Today we were back at Building Futures, a wonderful charity who set up an emergency food bank as a response to those facing difficulties due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Anji, Dan and I arrived at the task and were told that we would be packing over 100 bags today! Some of these bags would include ambient and long life food (such as bread, pasta, tinned foods and cereals), some bags would contain fresh vegetables and potatoes that had been donated and some bags would be hygiene bundles which would contain toothbrushes, toothpaste, soaps, deodorant and other hygiene products.

We got straight into the task, with Dan making a start on the ambient bags while Anji and I completed the hygiene bundles. We finished these quickly and Anji made a start on the bags containing fresh vegetables while I helped Dan to pack the ambient foods.

While we were there, other donations arrived, including a huge pallet of pasta! It's fantastic to see that the food bank has received donations from so many businesses and individuals to help those in need in the local area.

We completed all 102 bags in under 2 hours which is incredible (even more so when you realise that Anji is currently sporting a moon boot!)

We had a brilliant time and can't wait for our next task with Building Futures.

I set the challenge last week after we got so close to 1000km in our weekly training session challenge. We were to go again and aim for a 1000km smash.

We were up against it this week as the weather has NOT been kind at all!

Still, getting 924.5K beat's last week's total and that's pretty damn impressive.

Special mentions this week go to Ross with the highest total of 174K, Louise for casually running a marathon (with Dan in support!) and Michael who's been venturing out every day despite having, apparently, "hair like doc Brown"

Well done all, and thanks for staying so involved in our challenges while we have been apart.

A x

Wow!

I am blown away that this week's Accumulator challenge involved 14 runners, covering almost 1000KM in the process!

Grand total: 918.6K ran, walked and cycled in just 6 days.

Here are the highlights:

Anji got out and about on the bike for an hour a day- the glorious hour I am out of the boot I am suffering in rehab from injury.

Paul got the highest total of the week- 197K which included a massive bike ride from Boldon to Billingham and back, that's over 112K!

Mulubrhan has used lockdown to regain fitness and fall back in love with running and was motivated by the challenge.

Tanya and Debbie have covered almost 100K collectively. Running, walking and guest-appearing in my street as they ran past with Remi the dog.

Louise had a nasty fall earlier in the week and still managed to smash over 30K of running and walking. Get well soon!

Lauren has a poorly knee at the moment so took to two wheels this week instead.

Michael has done loads of walking in the sunshine which is great to see as he's been poorly.

Rachel got loads of walking and running in including a sunny run at Byker Links.

Hannah spotted cute cygnets on a run at Exhibition Park.

Jon got loads of walking in but test ran in a new pair of trainers too.

Rachael got out and about with a lot of walking in the sunshine.

Charlotte beat a few demons getting back on the bike for the first time since a nasty fall.

Kate ran and walked the third-highest total and felt really motivated by the challenge.

Amazing work, everyone. So close to 1000KM! ... next time?

Today was our second day at Building Futures, a brilliant charity who launched an emergency food bank project to deliver food and hygiene parcels to households in Walker. Today's task was to finish off the fantastic work that Katy and Richard started yesterday in packing food parcels for those families facing difficulties due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Louise, Michael and I got straight to work in packing the remaining bags ready to be delivered later today. Each bag contained a variety of basic and non-perishable goods such as cereal, pasta, canned goods, soups, bread as well as some sweet treats and a copy of The Lockdown Gazette. Soon enough, all of the bags were full to the brim and ready to be delivered!

We then made a start on packing toiletries for families that had requested them. After a slight false start and a disagreement with some fragile paper bags, we had packed all of these additional bags with shampoo, conditioner, soaps, toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant and moisturiser!

We had a fantastic morning with Building Futures (and with each other as it has been so long!) We're looking forward to future tasks with this brilliant charity and can't wait to be reunited with all of our wonderful friends from GoodGym!

Hey hey how is it Monday? (again)

The great news is that we weren't facing a stormy evening for our Group Run for the first time in ages. Whisper it.. could this be the beginning of Spring?

It was a rescheduled group run tonight as we headed off on another leaflet drop for our friends at Guide Dogs NE. GoodGymer Louise had hooked this one up for us, and it was great to have her along to explain what the task was all about, making it feel even more worthwhile and close to home. The leaflets will help Guide Dogs NE to reach some new sighted volunteers to work with those with sight loss to work with guide dogs. We had 300 leaflets to spread the word.

We had a great weekend round up including a double day on Saturday in which we had a takeover at Leazes parkrun and a tidy up at our monthly visit to Nunsmoor Park. Well done to everyone who took part! We have more coming up this weekend so keep an eye on the Community Mission listings for loads of chances to do good things, including this Saturday where you can walk and run to deliver leaflets with time for a parkrun beforehand too! I left Katy in charge to take one of her famous warm ups, which was all about influential brilliant women while I had the chance of taking part in the walking group for the first time in ages!

The Jesmond area seems to be our favourite chosen patch and once again we split into small teams to get leaflets dropped off in super-quick time. New runner Crispin got stuck in and even offered to do one of the longer distance runs. We like that Crispin, you can come back! Louise also managed to find her house from 1989, but we can't quite believe she was old enough to own a house in 1989 so we aren't sure on that part.

Fitness tonight was a super circuit of tricep dips (everyone's favourite, right?) expertly demonstrated and supervised with minimal shouting from Rachel; lunges and star jumps, out-and-back jogging and a lung busting hill sprint. 9/10 for all with a point lost for some dip-related whinging and repeated "Is that two minutes yet?" calls.

We are back to Newcastle Eagles next week for some brilliant gardening and some great bants as always. Hope to see you there.

Have a great week everyone!

Anji x

PS: GoodGym have published some advice on the Coronavirus outbreak for those running with GoodGym. Please take a look.