A pack of hardy runners braved the icy conditions this evening to deliver the Christmas news to the Merry Folk of Sydenham.

It seems the Christmas traffic has already hit Leamington as a fair few intrepid runners were slightly delayed, luckily we rescued Gavin from the Frozen landscape of Asda's carpark - other supermarket carparks are also available...

A brief warm-up outside getting those arms alive and our knees high and with Philip and his Santa bells ringing off we jogged.....

On arrival at the meeting point - the amazing Sharon met us with a ton of leaflets in her car. Having done a similar task a few weeks ago we were much more efficient this time. Splitting into teams everyone had a designated area to run to. It was more a skating show than a running effort as the pavements were turning to ice, so a slightly less speedy run through Synenham this evening.

Massive thanks to those that came out in the cold as this will have a made a massive different to the Syndi centre.

Regrouping, we attempted a group selfie, Becky really needs some lessons on this. We then ran back through the Town centre to see the pretty lights and to avoid the horrid hill.

Once back, we finished off with some stretches and cool downs. Big welcome to new runner Fallon, well done for braving the cold for your first run.

A reminder that this Sunday is the Santa run, if you've not signed up to run, come down and cheer us all on...

Tonight after a quick show of hands for the Myton Dash on December 8th, a total of 13 Reindeers, Elves and runners got together to help out and provide some GoodGym expertise to help LIGHT UP the way into Christmas. Iain led off and all began to follow the lead (a recurring theme throughout the night).

WATT our task for the evening, we had to put up the Christmas lights at Lord Leycester Hospital where we were eagerly welcomed.

After a quick briefing and allocation of LIGHTS, Liz (who traveled from Coventry to temporarily replace our Fallen Leader this week, get well soon Becky) made sure that no one was LEFT IN THE DARK, we split into groups and quickly set to work.

TREEmendous work was spent decorating the trees in the court yard before we could move onto the Great Hall where they were running an auction, although by the time we had untangled lights they were FAIRY close to finishing.

Then there was yet more LIGHT work to be made, in a shop stall befitting of the first Christmas (There were lights are on but nobody Wass home).

Once the auction was finished a brave few were entrusted to hang the decorative bunches of little sticks (I don't know the Christmasey name) from the chandeliers in the Great Hall, fellow runners held the ladders (making sure no-one was ever HERTZ)

We couldn't leave until it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas and we over ran our time sLIGHTly, but as LUX would have it no-one was in a huge rush to return.

A stretch and cool down back at base and a reminder of next weeks task, a mention of a community mission. (Thanks again Liz for being sub leader) We hope to be back to full force next week with Becky recovered from the darstardly Flu.

Ok so it wasn't a tub, but a very small community centre that needed a deep clean tonight.

We took over the pub this evening as many runners came out of the dark to light up the night, welcome to our new runners Andy and Cherry, and some returning runners as well as our stalwarts. We must be fun if they come back....

Tonight Becky promised us a surprise, instead of running up a massive hill we took a more gentle route to Packmores Community Centre, not quite the Gap but run by the same volunteers.

On arrival, once we found the hidden gem, thanks to Iain for navigating the door lock, we found a pile of cleaning equipment and a list of lovely jobs to do. Dividing into groups, there was a rush for the soft play area, everyone got their marigolds on and started to clean.

Emptying shelves, cleaning potties, mopping the floor, scrubbing the cupboards, sweeping the mess, wiping the tables, and seeing how many people you can fit in a tiny kitchen.

Mel gave us a cracking joke - What's the plumbers favourite tree? Toiletrees!!! - Think she might need to work on her jokes.

We had to have a count down to leave as everyone wanted to leave it spotless. Hopefully we did them proud.

On the return run we had a challenge - the handicap hill sprint. Setting off in intervals of intensity we raced back up the last hill, some brilliant use of arm drive and high knees was seen, and a lot of hardcore effort by our newer runners. We've been working on High knees so this was a great test to see how much we had learnt.

On return to the pub, big thanks to Iain for leading the cool down and Holly for collecting more numbers for the Whatsapp group.

News was shared and some of the group stayed on to carb load, or thats what we're renaming it now.

Till next week - thanks for coming.

10 runners set off tonight including some new faces (bodies included) for our task at Wass house (no relation to our coach Wass - Way Ahead Support Services), it was a nice gentle pace although the twist was not in the tail but halfway through, and hill sprints was its name. Following a pep talk of hill running we set off, 3 sprints up the hill with a gentle recovery jog back down again, 4 for the more hardy fools.

After a quick chat and catch of breath where it was needed we arrived at our task, a house of 2 halves.

Our task was to wash the walls, remove the marks and sand the filler down and masking tape all the sockets... Iain was very disappointed when the tape ran out..

2 teams were agreed upon and took a side of the house each preparing for tomorrows arrival of the painters, laughs and giggles had to be kept a little quieter on one as some of the residents were sleeping as we worked our way round. On the other side many puns were being thought of. They weren't slacking honest...

Just over half an hour later and with military precision we joined back together as 1 big team of 10 to enjoy our stroll/jog/run back to our starting point. A cool down, a few stretches later and the discovery that next weeks task will not be as far (its the building before where we went tonight) we all dispersed into the night ( or the Pub).

See you all again next week.