WOW there were a lot of good deed GoodGymers out tonight.... I think we might have broken our own record (with the exception of the launch event). Great to see so many faces tonight.

Welcome to Holly, Kim, Reza, Fatima & Rohima on their first GoodGym good deed!

We had a bit of a task with a difference tonight as the task was brought to us so we didn't have to run anywhere... Holly works for the Ickle Pickles charity & was in need of many GoodGym hands.

Let's do the time wrap again...

We wrapped Lucky Dip presents, sorted many boxes of lego cards into packs of 10 and packed up some leaflets for the Bubble Run. If anyone wants to get involved with the Bubble Run - running or volunteering there's more info here.

A small group of 4 (Sophie, Jo, Lucy & Sam) also opted out of the boiling hot room and went out in the cooler evening to do a sweep up and litter pick at the front of the community centre as we'd noticed last week that there were rather a lot of cigarette butts on the ground. It definitely looks a lot better now!

After the task we split into a walking group (led by Tony) and a running group. The running group went down to the railway bridge to do a lung-bursting session of 6 x 8 second uphill sprints. Lots of enthusiasm and maybe a little bit of competitiveness creeping in! Good work by all! Bonus points as we were back in plenty of time to vacate the room for the MMA group too.

We have lots of other good deeds to get involved with before next Wednesday when we head to the deaf centre. On Saturday at 9 come and join us for Parkrun (don't forget your barcode), beach clean at Southsea at 10 - please sign up here if you are coming to make sure we get your good deed registered, AND a second community mission at 2pm in North End at the Naomi House shop, please make sure you sign up for that here if you are coming along.

See you all very soon. Thanks for a fun evening 😊

Don't forget to start your squat challenge on Friday.... (see Monday's email for details!)

Tonight we welcomed Jen to her first GoodGym run - it was a pretty wet night to be out so double points for this being her first time to a group run!

We congratulated Angela on her first ever half marathon at the Portsmouth Coastal Half on Sunday, and she didn't even look tired today! Also congrats to Dr Jo (even though she wasn't with us tonight) who also ran it. Jo North will be continuing her return from her injury/hip operation this weekend by doing Southsea Parkrun so feel free to come along and join in or support. In other news, our very own Louisa is going to be representing the UK in the summer in the World Tchoukball Champioships no less - we will have to get her to give us a lesson in how to play before she goes!

We were also joined by Kady and James from BBC Solent who saw our write up in The News at the weekend and came to do a piece on us. Interviews will go out on the Friday breakfast show, around 8am so listen in for them. The video will be put together for their social media pages so keep an eye on our Facebook & Twitter as I will share it there!

Lucy came along tonight for a guest appearance, she has a sixth sense for when the media are turning up!

After some warm up laps for the cameras (in the rain!) we headed off to the deaf centre... it's almost the closest task we've done and we arrived at 6:45 to be greeted by Gina and 9m of sand paper! The team all set to work sanding the skirting boards and chair rails as well as some door frames so they are all ready for painting. We created a lot of dust but with a couple of brooms and Henry we didn't leave too much mess behind! Maura was on a high fashion night, channeling Michael Jackson by wearing one glove to protect her hand from the dust.

The sanding is a job that's been waiting to be done for a few months so when a couple of the committee saw what we had done they were very impressed. We also had a chat about other things we could do for them at the centre so I think we will be back. Geoff (the chair of the deaf centre) inspired the title of tonight's run report when he noticed that Tony was the only man in the group!

We took a rain check on a longer loop back and headed back to the community centre for a few core exercises. A lesson in how hard parquet flooring is, if nothing else!

It's #timetotalk day tomorrow so there's a social #runandtalk from the Coffee Cup at Eastney at 6pm, join us if you can. Next week we are back to Naomi House for more sorting and some tagging. We'll be having a curry social afterwards as well so bring your pennies! Sign up here.

Good numbers at GoodGym Portsmouth this evening... great to see everyone. Plenty of chat and laughter too.

We welcomed Rasha for her first ever group run, and she only thought she was turning up to do a doc check! We also welcomed Rachel for her first run with us, she first ran with GoodGym in Cardiff but now lives down our way. She was also christened Welsh Rachel to differentiate herself from Rachel C who we welcomed back from her Aussie adventure. We also had 2 Sophies with us tonight so they are from here on known as Queen Sophie and Normal Sophie.... this is what happens when you let people choose their own nicknames!

Having a ball

Ashley ran us round to Manor Infants where he had very kindly arranged some indoor tasks - the first was touching up the walls and the skirting. We love a double entendre here in Pompey so that really set the scene for when we started the other task which was clearing out & tidying the PE cupboard - we had saggy balls, balls that were too hard, ball sacks, lumpy balls, balls that needed pumping up - you name it there were plenty of ball related quotes of the night. Once everything had been sorted and was being loaded back into the cupboard there was even a comment about being back in the closet! If you look at the photos you will also see that Lara and Lou have been (self)nominated as playground friends and they very fetching they look too in the yellow cap.

How many GoodGym runners does it take...

...to put together a goal with no instructions? The answer appears to be greater than 16 as we didn't quite manage to work out what pieces went where!

Squats lunge got to do with it?

As it was face-freezingly cold and we are a group of (mostly) southern softies, we did our fitness session inside our room in the community centre. I was impressed that for once we actually left a task in time to do a full fitness session! There were many excellent efforts on the agility ladder, some gorgeous grapevines and skips on the drills station, groaning efforts coming from tricep dip corner and some good air on the squat jumps.

Awesome work from everyone, hope you're not too sore tomorrow!

Next week we are outside so wrap up warm as we return to St Faiths, site of the bindweed battle. And there will be a final chance to bag some good deeds for the January challenge on Thursday 31 January with a plog at Hilsea, meeting at the Rugby Club/Covers car park.

Sorry for the poor punning in the title but when I looked at the "after" photo it really looks like a ray of sunshine! ☀

On this bonus Saturday group run, we welcomed Sarah and Angie to the Lido and for their first experience of GoodGym! We also had a visit from GoodGym Royalty... Dave from Bristol, good deeder extraordinaire and all round great bloke.

We met at the Lido and headed out to Foxes Forest for some hill reps (which everyone loved!) and a trot around the West Bastion area. We saw plenty of others out enjoying the fresh air, possibly the busiest I've ever seen the forest with dog walkers, other runners, a Nordic walking group &, kids on their new bikes. Jo & Tony were on the walking option and were also making friends with the dogs on their route.

After half an hour of running about we made it back to the Lido and were put to work painting the lower part of the wall & the visible part of the window sill at the westerly end of the Lido. We were given a lovely sunshine shade of paint, some did end up on the red t-shirts / shoes / leggings but most of it ended up where it was meant to be! Dr Jo adopted a slap it on and spread it about approach that she assures us is not how she treats medical work. Dave got up the steps to paint the doorframe to the Gents. The paint work looked fantastic once it was done.

The Lido are currently bidding for some lottery money and are doing a survey about what people use / would like. Please fill it in here and spread the word to others - they'd like as many responses as possible!

Post - good deed we headed next door to the Blue Lagoon to sample their fayre. A good selection of cakes and drinks were purchased and after a bit of furniture rearranging we were all sat round 4 tables increasing the normal Saturday morning footfall significantly. As usual, the post run chat was quite random from erotic cinema to ultra running to baby kit and weddings... We did decide that we need to have a big party for our 1st birthday in May and that the Blue Lagoon looked like a good venue. Watch the socials page for details (and if anyone would like to help organise it please give me a shout!)

Special mention to Dave and Val who were also at Lakeside Parkrun this morning for a pre-task 5km, with Val recording her course PB (woop!)

Have a great few days and hopefully see most of you again on Wednesday!

Happy Running.