11 runners went to Little Peeple in Littlemore to help out..

We cleared weeds, swept paths, picked up litter, and dug leaves..

and importantly we drank tea! Little peeple are one of our favorite task for giving us drinks, squash and chocolate biscuits.. I Blame Mark for being a little late back to base as we did get carried away with the tea breaks! ;)

we made occasional stops for star jumps and Burpies on our way..

Welcome Hannah, and Matt to GoodGym nice to have you along!

Well done to Julia who celebrated her 50th Good Deed at the weekend.. an achievement so great that she gets to keep the garland of joy all week!! ;)

Vicky, proudly wore our Garland of joy being the latest of the Oxford fleet to reach 10 good deeds! Well done Vicky, go give her a cheer!!

It was a cold night again.. BRRRR! But 10 runners ran 4km to Little Peeple Nursery to clean their windows (and clean a few other things too!)

Tim found one of the biggest marks on the windows! We also cleaned chalk boards, white boards, cupboards, skirting boards.. and er.. picture (boards)! We were given wafers which we ate in celebration of Julia and her Birthday!

Walter won at star jumps on the way back home. While Trev sneaked off to run a couple of uncharted streets for his #runeverystreet challenge!

To finish there was a return of the Caterpillar game around Florence Park! This ended up as an Epic run, totalling 10k in the end, so massive well done to everyone for running the distance with the games and in the cold! YOU’RE FAB!

Christmas Poll shuts tomorrow! Rachael has kindly set up a Christmas Outing Doodle Poll to see if people want a GoodGym meal out! please fill in today if you want your vote to be added as it closes Thursday! :)

Another week, another longer run to our evening task.

This is the 4th week in a row that we've run more than 6km on our Group Run - we must be getting fitter! If you're thinking it's time for an easier week, we'll have a change of pace next week with a walkable task, and for the runners there are options to run anything from 2km to 6km.

In preparation for taking over as your benign dictator in Oxford, Trev gave the run briefing this week, getting everyone to introduce themselves and tell us their favourite musical instrument. Kudos to Ben for picking the triangle. Everyone's favourite orchestral instrument, surely?! Trev will be leading Oxford GoodGym from 1st November until 30th March.

With no messing about we set off through the streets of Cowley bang on time to run the 4km(ish) to Little Peeple Nursery. Wiggling our way through the back streets, past some of our past tasks, grumbling our way up the hill on Beauchamp Lane, swooping down to the underpass, and dodging brambles along the footpath, we arrived at Little Peeple just a bit out of breath and sweaty.

Lindsey and Malcolm were there to greet us with some squash and chocolate biscuits, correctly guessing that the way to every runners heart is through their stomach!

The main task at Little Peeple Nursery was to move a metal shed to it's new location in the nursery garden. The contents had already been emptied, and the shed itself was actually quite light, but needed several people to move because of it's size.
1...
2.....
3........
HEAVE!!!!!

Up went the shed, shuffle, shuffle, over the fence, maneuver carefully, wriggle out of the way, and plop into the new location.

Next up, refilling it with all it's contents. I'll be honest here; we didn't really believe everything would fit back in! The shed seemed small, the pile on the grass seemed large. However, that little metal shed has Tardis-like properties, and with a little bit of stacking and rearranging it only took 10 minutes to fill it up with play equipment, chairs, boxes and crates.

Main task complete we took a tour to the back of the garden to see what had changed since we first came to Little Peeple back in July. Over the summer Malcolm had made a lovely little fence across the garden using the wooden pallets we shifted on our last visit, and has made a storage shed from discarded materials too. While we were there we moved a few more bits of treasure into the garden so that they're handy for Malcolm for his next projects. There are big plans afoot for the outdoor space. It's already awesome, but Lindsey and Malcolm are working to make it even better.

Tasks done, it was time to get running again. "Great" we thought "a nice easy run back. We climbed the hill on the way here, so it must be downhill on the way home." But NO! Trev had other ideas....first we stopped for a minute of squats, Angus proving to be champion squatter. Then a few minutes later Trev challenged us to a minute of star jumps, Ben taking the crown on this one. And finally, we caterpillared our way down to Florence Park and along Cricket Road getting a few sprints in. Between 8km of running, weightlifting a shed, and Trev's dastardly fitness sessions we got a very decent workout, finishing with a jog back to our base and some gentle stretches.

Congratulations on completing your 10th Good Deeds Isabella and Aoife. Special thanks to Aoife who has back-marked the run for 5 of those good deeds - much appreciated!

Welcome Jeremy. We hope you enjoyed your 1st GoodGym experience!

Oh what a beautiful evening,
Oh what a beautiful day,
I've got a wonderful feeling,
Goodgym are coming to play.

"How can it be hotter at 6pm than it was at lunchtime?" That was the question on all of our lips as we set off to run to the Little Peeple Centre. It was one of our longer routes, with an uphill section, on our warmest Goodgym night so far, so we knew we'd be arriving at our task looking a little disreputable!

Lindsey and Malcolm were at Little Peeple Nursery to greet us with some very welcome glasses of water after a hot 2.5 mile run to the Oxford Academy, and didn't seem too horrified by the sight of 8 hot runners sweating profusely!

The nursery opened in October 2018, and is a lovely space on the edge of the Oxford Academy site, offering childcare for children from 6 months to 4 years old.

Our tasks for the evening were to help in the garden, so following Malcolm through to the back we set to work.

First we grabbed gloves and, lifting from the knees, moved some large wooden pallets which had been gifted to the nursery from the delivery point into the garden. Malcolm, who is clearly handy with woodwork, is going to turn these into a bridge in the garden for the kids to play on. Task one accomplished, we followed Malcolm over into the grounds of the Oxford Academy, and tooling up with spades, wheelbarrow and bags we set to work shifting some of the large pile of woodchips into the Little Peeple Garden.

20 minutes, 3 wheelbarrows, and 24 large bags-full later we had amassed quite a pile of woodchip under the tree in the garden.

The woodchip is going to spread out in various sites around the garden, including around the mud kitchen and under the tree, where there is a seating circle made from logs. The kids are lucky to have such a dedicated team at Little Peeple Nursery working to constantly improve their play spaces. We felt really happy to have helped them out a little.

After a second glug of water (stay hydrated in the heat people!), we reluctantly waved goodbye and set off to run back to base. Having slogged uphill on the way we were looking forward to a lovely downhill run on our return journey, and swooped down towards Florence Park ducking into the shade whenever we could find some. Stopping for a breather under the trees in the park the group probably thought they were just being given an opportunity to cool down, but no....never under-estimate a Goodgym trainer on a mission....it was down onto forearms and tiptoes for a planking session. Who can hold for a full minute?! Abs feeling tight and six-pack-y it was just one more mile back to base, with dreams of dinner and icecream motivating us to run faster.

Welcome to Nick, who completed his first Goodgym Group Run tonight. Good to meet you!

Well done to Mark for completing his 10th good deed, and therefore getting to wear the Garland of Joy!

Thanks to Mack for the Run Report title, and GOOD LUCK with the move!