10 people ran 7k to tidy up Stanhope Community garden

It’s Tuesday night which means it's GG Brum night! We had ten of us tonight ready to do good. The task was to run to Stanhope Community centre to help tidy up their garden. The group did a great job last year helping the garden achieve full marks in the Birmingham in Bloom competition! Therefore hopefully we can repeat it this year......no pressure! Anyway we got on our way, Lee did the back marking duties and myself and Aaron the front. It was around 3k in total to the centre.

Sandpaper gate

On arrival we were greeted by a list of jobs for us to do with a heading saying ‘jobs for fitgym’ hence the pun. I assume ‘fitgym’ was us! We had a load of sandpaper given to us to sand down the patio area. There was that much sandpaper I thought the Aussie cricket team had visited! There was also weeding to do and a general tidy. The group split up into two, half doing the sanding and half the weeding. We spent a good 25 minutes working hard, doing a great job. Sam Showed how hard he had worked by making a right mess of his shorts!! Once done we headed back ready for some interval training.

Intervals

We stopped on a quiet side street to do eight killer intervals. They all varied in length, some a short sharp sprint and some a little more endurance based. Aaron shot off like a scalded cat, Lee pushed on well, especially in the later efforts. George got on to his toes well and Laura, Karin and Maria pushed each other along all the way to the end. Top work team!

Once they were done we had the uphill run back to base (it’s always uphill when you're tired). On arrival at 1000 Trades we had some rather tired legs, but that was another run and good deed chalked off!

Next week we will be out doing good again, it would be great if you could join us sign up here.

14 people ran 8k to run a fitness session for the attendees at Free@Last

So, on the first GG Brum run since the clocks changed we made good use of the light nights by running to and from our task destination via the canal. Garry did the back-marking duties, carrying a large bag full of his balls ready for the task ahead.

Once arriving at Free@last after our 4K run, we were warmly greeted by James who rounded up the children ready for the fun fitness session. Garry led the session with the rest of the group joining in! We started off with a game of ‘head, shoulders, knees and cone’! This involved two people against each other touching their head, knees and toes when commanded to do so by Garry, when he shouted ‘cone’ it was the first person to grab the cone! It was great fun, a few of the group (me included) showing their competitive side! We then went into a game of ‘Sumo wrestling’ pushing against each other’s hands, Richard and David had lots of fun with this one!

Ball tampering?!

The last game everyone got to tamper with Garry’s balls, fortunately nobody had any sandpaper down their trousers, Aussie cricketer style! Anyway, it was a good old game of dodge ball! Liam was the ‘king’ of this game, being the last one to get hit. I think he was the only group member to enjoy it more than the kids! There were balls flying everywhere, everyone getting involved, having a fantastic time! Once we had finished James was appreciative of the group’s efforts and is looking forward to us coming back, so great work everyone and thanks to Garry for doing an awesome job of Running the session!

We obviously had the obligatory photo before leaving and then it was back on the canal for the run back. It’s always a bit tougher on the way back as not only as everyone is quite tired from the run there and the task but to add to that it’s also uphill. Anyway, everyone did a great job as usual supporting each other on the run back and we all arrived at 1000 Trades just as it was getting dark.

Next week we will be out doing good again, it would be great if you could join us sign up here.

17 people ran 6k to Sifa Fireside to do a deep clean

On a virtually tropical night in Brum we welcomed Amy for the first time. What a great night to join us on our 1st birthday! After the intros with Garry kindly being the back marker we were on our way to Sifa. After a good paced 3k run down there Geoff warmly greeted us as always. The group quickly got on with the task, cleaning the showers, toilets, doors and seats. After thirty minutes of graft we were on our way again.

Quick bootcamp

As usual we stopped in the car park and did a quick bootcamp blast! Well the group did, I just took the pictures 😉 We had, high knees, tuck jumps, squat jumps, leg kicks followed by a sprint to the car park wall followed by the one-minute thigh and backside burning wall squat! Once done we had the 3k run back. This is always a little tougher as it is mainly uphill! After having a quick group piccy with the Bullring in the background, the group split in two, with one group going a little quicker for the last 1.5k back to base! Somebody wanted a beer. Aaron and Luke led the way with Morwenna, Rob, Aidan and Amy not far behind. The other group weren’t long with everything single one putting in some great work. Once back some of the group enjoyed a celebratory birthday pint or two!

On Saturday we will be out doing good again, for GG Brum’s first starter session! it would be great if you could join us sign up here.

18 people ran 6.5k to SIFA Fireside to do a deep clean

It was a surprisingly mild and extremely humid evening for late September at tonight’s GG Brum run. We had a rare week of no newcomers tonight, but once again we had another good attendance. Tonight’s task was to run to SIFA Fireside, do a 20 minutes or so deep clean and then run back.

Clean, Clean, Clean

After a steady run down to our task destination and a warm welcome as always from Geoff, the facilities manager at SIFA, it was on with the task. I set the group 25 minutes to do as much cleaning as possible while I took plenty of pics. There was showers and toilets to scrub. Door knobs, doors and chairs to clean. The group did a great job making a massive difference in the time we were there. Geoff was very appreciative as ever. Once the task was done, we had the usual pictures and of course when Chan is around there will always be a selfie, I reckon someone needs to buy him a selfie stick for Christmas……or maybe not, I reckon we would end up having the most pictures ever for a run report, it would probably crash the GG website!

Bootcamp time

Once we left SIFA, we headed back, but stopped in our usual car park and did a very quick extremely high intense bootcamp. We had jump lunges, high knees running and tuck jumps, all exercises to get the heart rate shooting through the roof meaning the metabolism would be revved up hours after tonight’s run…..yep you will still be burning extra calories now and even tomorrow morning (if that’s when you read this report) again it was fantastic work from everyone. Simon put some top work in on the jump lunges, Lee and Maria were fantastic with the high knees stuff and John, Hannah and Laura did great work with those killer tuck jumps. Once done we had the best part of 3k to run back. I told the group if they wanted to push on ahead of me at the front they could. Aaron, Ken and Rob led the way. Karin worked hard and Abbie showed her endurance is improving every week. Chan showed all the running he is doing (if you aren’t already get him followed on Strava) is paying off as he has improved so much since GG Brum started back in January. So that was that, done for another week, top work everyone!

Next week we will be out doing good again, this time at a new task, it would be great if you could join us sign up here.

29 people ran 8k to tidy the garden at Stanhope Community centre whilst being filmed by ITV

Tonight, it was great to welcome a big group of runners from Kingsheath Running club on an ‘away day’. Thank you to all of you for coming a long, I hope you enjoyed it! After a few interviews with the 'film crew', Pat from ITV Central and some filming of us leaving 1000 Trades we were on our way. We did a steady 3k to Stanhope, meeting Pat there, who filmed the group doing a hill sprint up to the centre.

Godfrey Green fingers

Once arrived Monica gave us a warm welcome, and the group got on with tidying the garden, we spent a whole 20 minutes, filling 6 bags full of weeds! Whilst this was going on Pat continued to film the group and more interviews took place.

The run back

After we were done, and a few bars of Rocky Road later kindly provided by Monica we were on our way, with Mr Cameraman taking one last shot of us disappearing into the Birmingham skyline. We stopped on a quiet road were the group did some interval work, completing six tough heart racing efforts! After these were done we ran back to our ‘infamous hill’ were we do our hill work (that’s back next week!!) and we split into two groups, one group going slightly faster, sprinting up the hill then pushing hard up the steps in front of the town hall and then keeping the tempo up for another 400 metres or so. We then took a steady run back to base, but again keeping the tempo high. Great job everyone! Thanks again to all the Kingsheath crew, hopefully we will see you all again soon and keep your eyes out for ITV Central bulletins tomorrow, we are likely to be on the box at some point! Next week we will be out doing good again sign up here.

10 people ran 6km to help out at the Birmingham Mission Care Centre by handing out food to the homeless and donating some toiletries and clothes

So, after Aidan kindly took the reins last week while I was enjoying some Tenerife sunshine, I was back this week to put the group through their paces whilst doing a good deed on our way! It was fantastic to meet four brand new ‘GoodGymers’ tonight. Welcome to Kate, Morwenna, Karin and Andy.

Double task

So, after the intro’s we were on our way to the Brum Mission Care Centre. Once we arrived we set about serving food and providing cutlery to the homeless. The group also donated a tremendous number of toiletries to the centre and a few clothes as well, meaning the Mission team were overjoyed with our help. Great work team!

Steps and Hills?!

Once done we were back on our way, stopping outside the Mailbox to do some high intensity work on the steps, concentrating on getting a high knee lift, Andy, John and Chloe showing great technique with Kate and Chan showing great effort. Now this was just a bit of ‘tune up’ for the hill work, so off we popped on the short journey to the Post Office were ‘our hill’ was waiting. Tonight, we went for eight minutes of hardcore hill efforts, the group running as hard as they could to the top and then jogging back down to recover. Now what can I say?! Everyone was fantastic! The group worked so hard, it was a great to see! Obviously, the group split slightly throughout the session, but we still managed to get the group together for a big effort on the last rep and it was a great sight to watch, we even had a rather impressed audience looking on. Let’s hope they sign up!

Once done and everyone exhausted it was time for a gentle run back to base, for a bit of a stretchy stretch! Next week we will be out doing good again, it would be great if you could join us sign up here