After a late change of task, a small but perfectly formed group of GoodGymers removed a bag of rubbish from the streets of Chelmsford.

With the GoodGym tasks starting to get an autumnal chill, Richard and Sallyann sensibly turned up in several layers. Martin did not.

The Brook Street car park and footpath towards the river proved a fertile testing ground for a new double handed approach to litter picking, with a grabber in each hand, and the trio’s efforts were rewarded with compliments from passing cyclists.

The group binned an airplane and several bottles of dubious looking liquid but drew the line at two abandoned bikes, before debating when it was acceptable to turn the heating on at home (the correct answer is: when the clocks go back).

Look forward to seeing everyone at next week’s task. Don’t forget to wrap up warm!

Rain all day stopped play at the church where some painting was needed. We met at the gym hoping the clouds wouldn't follow through with any more of the wet stuff and set off for a pre-litter picking jog.

Andy explained he was picker extraordinaire after his festival volunteering at the weekend, which Jane watched with home comforts although I do understand you could buy a ticket for your chair if you wanted to bring it with you.

Sallyann proved she should have been a hostage negotiator after getting exactly what she wanted for upcoming retirement. Maybe it's not too late to retrain. Leah didn't let the chain link fence stand in her way and aggressively retrieved junk that people were clearly tossing into difficult spaces for fun (why?!).

Fay will be available for any eligible bachelors to try on the abandoned flipflop over the weekend but I'm not sure that it will guarantee a marriage proposal, possibly some Marriage's animal feed given the location.

Goodgym is about working as a team and not about individuals, which is why Jane thought it would be nice to showcase one of our training sessions with a quick bee run! Jane really did insist, even bringing along Chris, her brother, to witness.

It just so happened that they were all bees that I needed to get to finish the challenge. Joel arrived dressed like a condom despite the fact it wasn't raining and then we headed off!

Everyone was excited to see a rainbow through Chelmsford and even more excited to see the legendary big dog complete the bee run. Chris was being reassured it isn't normally as far a run when he stepped in a massive puddle, we all hope he avoids trenchfoot.

We arrived roughly 4 minutes behind schedule, a small price to pay, with bets taken on Fay's first words when we got there.

Rich gave up halfway through weeding for a fantasy football draft, stressing he was quite a catch for the ladies as he is now in three separate ones. Andy told a tale of his first ever gig being at what is the St Lukes hall and carrying his stuff there in a wheelbarrow. I'd love a video but they didn't invent them for another roughly 200 years post gig. I gossiped with Jen about local houses for sale and it is amazing she is getting back into running using GoodGym!

After some stellar work we posed for a photo and were invited back soon. Sallyann ran off to get home at quite the pace, i did get a video but alas can't upload to this page.

We headed off back our separate ways. If you'd like to try the bee challenge you have until Monday to get involved and win a mega prize!

As Sam Ryder was in town this morning doing some busking we thought there might be a chance he could join us this evening, unfortunately he couldn't make it 🤷🏼‍♂️, but we did have our very own Russell join us instead. Which is actually better... and on that note.

With the threat of rain, 6 of us set off from HQ towards the springfield basin for a spot of litter picking. Meeting Fay and Sallyann there we broke into 2 groups and set about picking to our hearts galore. Somehow Andy and Russell ended up in the same group...and began to chat, and chat, and chat 😂

In my group, Ben posed for a majestic photo atop of a large boulder, Richard spoke like a true proud father about his daughter's parkrun pb and Jen told us about her epic charity walking adventure next year.

We regrouped along the route and continued down towards the lock. Took some group photos before heading back. Thanks for coming guys, We've made alittle piece of Chelmsford a bit nicer.

until next time

RUN HAPPY

Rich

A lower than usual turn out during holiday season, but we welcomed lovely new goodgymmers Jennifer and Nicola to the fold!

A chat and run (we get there eventually), Andy confirmed my suspicions that this may be one of our longer missions but with no pressure for speed we got listening to Jens big challenge for next year (100k!).

We met up with Fay and Sallyann (celebrating officially sacking off work at the end of the year) with two full bags of leaflets and skirted around a warren of houses, disappearing off around bends and cul de sacs to make sure everyone got some fun updates on what local charities are up to in the next few months.

Dreaming of dinners we managed to follow our steps back the way we came to the gym meeting spot, hoping the evenings stay light for a while longer.