Tonight the force was truly with us as we formed an alliance with our fellow ‘get fit and volunteer’ force for good Hove Prom parkrun!

Much of Brighton and Hove’s pebble beach was last week deposited onto the prom by force of nature Storm Eleanor. This meant that Hove Prom parkrun had to cancel the run last Saturday as the course was deemed too dangerous. But tonight Goodgym Brighton came to the rescue and swept vast quantities of pebbles back onto the beach where they belong.

As there weren’t enough brooms and shovels for you all to work together we paired you up with ‘A’ sweeping hard for 3 minutes whilst ‘B’ completed a minute of exercise and then had a bit of a rest before swapping over. We did this for 8 rounds so each of you had a full 24 minutes of hard sweeping and shovelling and 8 minutes of strength and conditioning to add to your 4.5km run!

For anyone reading this who doesn’t know about parkrun then check it out here.It’s a free 5km timed run that happens at parks all the across the country and the rest of the world at 9am on Saturday morning. It’s very friendly and inclusive and is for everybody regardless of fitness levels. It’s the best way to start your weekend and I for one hate to miss it.

This Saturday 13th Jan we will be having our monthly Goodgym Brighton parkrun meet up at Hove Prom so we can feel great seeing all the runners enjoying the course that we swept free of pebbles tonight. Let us know if you are coming hereand don’t forget your barcode! And there is a Goodgym starter session after that you can sign up for here.

Tonight we welcomed Adamand Lee for the first time. Great to have you on board and hope to see you again!

You all worked incredibly hard tonight, you are fitter than you were yesterday and the world is a slightly better place! Be proud!

Welcome to 2018 and what a perfect way to start the year off! A really nice mix of regulars and new runners tonight as we welcomed Danni, Laura & Roy for their first Goodgym experience and also Jamie who has previously ran with Goodgym in London.

There was a change to tonight’s advertised task as the elderly residents at the almshouses decided they would prefer us to visit when we have the evening light so that’s one to look forward to for the spring. So instead we headed to a task the same distance away but at the top of one of Brighton’s biggest hills! I tried to find the easiest way up but I know this gave some of you a bit more than you bargained for so well done on achieving your first summit of Southover Street!

Tonight’s task was another gardening, pruning and clearing one, this time in a community garden behind the estate in Finsbury Road. As the area to work in was quite small we split the group with half working at the task with run leader Helena whilst the other half completed a fitness session with me including lots of squats, lunges, kicks, jumps and exercise you can do in a small area whilst standing up!

The task involved cutting back buddleia, grasses and other vegetation which was covering a path and by the time we’d finished half of the path was totally clear and I’m sure we’ll be returning soon to finish the job. We’d bagged up about 15 bags of garden waste and the final task was to try to cram it all into Cllr David’s car to be taken off for green recycling. And cram we had to including a few bags in the front seat (hence tonight’s pun, thank you Helena!)

We headed back to base via a slightly different route and as far as I’m aware no one even mentioned Christmas! (Apart from me when I commented that nobody had mentioned Christmas!)

See you next week, keep on running!