Another great turnout for Goodgym Ipswich on lovely warm evening.

We really had two tasks tonight........ one was to paint the exterior hoardings of Gusford School swimming pool and the other was the run to get to the school and back - just under 3 miles each way with some challenging hills thrown in.

Well, the group splashed it. .... making the outward run look easy !

The last 200m was a deep end descent down a steep hill to the school, where we met Rebecca and her team, who showed us through to the pool area.

It looked like a very big task but everyone dived in enthusiastically grabbing sand paper, brushes and rollers.

Everything was going swimmingly and the tatty old boards were quickly turning white.

Water difference a coat of paint makes

The team managed to get virtually all of the exterior painted which will be the base for our task next week when we return to paint a second coat in blue. It's amazing how much can be achieved when everyone one pools together!

Then it was time to wave goodbye and the return leg of the run ....... starting with the climb up deep end hill. Liz tried to rally our spirits with a marine style sing song as we headed to the summit....... the chant quickly faded as we ran out of breath as incline increased! But everyone one dug in and floated to the top

Afintastic evening with a great task and tough but enjoyable run out and back.

Goodgym Ipswich - Water Magnificent Group !!

Bank Holiday Monday didn't deter a good turnout of Ipswich Goodgymers this evening.

Before setting off we had a warm up testing our balance and co-ordination with single leg "running (wo)man" balance stance, split lunges and then combing the two in. Some of us struggled maintaining balance - I'm sure it was a freak gust of wind to blame rather than our own poor balance!

We then headed out to run about 1.5 miles to meet up with Sustrans volunteer Stephen. Some of the group felt this was a little short and took an unintended detour while chatting away - but we managed to shout before they had gone too far!

Meeting up with Stephen it became clear there had been some confusion over the task. Stephen thought he was meeting to show us a portion of the NCN 51 that we could help to keep clear and clean in future runs by checking signs, litter picking and cuttting back overgrown weeds etc. So we didn't have any tools or equipment for this evening but instead did a useful recce of the cycle path along the River Gipping ready for future tasks.

This left us a little extra time to extend the run back and incoporating a fartlek session on they way. The enthusiasm for the "speed" elements was muted but Kerry, Alex and Luke along with Liz took up the challenge. Arriving back at base we ended the evening as we began with some single leg balance / strength exercises before stretching to finish.

So no real task completed but over 4 miles run with a few single leg/core balance/strength exercises thrown in too. - Don't forget to practice at home!!!

We had a debut and a tourist joining us tonight for the long run out to Castle Hill.

It was great to meet Belinda, a Goodgym Worthing centurion, was staying in Ipswich for work. Her hotel was literally a stone throw from our meeting point - good planning or what!!

Lizzie's first Group Run was slightly unorthadox in that she missed us at the start due to problems locating a place to park. Lesser people would have put this down to bad luck and headed home....but Lizzie drove to the task location, pulling up just as we arrived! So the welcome was not as structured as normal but brilliant to meet you.

Prior to setting out we recapped a busy weekend of events and races people had run - including the Woodbridge 10k and Kerry had raced a train in Norfolk (and beat it!)

The task was at a familiar location and involved some weeding in a small area and also cutting back a massively overgrown area - this was hampered by the availability of tools (only a saw and a set of secateurs . Robin and Kerry took these and set too on the shrubs with Lizzie and Nicola picking up off cuts, while the rest of the team weeded, dug and swept.

The shrub proved stubborn and years of tangled growth made it tricky to make any real impact with the limited tools. However the boys gave it a good go, diving deep into the undergrowth to try and find the key branches/trunk to cut.

The main team did a great job of weeding (mainly by hand) the small plot, leaving it looking ten times better than when we arrived.

On the run home there were a only a couple of takers for the side street intervals - mainly due to exertion of races over the weekend! But a steady, even pace by all totted up to a round trip of 5 miles.

Starting off with a big thank you for Andrew for stepping in to cover the start of tonight's session due to traffic chaos on the A12 conspiring to delay my arrival

Also massive congratulations to the same Andrew in reaching the 50 task milestone - the 4th Ipswich member to earn the coveted black shirt!

So, when I (eventually)arrived the task was well under way....and what a turnout - probably the highest attendance since our launch. Everyone was getting stuck in to the job of painting a classroom. I've never sen so many goodgym t-shirts in such a small space!

The task was set up by Andrew (a different one to our new black shirted Andrew) the school Head Teacher with the aim of making the room much brighter for a new teacher at the school. With so many hands the job was completed within 40 minutes and we headed off to run back to base which included a fartlek interval session along the Waterfront and taking in part of the Twilight 5k race route many of the group had done on Saturday with great success.

Next week we return to Castle Hill for a long(ish)run - find out more here

A huge welcome to Sophie and Luke who made their Goodgym debut this evening.......just catching us as we set out for the first leg of our run. We hope you enjoyed your first taste if Goodgym.

Our task was to meet the fabulous Ipswich Soup Kitchen volunteers and help them with their nightly outreach programme distributing food and drinks to the homeless and needy within the town.

However our rendezvous time was 7.20pm giving us time to take on a 3 mile Goodgym Tour de Parks (I stole the title from Strava - Thanks for that Lizzie!) A route of around 3 miles taking in 3 of Ipswich's fine parks - Holywells, Alexandra and Christchurch.

In each park I had planned a little challenge.......so on arrival in Holywells park we had 2 sets of long incline efforts with decline recoveries, before heading to Alexandra Park where the challenge was some relay sprint intervals..what fun! We then made tracks towards Christchurch Park where, as everyone knows, there are some steep hills! Unfortunately (or perhaps not!) we were running out of time so only managed a quick loop of the lower end of the park before heading to the task meeting point.

We met up with Jazmin, the volunteer group co-ordinator helped set up a few tables before joining the very efficent system of handing out a variety of food and drinks, some of which we had brought with us to contribute . We also spent time chatting to some of those who use the soup kitchen and the regular volunteers. Quite a humbling experience and felt like one of our more worthwhile tasks even though it didn't involve very much "work".

Thank you to Jazmin and the rest of her Ipswich Soup Kitchen volunteers for inviting us along. I'm sure we will return soon.