Drive. The request was to post the leaflets in roads surrounding the new shop, so the run had a couple of challenging hills to get to our start point. I'd collect the flyers earlier that afternoon so we could begin posting as soon as we hit the outer edge of the delivery target area.

Once we got to the start point the idea was to split into groups covering opposite sides of the road and to "leap frog" the people in front. We set off and posting leaflets became a competitive sport, with our Goodgym runners charging along pavements , drives and gardens, racing to get to the next available letter box.

The geography of the area wasn't well known to many of us so google maps became essential as we plotted a course round the estates and developed a strategy to cover as many roads as possible. This worked well for the most part though there may have been 1 or 2 houses that received more than one leaflet!

We made our way across the estate to come out the other side onto Belstead Road. With a few hundred flyers nestling in letterboxes across Maidehall, we enjoyed the downhill run back to the Waterfront

Next week we're heading to one our long standing winter venues - Castle Hill Community - it will be one of our longer runs at just over 5 miles round trip - Find out all the info and sign up HERE