Tonight was TTT, no not Turnips, Trifle and Tiramisu (TTT means - Two Task Tuesday!) and that meant helping out two amazing organisations was on the agenda... The Big Moose Coffee Co and St Monica's Primary School

We met at our usual meeting point at Yr Hen Lyfrgell and quickly split into two groups, Group 1, who headed to the Big Moose Coffee Co and Group 2, who headed to St Monica's Primary School

Helping out at the Big Moose Coffee Co - Run led by Ben

We headed off soon after Group 2 and made our way to Alexandra Gardens. On the way there we did our best attempt to write GoodGym using our bodies in front of the City Hall - *Try and guess which photo it is! *We passed by Sam on the way there who was helping out someone who was unwell on the high street. -Well done Sam, although your Strava didn't track it, you really went the extra mile tonight, we're proud to have you part of the GoodGym family x.

When we arrived to the Gardens we admired the beautiful blossom trees! They were Lush! We then got stuck into the fitness part of the session; we got into partners and alternated with our partners doing 0.33 mile sprint runs of the gardens which equated to a 1 mile run (So there was a rest in between sprints)!

After the fitness session our legs definitely felt they had a good workout! We then made our way to Big Moose with feelings of anticipation about the task that lie in waiting.

Welcome to the Big Moose Coffee Co!

As we arrived Jeff and Ian were there to greet us. Jeff set up Big Moose after his friend nicknamed Moose past away. He developed the Moose brand as a catalyst to leave the world in a better place by working with homeless charities, namely Llamau in the Cardiff area. Ian is the project manager for the Big Moose Coffee Co building.

Jeff explained to the runners that there was lots of wood and debris on the outside roof terrace that Big Moose needed our help clearing. Jeff didn't realise that these words were music to our ears and we couldn't wait to get stuck in and help out!

A massive chain was formed from the roof terrace to the van that was parked outside the Big Moose entrance. Bit by bit, "to me to you" style, all the off the rubbish from the roof terrace was being quickly packed into the van. Darren got pretty attached to some plastic trays that he found on the roof terrace and on 3 occasions after the plastic trays had been packed into the van Darrren requested them back one last time. Fiona was working on her squats as she passed items to the Lydia who was waiting on the stairs - It was all quite exciting!

After 30 minutes time was up and the task was complete! Group 2 met us before we left to join in the group photo and Jeff thanked us for our hard efforts.

Helping out at St Monica's Primary School - Run led by Mikey and Ellen

After splitting into two groups the we left those ‘too cool for school’. It was a direct route to meet up with the organisers at St. Monica’s School.

We stopped at a couple of lights which helped to regroup and rest, there were still weary legs after the Newport marathon and 10k so this was still a challenging run.

Once there we were escorted to the garden project, an old church that had been rejuvenated into a cafe project that has given the land to the school to use. It also has the children from the local school share memories with the elderly community once a week to produce dramatic re-enactments of their life stories.

We were shown the four patches that had been used previously an so the timer was started and the countdown began.... Time to fork n dig. It was all hands to work as old plants were removed and sods of earth broke down. The three groups changed attend and bonded, we discovered the plans were for the children to plant quick growing veg, beetroot, kale, lettuce, radish, salad leaves etc. They only have until the children broke up for holidays. Aimee became a local as she uttered the Welsh words ‘where too’, Emma spoke about the presentation she was doing and we all talked with happiness about what GoodGym do.

After 30 minutes of hard work and three tasking riddles from Ellen our time was up. We thanked our hosts and ran to meet up with the rest of the group.

A big thank you to both of the task organisers, The Big Moose Coffee Co and St Monica's Primary School for giving us a #ReasonToRun!

17 GoodGym runners showed up this evening to help out at Chapter Arts Centre! With the opportunity to help out such an incredible organisation, this was a task everyone was looking forward to.

Everyone arrived prompt for the run at 6.15pm, and then at 6.30pm the evening’s exciting run commenced. We headed to the downstairs of Yr Hen Lyfrgell to do our warm up, which consisted of jogging on the spot, and butt kicks. Ben then had the wonderful idea of including running up and down the steps in the building as part of the warm up. We had a new runner to GoodGym this week, a HUGE and INCREDIBLY LOUD cheer to KIERA!.... WELCOME :) – It’s lovely to have you join us. We love it when new people come and join in - We hope we didn't scare you off and we see you again :)

Warmed up and feeling incredible, it was time to begin our run. On our way to Chapter Arts Centre we stopped off at Bute Park where we did sprint drills (By popular request!). The fitness session consisted of 10 minutes of sprint, recover and repeat as many times as possible in the timeframe.

After 10 minutes the fitness session was over - to the delight of many! we had a group photo on what looked like a sacrificial stone and then made our way to Chapter Arts Centre!

WELCOME TO CHAPTER ARTS CENTRE

We were greeted with the warmest reception by Jennifer from Chapter Arts. Jennifer told us all about Chapter Arts Centre and explained what our task was that evening. The task was to stuff letters into envelopes; this was to help with the fundraising efforts of Chapter who are dependent on generous donations to help stay open. We split into 4 teams of 4 and competed against one another to see which team could fold and stuff the most letters into envelopes in half an hour.

The teams were called:

• First past the post – Charlotte, Alice, Amy and Rachel
• Folding, stuffing, sticking with love – Lucy, Sophie, Fiona and Sue
• Stuffing it – Keira, Mikey, Adam and Martin
• Barbara – Emma, Aimee, Ellen and Katie

Thank you so much GoodGym for your incredible efforts

Jennifer thank us all for 30 minutes of non-stop envelope stuffing. It was so much fun and everyone enjoyed; Mikey was in his element.

Run Home :)

We then ran back to Yr Hen Lyfrgell where we then did our warm down and went to the Glassworks pub for drinkypoos.

This weeks winner of the RunPunStiltskin award goes to Ellen and Su. Wooooo! Well done for coming up with such an incredible Pun for the run! Please hand back the award next week so it can be passed on to the next winner!

Remember there is an extra run in Penarth this week to help out at Marie Curie. Get signed up to the run by clicking here Join in next Tuesday’s GoodGym run by clicking here

Tonight 17 fantabulous runners trotted off to the Samye Foundation Centre to help their ongoing renovation of 3 flats above the centre. We welcome one new face - hello Sophie! - one returning face - welcome back Andie! - and say goodbye to one departing face - adieu Tom at least for a little while - it was fun while it lasted!

Twist and Shout

So the group was headed up by a new leader tonight - little ol' me - with welcome assistance from Ben and Darren. Our warm up included an added twist: a side-stepping, hip-flexing, sashay movement which everyone appeared to like bar one runner who shall not be named (Sue), who promptly shouted she did not like it one bit! So we headed off towards the Samye, and on the way took advantage of the lighter evening to do some fittening work. Darren led us on a great timed out-and-back run up along the Taff, with runners pushing themselves a bit more than normal to go out as far as possible in 7 minutes, then turning around and heading back to the starting point. It will be interesting to see how far we get to next time.

Stuff of legends!

Once at the Samye, we were welcomed by Lorraine who was as jolly as ever, telling us of her exciting trip to Nepal recently. Then we got stuck in. The description of the task included 'moving stuff' and boy did we move a lot of 'stuff'!. Fridges were going upstairs, boxes were going downstairs, and on the way we passed microwaves, wall panels, curtain poles and carpet tiles going goodness knows where! Aimee, Lucy and Sophie stuck into painting the walls of the front flat, adorning themselves with the very flattering bin bags as usual - I swear that we use these so much, that GoodGym should come out with its own line of bin bag painting smocks! In the back room, Amy, Alice and Ewan got stuck into sorting out some old curtains to be recycled into further decor for the rooms. Still others put some elbow grease - or was it Danish oil? - into the new wooden kitchen counter tops! Although it was busy and crowded and noisy with 17 runners plus staff on site, we got a LOT done and it was really rewarding to see how the flats are shaping up over time, and how we've contributed to them. Legends - every one of you!

Did someone say Avocado?

What GoodGym Cardiff run would not end in food? Lorraine and her team very kindly made up sarnies with avocado in them, which went down a treat. After saying goodbye, we headed straight back to the start to warm down, hear the latest news of upcoming events, and part our separate ways. For some of us, this was to the usual watering hole for "Two-drink Tuesday" (non-alcoholic drinks included), and to enjoy some vegan cookies and Welsh cakes in celebration of me hitting my 50th good deed recently. I've enjoyed every one of them! (even though I may not have appeared to at the end of January).

Special thanks to Aimee for her gorgeous cookies, Lucy for the special badge, Ben and Darren for the support tonight, and to everyone else for being so kind and complimentary on my run leading. x