It was great to have a crowd of new faces with us tonight - welcome Fiona, Thomasina, Charlotte, Lia and Sarah!

Carb Load

We all know that we should carb load before a serious run, so we started tonight off with a serious game of Hot Potato. Runners were knocked out as we passed the squat jump around the circle, until eventually we crowned Richard as the least coach-y potato of the night.

Mount-pelier

Warmed up, off we set to Montpelier, where Bristol Waste had received three separate reports of litter in the past few days. This involved much more uphill running than many of the group bargained for, but some asked for more and set off on some hill sprints on the way.

When we arrived, the group split into three to cover the areas Bristol Waste had told us about. In actual fact, the streets varied from littered to pretty spotless - had we been beaten to it by an alternative group of do-gooders?! We still gathered in 5 bags of litter, which we left in our designated spot for Bristol Waste to collect.

Something fishy

Not wanting to waste our uphill run to get there, we also spread the word about how older people can get help from GoodGym in the area and did some work for the Yellow Fish scheme. We chalked yellow fish next to the drains in the area to increase awareness of people not putting water pollutants down their local drains to improve wildlife and water quality in local rivers and streams.

After all of this was all complete, we ran back to base, with just enough time to ensure we got to stop for squats, stairs and chair holds along the way!

There are no New Year's resolutions being dropped around here: 47 GoodGymers turned out on this first February evening group run to get fit whilst doing good. It was great to welcome Josh and Katie on their first GoodGym Bristol outing tonight, we promise that we don't always get quite so soaking!

How many flat-packs can Jack's pack pack?

The group split up to help two different tasks tonight. Jack led a team of the most technically-minded GoodGymers around to St Werburgh's Community Centre to help them put together new flat-pack furniture after their storage collapsed earlier in the week. Squished into a tiny space, the group nailed and hammered. With little equipment, they got creative and used a brick to put together the storage which they had post-it notes of instructons to guide them on. Amazingly, the team beat the clock and just finished putting together all the units in time to get back. Well done Brainy Team!

We got a handle on this

Meanwhile, the rest of the group were handling less technical, but still important work. We returned to St Paul's Adventure Playground for the first time this year, where we met Guy and Rachel who set our big team to work.

The group: - Removed all of the mulchy leaves from between the slabs of the play structure to make it less slippery for the children - Transferred all of the newly made compost from the composting area into bags ready for use - Gathered up all of the leaves from the rest of the playground ready for composting

Phew! Just as the rain started, the group were finishing up their tasks and a few Peter Pans slid down the (surprisingly fast) slides before going home. With the rain now falling heavily, the group did a great job of still doing the stair sprints I requested of them before being allowed to get back to the warmth.

Very Chilly Daddy

This was followed by 20 very soggy GoodGymers going to Chilli Daddy for February Eats - we can now confirm that the best way to cure being cold and soggy is with a bowl of piping hot and soggy noodles.

And we would do 500 deeds, and we would do 500 more...

It was time to bring back out our reclaimed Proclaimers song 500 Deeds tonight as we smashed through our January target! Woohoo! Even more impressively, it was on this freezing cold night. Despite spending the afternoon watching sleet and grey skies, it dried up just in time for 40+ hardy souls to still gather, unperturbed by a little bit of wet weather. It was great to see so many new faces tonight: welcome to Dominic, Olivia, Samuel and Hattie who all joined us for the first time. Hope to see you all again very soon!

...Just to be the group who had done 500 deeds arriving at Felix Road's door

The group split into two with Danica taking half who sped round Bristol and arrived ahead of the 'faster' group. We arrived to be met by a the shocked Felix Road team at how many people had turned out even in the cold, dark night! The tasks that they were planning on getting us to do were at the last-minute no longer available for us so we had to get inventive to set all the hands to work.

• The litter-pickers and recyclers went out in force, covering the whole playground super quickly.
• The weeders and de-bramblers donned running gloves, rubber gloves or whatever they could find to get stuck in pulling out weeds and brambles from around the playground.
• The sorters got all Marie Kondo on the firepit area and made it look spectacular!
• The cleaners and tidiers turned the havoc-filled painting room into a clean and tidy haven ready for the children tomorrow.

Ok, so we have done the litter pick - now what about the pick n mix?

After all of that, Zoe from FRAP made herself the most popular task-owner of the moment by producing a pile of one-penny sweets which the group got their all-important sugar-high for sprinting back to base on. To make full use of said sugar-high, we played a game of Hare and Hounds. Danica led the Hares away. They were meant to have a three-minute headstart, but the Hounds stayed true to their name and got distracted by the food at the task. With a slightly longer time to make up, the Hounds followed suit. However, traditionally in this game of animal instinct, I am sure traffic-lights do not play quite so big a part. Between the stops at the traffic lights, both groups set a good pace all the way back. Although some of the Hounds sprinted to give the Hares a close run for their money, the Hares did an excellent job of getting back untouched!

Big thank you to Danica for excellent Run Leading and Clo and Maria for backmarking tonight!