Well when Hitch, our usual Run Leader for Norwich, asked if I'd cover for him as he needed to be in Lapland this week, I had wondered if he was trying to get a bit of extra overtime in for Christmas as one of Santa's busy elves. But the photo he shared with us just as we were about to start, of him in a sleigh, with reindeer and a little helper, definitely gave us second thoughts as to exactly which role he was practising for!

So with that festive mood setting the scene for our last group run of the year, it was great to see so many turn out on a chilly night for our task at the Clare School to make decorations for their Christmas party.

As I am still getting over my nasty winter cough, I knew it would be suspect to do a lot of loud talking this evening so Bill very kindly helped me out with the welcome session announcements and warm up. Thanks Bill!

It is always lovely to see our Goodgym family grow so we were very pleased to welcome Hannah to her first group run. And if she needed any extra evidence that we are such a nice bunch of people to meet up with to do good and keep fit, that people keep coming back, that was provided by Amy celebrating her 50th good deed. Well done Amy, we look forward to seeing you show off your new black GG top in 2020!

After a brisk warm up to get the blood flowing nicely, we set off on the 3km route to the Clare School. Thanks to Bill for setting the pace at the front, to Jenny being back runner on the way out and to Mel for doing this on the way back.

We have visited the Clare School, which is for children with complex needs, before where Hayley, one of our runners works. We are always given a generous welcome and Hayley and her colleagues came up trumps again.

Once inside the school hall, we all dutifully felt the need to sit on the floor and listen carefully while Hayley explained that the school Christmas Party would be held there the next day and needed to be given a festive make-over to help get the children into the festive spirit. Various 'creative workstations' had been set up with different activities to get stuck in to - wrapping gifts for pass the parcel, making snow flakes for the windows, and generally making colourful, Christmassy things to put around the hall. Christmas karaoke, mince pies, juice and a Christmas tree challenge were there to add to the spirit and so we got stuck in......

35 minutes later and wow! what a transformation! Fantastic to see what talents our lovely runners have - ok so my own snowflake efforts were bit of a disaster but we'll quickly move on from that..... Hayley and her colleagues were very pleased with how much was done so quickly, with everyone getting stuck in and having fun at the same time. The pupils would be very excited to see the decorations in the morning.

So with a nice warm glow from doing such a lovely activity we set off again for the Forum where Cheska kindly 'tested' her amazing Christmas chocolate honeycomb fudge on us!!

Take care everyone. Thanks for a great Goodgym 2019 - here's to more fun and fitness in 2020. We now have a break from Monday night runs until 6th January but don't forget to check the GG page and Facebook group for community missions and social events.

Have a great Christmas and I'll leave you pondering who Santa might secretly be....

What can I say? Such an awesome morning!!!

Bill, Elizabeth and Katy came to the Clare school for this morning to meet the pupils and to support them in planting flowers in our sensory garden.

I have to admit I was nervous to see two of my favourite groups of people meet!

How did it go? So, so well! With both Goodgymmers and Clare school pupils being the most lovely of people they got on straight away.

The kids were really keen to be outside and to meet

Bill (sign language name 'Cricket' - he likes to play! ) Katy (sign language name 'Chocolate' - yum!) Elizabeth (sign language name 'Cooking' of which a student is also this sign for 'Little Mix'!)

After explaining the task briefly everyone got stuck in, planting, watering, digging holes.

It was awesome to see our Goodgymmers chatting away and the pupils chatting away too. So at ease with each other and enjoying the task at hand.

Elizabeth helped two pupils in wheelchairs to plant flowers in planters and was chatting away.

Katy hopped up on the sensory garden bed and was digging holes in the incredibly hard and dry soil for the students to be able to plant in places of their choice.

Bill was chatting and chatting, seriously it was so good to see the pupils socialising more than anything - a real treat.

With the help of 34 runners last night the area was prepped amazingly well for the new plant additions - thank you all.

We spent 1-2 hrs putting in all the flowers, they look gorgeous. They have really changed the look of the area. Many students said they would come out at lunch to look at their plants and they did.

I've made some signs to go up so we can learn about the plants and photos will go up to to remember the morning.

Thanks a million Bill, Katy and Elizabeth from myself and the students at The Clare School :)

Summer is definitely here as we all grouped together outside instead of inside The Forum.

We had 4 new amazing GoodGymers so a big welcome to John, Danie, Dave and Jake.

Cheska kindly volunteered to be back runner.

Congratulations to Emily for completing her 25th good deed this evening.

Sarah completed her 1st ever Half Marathon yesterday in very hot conditions... and still came out to run tonight, great effort!

Our member Hayley had arranged tonight's task where she works, The Clare School, which is for children with complex needs. It was nice 2.5km each way trip.

On arrival we received cheers and then donuts were provided to restore our energy levels :-)

The jobs were to tidy up the garden areas with the main focus on the sensory garden used by the students.

35 minutes later it looked like a transformed place, so many weeds (and probably the odd flower haha) pulled up in 35 minutes. I'm not even sure we've ever had such a gardening success.

Hayley took some awesome photos too, which meant I could chip in with the task more this week.

It was a task we sure left our mark on, I'm very proud of you all.

Before we headed back a few of us had a go on the slide, which the speed caught me by surprise as I went crashing on the floor at the end of it!

Robert then topped of the night with a supply of Lemon Drizzle cake ahead of his birthday.

Next week is our 100th Group Run! Let's break our record turnout so invite a friend or family member along as we visit Oxfam Charity Shop.

Tonight was a special evening for several reasons with the main one being it was our 1st Birthday Group Run.

It was also our record turnout at GoodGym Norwich with 36 runners... and this time I was present for the record turnout.

We had 4 new runners in Neil, Kate, Lucy & Katie so a big shout out to you.

5 of our runners were hitting milestones tonight - joining the '10 good deed club' were Stephen, Jen & Graham and joining the '25 good deed club' were Michelle & Helen. Fantastic effort and I'm looking forward to more milestones being achieved in the future.

We also did a round of applause for those who did races at the weekend that I know included Jen, Hayley, Brad & Graham.

Tonight's task was to help re-energise a sensory garden at The Clare School, which is a specialist ‘physical and sensory’ complex needs school. It's about 3km away so I nice little jog there and back on a very warm and sunny evening. Our runner Hayley works there and is great to see how passionate she is about it (and how excited she was for us to arrive).

I also announced during the warm up that we had the 1km trial tonight ahead of the #GGOlympics2018 taking place in London this weekend.

Calum and Katy led headed the run tomorrow now that they are both qualified Run Leaders, which meant I could be back runner this week.

On arrival Hayley and Jen were awaiting us with some glamorous music (I won't mention my dancing) and a couple of the teachers had provided with a wonderful selection of cakes and goodies... this is becoming a habit I could get used to ;-)

After a briefing of what the tasks were, I took half of the group to do their 1km Time Trial in Eaton Park and then once we returned the rest of those who wanted to do it came over to Eaton Park for their turn.

By the time the 2nd group returned from the 1km Time Trial, some of the group decided that it was Basketball and Netball time... with the photo of Calum's dunk one of my favourites of the year so far... along with the group photo we had taken at the end with some incredible poses and facial expressions from everyone.

It was time to gnaw on the treats that were provided for us and then a sluggish 3km jog back to The Forum.

After some stretched it was time to sing Happy Birthday to Catherine D, our most deeded GoodGym-er.

...and being our birthday we had to head to the pub for some food and a beverage.

Tonight was probably my favourite GoodGym experience so far, to see how the group has grown, developed and bonded over the last year, as well as all the amazing good deeds they've dedicated their time to makes me feel very privileged and proud to be a part of so THANK YOU to everyone who has been part of the journey so far. I'm looking forward to partying with some of you on Sunday.

Next week we have another awesome run when we Clean the GoGoHares in partnership with Co-operatives Fortnight 2018.