As Yazz once said "the only way is up" and that was certainly the case tonight. 22 spring legged runners met to tackle the hills of Redland to deliver leaflets for Above and Beyond promoting their Christmas parties and Bristol to Paris Bike ride.

We met at Vivo and warmed up with some leg spinning and introductions before breaking into two groups with Dave and Alice leading the front and myself and Clo the rear. Jacob Wells Road provided the main challenge with it's slow curving gradient rising like a genetically manipulated cobra uncoiling upwards to protect itself from the immanent danger of a oncoming gigantic mongoose wading through across the river towards it.

We reached the Godfather's car that was parked nearby and picked up the leaflets we were to deliver. These were distributed between the runners and then we took our two teams of 12 to separate parts of the area, Team Godfather to the West and Team Gazebo to the East. As if the hills were not enough most of the house in the area had steep steps too so the climbing just kept on coming. But this did not deter our hardy runners in red and they stepped up to the challenge and they certainly delivered a fantastic performance as every single leaflet was posted with time to spare.

They way back to Vivo was a breeze as it was all downhill. We met up in Queen Square where Dave's group arrived a little earlier so performed 3 types of lunge before my group came to meet them and stretch out.

Thanks for coming along everyone, I think that must have been a record for the number of leaflets delivered in on GoodGym but not having counted them we have no idea, but as we said let's just say it was one more than our last record hey.

See y'all again soon.

Blue skies, hot air balloons and a polar bear provided the backdrop for tonights run as nine cheery GoodGym runners negotiated a hot 8k up and down the hills of Bear Flat.

BEARERS OF GOOD NEWS

Our task was to distribute flyers to the residents of Bear Flat to spread the news of the Community Market that’s held every third Saturday morning to promote local food and to provide space where the community can get together and share information.

It was a four vs four head-to-head as Dora, Emma, Sam and Becca (our newest member donning her red t-shirt) took on David, Rob, Steve and Tom to ensure we covered all the households on our trusty map.

SWING WHEN YOU’RE WINNING

We resisted the urge to dash down the stairs and go recce the Two Tunnels route ready for the weekends GoodGym nominated race and instead, as it was such a blooming’ lovely evening, popped in to Bloomfield Park for a quick mid-run play… I mean an impromptu improvised Strength and Conditioning session using the equipment for core stability exercises and pull ups!

A canter back along the canal topped off with a walking lunge lap and we were back to base for a stretch out.

Thanks to Sam & Tom for our pun, Emma for back marking and to everyone for a great run and a task well done.

PARK LIFE

Don’t forget it’s the GoodGym takeover of Park Run this Saturday morning, 9am, wear your GoodGym t-shirt with pride and come represent, whether it’s to run, steward or support.

There’s a task to tackle at the Bath City Farm afterwards so sign up here: https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/saturday-big-farm-fundraiser-event and join the GG tourists as they sightsee this beautiful city.

Good luck to all who are competing in the Relish Running Races events on Sunday.
Happy running everyone.

Tonight's litter picking task was supplied by Bristol Waste and indeed it appeared that the whole of Bristol's waste had been deposited behind just two bushes on a street in Redfield.

This task was truly a load of rubbish - the litter equivalent of sweeping everything in the entire house under the carpet.

With such a gargantuan task it was lucky that we had 24 of the very best Bristol Goodgym members on the job - including both battle-scarred veterans and some of our courageous new recruits. Dividing into teams of 4 or 5 we concentrated most of our forces on the bushes but were able to spare some of the remainder to tackle the rest of the street and a small children's playground.

Team Playground - Masters of Diplomacy

Team playground employed some excellent diplomacy, quickly winning the support of the families who were taking advantage of the longer evenings to relax amongst the swings and slides and receving enthusiastic offers of help from the children.

Team Street - Bringing the Muscle to the Party

Not content with collecting myriad bags full of litter the street teams succeeded in retrieving an entire discarded TV and bringing it to the specified point for collection.

Team Bush - making good on a TARDIS of Withering Sights

But through all of this the bushes never ceased in offering up their endless array of unusual and unwanted items.

Lindsey discovered a bucket half filled with cans, Alice discovered a toad in a rubbish-strewn gap that must surely have been the inspiration for the Star Wars waste compactor scene, Liam found the old womans shoe (though it is unclear what had happened to all her children so maybe she did know what to do after all), and George having come all the way from his home turf of Lambeth found Barney the purple dinosaur. Sadly, it appears that Barney's rock and roll lifestyle had finally caught up with him as he was found under the bush with a wide variety of cans and appeared to have let his once ripped physique ... get ripped.

All in all, in 30 minutes we collected over 25 bags of rubbish for collection and totally transformed the street for the residents. Fantastic work everyone!

After a pacey run back to base, there was just enough time for the early arrivals to do a fartlek circuit of Queen Square before everyone got down to some stretching. We congratulated all our members who ran last weekend - and particularly Charlie for running her first marathon in the hardest possible way, off road and up hill.

Congratulations Sarah - 50 Good Deeds!!

And last but not least, huge congratulations to Sarah for reaching 50 good deeds. Sarah is a true GG Bristol regular - cheer her here, or maybe buy her an Oreo or two. Thanks also to Richard for bringing one of the last two packets of pink wafers in all existence to help celebrate.

We made sure we got off to a brisk start today so we could squeeze every last fold out of our second card bed workshop with their inspirational designer, Elliot Lord. There was still time though to welcome new members Simon and Mike on their very first Goodgym run - hope you enjoyed yourselves tonight chaps - be great to see you along again soon! Welcome back also to Praminda - lovely to see you on a group run again after all those coach runs.

Our run was a short one, around a mile and a half through Bedminster. We split into two groups so that an advance party could help Elliot get the card ready before the remainder joined us a few minutes later. Special thanks to Charlie for leading the other group, Clo and Richard for backmarking, and Emma for helping out with navigation!

Once the card was unpacked, Elliot explained what we had to do.

Elliot has worked out a way to take discarded cycle boxes and fold them in such a way that they form a stable bed. The card sections can then be disassembled and flattened down into small packs so the beds can be stored away when not in use. The packs are distributed to homeless people at soup kitchens or shelters and allow the sleeper to keep off the ground making for a warmer and more comfortable night. More information can be found on Elliot's site - including a lovely interview with some of their users.

Having benefited from the Island's kind offer of space at last years workshop we were fortunate this time to have a new host in the guise of the United Reformed Church on West Street, Bedminster. Sincere thanks to Stef and Tony for making this lovely big space available to us for the evening, it was very much appreciated and meant that we could get FIVE tables set up for making beds.

Having distributed a few craft knives and pencils it was wonderful to see these little bed-making teams working busily together drawing round templates, cutting slots and folding tight creases using a block of wood. It never ceases to surprise me how effective our runners can be in such a short time working together against the clock. Thanks also to our tidy-uppers for keeping on top of all the card debris.

Sure enough in a little over 30 mins, we had three completed bed kits and Elliot showed how one of these could be put together - thanks very much to Ceri for taking a quick nap to demonstrate the bed in action.

It was then just a matter of clearing away the left over card and tidying up the hall before loading up the kits ready for distribution - all in all a very productive evening.

In fact, we were told that not only were Goodgym Bristol the most efficient card bed workshoppers but also the most accurate; being the first group not to make a single mistake. Go Goodgym Bristol!!

A quick return run and a few stretches later we were done. Thanks everyone for working so hard tonight - you are all amazing!

Thanks also to Vito for the pun.