No less than seven new runners for tonight's trek up Westgate Road to visit Changing Lives at Elliott House where we did our very first task back in April!

What a Group Run it was!

Using Paul extra-special hill-avoidance-but-still-uphill route, we ascended happily up Westgate Road and on to Elliott House with special mention going to Jasmine who did her first ever run outside of a gym. Nice work Jasmine!

As always, we were greeted with big smiles and clear instructions and sent straight off to work, with painting, kitchen cleaning and gardening the order of the day. There was absolutely no stopping Jonny from getting his hands on a paintbrush tonight!

35 glorious busy minutes passed by in the flash of a marigold and we were back off (downhill- yay!) to Summerhill park. The group once again showed their obviously competitive not competitive streaks in a quick game of Cops and Robbers, using their sprinting, turning and dodging techniques to avoid being "got" by the cops! Mark adding an extra edge of peril with his scary glossed-up hands. The hardest part was staying in the boundary of my poorly marked-out rectangle, that was actually a parallelogram, apparently.

More on names of shapes next week.

Excellent interval training!

Great work and energy tonight everyone. My face hurts from smiling. See you next week for the CVS envelope packing challenge. Sign up here

Happy running everyone! Anji

The Sun Streak continued for week 4 of GoodGym Newcastle

The sun shone on a massive group of Geordie GoodGymers on their visit to Brims House, a home for veterans in our community with Changing Lives Newcastle

In a slight bit of route trickery by Paul we made our way up Westgate Road in a slightly less uphill direction, chatting as we went and making sure all 9 yes NINE of our new runners were made to feel part of the family.

We were met by the lovely Alice and Stuart at Brims House and after a quick registration and brief we were set to work. Two garden tasks including mowing a lawn by hand, painting (yes this is possible) and a discovery of potatoes by David while an indoor team did a kitchen spruce-up and a deep clean in the living room. Precious also did a grand job of the windows which I'm not even sure was on the list! No wonder they want us back! Stuart thanked us and admitted he didn't think we would do such an amazing job in just 30 minutes!

Off downhill we went with the promise that this week the fitness spot prize was up for the taking. A huge game of dishes and domes began with 80% of people saying they weren't that competitive.

they lied

Team 4 were victorious and we celebrated by wearing the hats as cones before awarding Chance with the fitness prize, the coveted Drumstick Lolly for services to cone tactics in the competition. The envy of everyone on the way back, I'm sure you'll agree.

Great work everyone! See you next week for the Canny Quayside Clear up with Sustrans NE, and all-important bank holiday drinks afterwards.

29 runners took on the Mega Byker bag drop challenge and showed that many Geordie hands really do make light work!

Starting the session with a chat challenge to pay everyone a compliment on Mental Health Awareness week we set off on a run across town and over the Central Motorway looking epic in our red t shirts in the sunshine.

Heading over Byker Bridge and a quick photo stop at Scope on Shields Road and we were treated to the chance to see Will in his favourite brandishing things pose, this time with a handful of donation bags.

The challenge was on... 300 bags to deliver in 30 minutes

Two teams split off, one to the Heaton Road area with Anji and the other to Chillingham Road with Paul where they skillfully avoided the call of the pub on the corner. The scatter approach was why everyone had a different distance on their watches by the end, some of the group ran up to 10K in total last night!

top effort!

We smashed the 300 bag target well under the 30 minute limit and headed back to Byker Bridge for a massive interval session running easy and sprint splits between the lamp posts, giving Anji a chance to share the sound of the coaches whistle in everyone's ears! Back to the city centre we went with Tanya doing an amazing job of back-marking for the first time.

Our next group run is with Changing Lives at Brims House and the good news is I forgot to give my fitness session secret prize out last night so it rolls over to next week. Sign up here

What a lift-off for GoodGym Newcastle!

After a big intro at our new base at Hotel Indigo from trainer Anji and not forgetting, of course, a massive group photo, 42 runners set off to do the first ever GoodGym good deed in Newcastle!

Back-marked by Ed, the group set off on what some described as a mountain up the famous summit known to others as Westgate Road, past the famous motorbike shops (did anyone teach our Southern visitors how to say mo-ta-bike in Geordie?) reaching the task venue for the night in just under 2K of completely uphill running- what a way to warm up!

We were met by the lovely Jill at Changing Lives who has really helped us to get GoodGym Newcastle off the ground. While some wanted to stay and enjoy the juice and biscuits being dished out, others were keen to get to work. There were four tasks in all: a huge garden clean up complete with jazzy gloves and tools and a kitchen clean then round in the main house, two groups got to grips with a communal area clean and a kitchen freshen up, complete with the dreaded OVEN CLEANING.

I wonder if they will pop over to my house later to have a go at my oven?

More juice, fruit and a few more photos and 40 minutes later we were off again, this time 2K downhill -yay

We stopped off to do a mini drill session led by Queen of the Drills Anji who really enjoyed seeing everyone looking super cool doing tip toe walks and trying not to trip over one another doing that cross-over-feet thing that footballers do.

We are back with Changing Lives next week (venue TBC) so join us for more uphill training, juice and jazzy gloves. We will be staying at Hotel Indigo for a bank holiday drink afterwards. Join us!