For a moment today I actually thought we were going to get our first ever rainy GoodGym Newcastle group run! Imagine that! It didn't happen though and it was another sticky hot run for week 13.. unlucky for some (those who didn't come)

We played some new warm up games to welcome newbies Sophie and Peter and welcome back Will who has had a new baby hiatus from GoodGym. The games warmed up our legs, got heart rates pumping and made everyone laugh, then it was off to Byker (not Grove)

The task tonight was a challenge. Deliver 250 donation bags for Scope in a target time of 15 minutes, running far and wide from our Heaton Road task start point without everyone doing the same street. The biggest challenge actually came in trying to work out how many bags we would need each to make it fair.

12 minutes passed and everyone was back! Injured Dan even joined us to say hi (on his way to buy wine) (in terrible shorts) and turned down the fitness session option. We hot-footed to Armstrong Park and found an awesome grassed area to do our first ever Indian File run aka Tempo Surge, with runners running in arms-length line and taking turns to sprint to the front. Everyone was amazing and encouraged each other through the workout.

Awesome team work making the dream work

I'm not going to say we guessed the way back but, well, we did and it was very cool. Back at base it was time to say bye to Anna who has been an ace part of GoodGym from the beginning, as she heads off to Boro on placement. Please come back and visit us Anna!

Hope to see everyone back next week for a plogging task in Exhibition Park where we will also be doing our first ever time trial

Happy running! Anji x

I'm going to be bold, and write in bold, and say right here and now that tonight was my favourite GoodGym group run so far There I said it.

Tonight we ran via a few photo opportunity detours to the fantastic new charity project Smart Works Newcastle who provide clothing and coaching to women to support getting them into work in our city. In just 8 weeks, Smart Works have helped to get an incredible 15 women back into secure employment. Everyone arrived feeling inspired after the visit from the local press during our warm up, and conversation topic of hidden talents on the way there! We can basically set up a pretty good rock band and a football team in the next week or so if we wanted. It was great to use this time to break the ice for our three new runners. Welcome to the family Sarah, Michael and Fiona!

Michelle from Smart Works wasted no time in getting us to work with the tasks of:

Sorting clothing into sizes, sorting out the underwear boxes, tidying up the coat hangers, building new clothing rails, steaming items to hang up, sorting donations out into sizes and piles, eating lollies, dressing a mannequin, occasional dressing up in donations and creating fancy jewellery displays.

Hidden talents were once again unveiled and notably we found out that Dan knows a lot about types of heels.

It was one of those tasks where every room I went into was filled with laughter.

I will never unsee David in his "summer look" of a dusty pink off-the-shoulder crop top, and will never forget Michael helping Paul into his fitted jacket.

I was super impressed at the speed at which Team Flat Pack got the clothing rails built, before swooping in and getting stuck into another task! I don't even think I own a screwdriver. The task I was most jealous of tonight was the steam crew, steaming clothing to hang up. I have once straightened a tshirt out using my hairdryer though, which is kind of the same.

We found a cool little spot behind the MEA House building for the fitness task tonight which was a numbers game of strength exercises where once again all I could hear was laughter. I don't know if it was the fact we were going for food and drinks afterwards that kept people going but the energy was amazing! I'm already excited for next week's group run! Sign up here

There's a Community Mission this Saturday, the details are here And don't forget if you're mission verified, there is the first chance to do a mission this weekend so check your dashboard.

Have a super week with loads of HAPPY RUNNING, Anji x