I thought that after several of us did the City of Norwich Half Marathon yesterday it might be a quiet turnout tonight.... oh how wrong I was!

We had an incredible 31 GoodGymers (our 2nd highest ever) and 10 who ran the 1/2 yesterday made it out! Now that's what I call dedication to the cause.

4 new runners were making their GoodGym debuts. A big welcome to Lucy, Stephen, Jenny and Liz.

Thank you Katy for volunteering to be back runner this week... believe it or not 10 others volunteered to be back runner too haha - any guesses which 10???

We were visiting a very quaint place tonight in the form of The Great Hospital, which lies in the cathedral grounds. Some residents had left pots and baskets outside their front doors for us to fill with soil (no pun intended!) ahead of flowers being planted.

Once we located the bags of soil, off everyone went to find the pots and baskets. Many residents came out to greet us and said how grateful they were for what we do.

We also did a bit of a general tidy up around the area.

Once we had finished what we needed to do, it was time for a fitness session on the very pretty grass area amongst the grounds. We started with a wheelbarrow race, which was followed up with an army craw race, a crab walk race and finally a shuttle run relay race.

As we still had a little time left, we popped over to Gas Hill and for once I did make it optional if people wanted to go up and down it. Hats off to Alex and Laura for doing that after doing the 1/2 yesterday... I nearly kissed their shoes in admiration.

Sadly time had then caught us up so it was off back to The Forum, it was such a lovely evening that we could have stayed out for longer.

Calum was dishing out the High-5's at the end this week and Katy & Bill had brought some Rhubarb to give out... its now getting to that exciting time of year when their allotment produce is coming good = FOODDDD.

The last thing to mention is that Alex & Calum got their peanut reward for completing the 1/2 marathon - a prize more rewarding than pride, medal etc.

Next week we're off of the Earlham Early Years Centre.

If the pun confuses you, look up 'Rockin Around the Christmas Tree'!

Another great turnout tonight and we welcomed 2 new lovely runners in Rachel and Susan. Apologies if I forgot to mention there would be a fitness session later on, I hope it didn't come as too much of a surprise hehe.

Also great to see some returning faces :-)

Thanks to Katy for being back runner this week.

On the cards tonight was a visit to Hayden Court, which is a Sheltered Housing Scheme for the elderly. There were several jobs to do including, cleaning a residents cooking hood, sweeping out the garage, cleaning the fire exit stair well, cleaning the skirting boards and the toilets.

It was a bit of a maze to start with, I'm just glad we didn't lose anyone.

At one point I thought we were going to make more of a mess than we started with as Graham's bucket had a hole in it... which we didn't notice until AFTER we got to the top of the stairs haha.

Once we finished we went outside for a group photo... can you notice the 2 masks though???

On the way back we stopped for some push-ups and mountain climbers... as you do. Somehow we ended up in Chapelfield Gardens so we were obliged to do a little sprint effort plus a mini circuit.

We did a little duck walk across the pedestrian crossing going back to The Forum, not sure what the people in the car were thinking as they let us cross!

Then it was time to try Calum's homemade chocolate orange brownies... OMG they were good and so moist - sorry Catherine!

10 of us went for a little social down the pub afterwards so all in all a very splendid evening.

Next week we are planting hanging baskets at The Great Hospital.

Again, we had another record turnout of the year so far and are building a fantastic group of runners who want to help their community and improve their running ability.

A huge welcome to new runner Oliver, he's another member of the 6-strong Emerson clan.

Not only did Elizabeth do her 100th Parkrun on Saturday, tonight was her 10th good deed with us. AMAZING.

Laura was also completing her 10th good deed with us!

The final shout out goes to Bill on becoming the 1st member of GoodGym Norwich to complete 25 good deeds! Not only is this an incredible feat as we've only done 30 group runs in Norwich, Bill is in his 60's and travels nearly 15 miles each-way every week to be here! It really goes to show age and distance don't have to be a barrier.

Tonight's task (well intended task) was to help out the new EACH Charity Shop on Plumstead Road (we'd be going up Kett's Hill instead of Gas Hill this week!). Due to some circumstances out of our hands, no one able to be at the shop tonight and upon arrival the leaflets/donation bags had been forgotten to be left out for us huge sigh, which was just one of those things.

Our team of runners thought quickly so I went into Aldi across the road, explained our situation and asked for a few bin bags so we could do a litter pick in the public car park nearby, which they kindly donated to us.

It was quite surprising how much litter was lurking in the bushes, Bill even pulled a bottle of opened milk, that spilt everywhere (that's where the pun came from believe it or not).

After a quick blitz, we headed back to The Forum so I could squeeze in a fitness session, which included bear crawls, box jumps and burpees... don't all thank me at once.

All in all a lot of exercise was completed this evening.

Next week we are visiting a residential home - Edmund Bacon Court to help tidy up and do some jobs they are unable to do.

GG runners get movie'ing tonight

The evening started really well with the GoodGym troops falling in line for their Monday night training expedition.

Michelle and Roisin were there first closely followed by a last minute flurry of arrivals with newly joined up member Roxy ( yay! ) followed by time traveller Belinda then Duncan and lastly Gill sporting camauflage yet lit up headgear on her bike after an epic 27 mile marathon on Sunday.

Huge GG cheer and kudos to you Gill n your mouth to mouth event . Check out Gills journey on strava relive [(https://www.relive.cc/view/1300826467)]

Just as we were leaving Splashpoint I'm hoping that I may have a scored a new recruit who approached us for more information and left armed with my email address and promising to join us in January.

I must also mention our virtual attendee . Good evening Beth in London! WE MISS YOU and also Nick who took a man flu check on tonights adventure ( flu got to be joking Nick! )

We ran like Grease light'ning to the task

On a calm evening in sunny worthing we had a great run weaving through the streets and pausing for a great team photo outside Heene cemetery where we have done several tasks within the last few months.

The cast was there - Sandy'ing the doors

We were warmly welcomed by Andy at Kamelia kids and wasted no time in donning gloves and grabbing tools to continue where we left off last time sanding down doors ready for a lick of paint to brighten the nursery ready for the new year. My eyes wandered to the children's Santa post box and I wondered whether it was bigger or smaller than Beth and quite what antics she would have got up to had she been there!

Excellent Riz'ults - Everything was blue'terful

Covered in blue dust once again we waved a cheery farewell to Andy who sent me a text after we had gone saying

*A big thank you for all your help this year to you and the team *

Ahhhr ....Our pleasure ! We will return again next year to help our favourite special needs day nursery.

On yer bike ...Beat the bike Anderson

After a sociable run down to the seafront Duncan set off at a pace with Gill in hot pursuit on the bike. Michelle , Roxy and Roisin set about some of their own pace work and Belinda and I took a steady run back to Splashpoint. We all finished together with a quick warm down to make up the 6 miles.

Stretches followed before meeting new member Nicky for a quick chat and document check to enable her to do a coach run early in the new year.

These puns are no good for your elf

Thanks so much for all the puntastic help this week one and all

Remember next week we will meet at Worthing churches homeless 5 Byron Road,BN11 3HN at 6pm or as early as you can get there for our ready steady cooking task . We will then take a Christmas spectacular last run to a secret destination. Be prepared to be wowed!

Monday 18th is a run at 6pm from Splashpoint followed by our Christmas shin dig at Tex Mex, 187 Montague street BN11 3DA from 8pm onwards.

Please feel free to run / not run /eat / not eat / drink /not drink / just pop in/ stay all evening. It would be lovely to see you all.

An early Christmas star has appeared

I just wanted to end this weeks report with giving massive kudos , huge GG love and an enormous cheer to our very own Belinda who set herself a challenge of running a 10 k in December and who on day 4 totally smashed it ! Fantastic running B ! You are way better than you realise . Time to set yourself a new goal for 2018 ( I can help with that !! )

Have a great week and remember ... Keeeeeep Running !

Tonight's task was visiting Hayden Court, which is a sheltered housing scheme for the elderly. The task was to clear up as many leaves as possible!

Yet again, a fantastic turnout and was great to welcome new GoodGym runners Rich and Chloe.

The 1st Mission Run in Norwich took place on Sunday so Catherine kindly said a few words about the momentous occasion. Hopefully this will kick start lots of Missions Runs in the future.

Katy turned up with what I thought were giant flippers... but were in fact leaf collectors that you kind of wear as gloves. Oh what fun it would have been if all 24 of us would have been running through the city of Norwich wearing a pair of them.

It was a relatively short distance of around 1.5km tonight so I had a little treat up my sleeve for afterwards ;-)

After a warm up (with no rude interruptions from random people this week!) we had a nice stroll to the task.

On arrival we put people into pairs and with a bin bag and off they went to clear some leaves. Fortunately I brought some extra bin bags and these were needed after about 10 minutes as you well know, the GoodGym-ers don't waste no time.

After 30 minutes we then took all the bin bags full of leaves to a little compost area. Delores, one of the old ladies who is a resident at Hayden Court was at her window thanking everybody... I think Laura was about to adopt her!

We then headed to Chapelfield Gardens for a running fitness session, not before doing a round Tricep Dips & Push-ups on the way back though, which of course everyone was thrilled about.

It was then time for a 10-minute relay session in CG. We had teams of 4, which were spread out in a triangle route and each person just runs to the next point and tags their team mate who was waiting there.

To finish up we had a gentle jog back to The Forum.

We decided we'll be going to the pub after next week's run.