Oh what a night. A night to celebrate, to sing, to read, to do good and to run. We started the evening with handshakes and hugs for members new, old and returning.

First to take the stage was Ella, reading out the Goodgym Experience beautifully. We certainly do feel like this is our town and the night would demonstrate how much we have done to help.

Goodgym always has perfect timing, or did Hannah plan her 50th good deed on this evening of celebrations? Either way what a superstar.

More congratulations to Ian on a smashing Dedham 10k and a little self love to me and bravo to Ella for our jaunt to Surrey for Reigate half marathon.

We set off with the sunlight fading to Firstsite with two missions, one to tidy the lawn and secondly to tour as many of the places we help with a photo at each one with our flag. At Firstsite we met our friend Eddie who gave out tools and instructions. The team trimmed, chopped, tidied and swept with the help of Toby and Harriet. A lovely job.

At the end we sang ourselves happy birthday and went on our photo-shoot tour of town. In chronological order we stopped for a photo at Castle Park gates, where we volunteer at parkrun and litter pick for Keep Britain Tidy. Next to Level Best Art Cafe where we clean the kitchen and restaurant, before we jogged down the High Street to pose by Colchester in Bloom flowers and the Townhall. Onwards (and via Ian's place of employment) we strode to Jumbo and although we have not helped the big water tower we have done leaflet drops and hill training in its shadow! Next it was to Beacon House, who help the homeless, where we painted a room and then down to Middlebrough and the River Colne where we plant and litter pick! PHEW!

After all that fun we ran back to base and heard two stories from the Goodgym book 'Fit Together'. Emily, who is a coach runner, read Florence's story and Susie read Andrew Robson's tale. Inspiring and relatable.

What a whirlwind and we ended by mentioning #GGSuperSaturday...more fun and perhaps a raised glass to toast 10 years of Ivo's Goodgym magic.

Thirteen wonderful Goodgymers rocked up at Leisureworld for running, outdoor tasks and fun! First-up the news and what awesome news there was. Vanessa recorded a new race PB. Alex amazed us with his qualification to swim the channel later in the year and Stalwart Bob has reached his HUNDREDTH task with Goodgym. Now that is a lot of Good.

On this balmy evening we warmed up with star-jumps, leg raises and squats all tied together with a weaving run. We set off on our run to the task at Worsnop House over the bridge and into the park towards East Hill. Past the swans and moorhens we made our way up Brook Street to the Rec and Worsnop House. We were met by two residents who kindly showed us around the grounds for our clearing up task. We managed to fill bags for refuse and recycle as well as reclaim an old skateboarding dream, its amazing what you can find when you look in the bushes!

Back at base, we enjoyed doughnuts and strawberries, courtesy of Katherine, thank you and Happy Birthday!

Join us next week for more goodtimes and goodfun!

It was not just the sun that shone tonight. Twenty Goodgym heroes shone as bright as can be as they took the streets and paths to make a huge difference to Colchester Foodbank.

We started as with the news of Goodgym's expansion and new areas as well as big congratulations to the Nayland 10k runners who conquered the heat, gates and trails with some marvelous cheer-leading too.

We set off in the sunshine and warmed up on our way to the river and jogged to the Foodbank. Once their we met Mike who organised a human chain so that we could load crates into a van. Impressive teamwork!! We then swept, vacuumed and dusted our way to give the the Foodbank a sparkle and Mike a big smile.

The training was next and a little team game...well a ten minute mega game that involved sweets and unicorn cakes. The two teams had a simple but tiring task which was to run around a circle of towering trees and then do five repetitions of a chosen body weight exercise. Team one turned in the most points in a topsy turvy battle and won the unicorn cakes but nobody left without a sweet!

All in all the effort was epic at the task and training session.

See you in two weeks.

21 spirightly runners met at Colchester Leisure World from 6:45pm for a 7pm kick-off.

Goodgym run leader, Tav, started by delivering the running news for the week. Goodgymers, Ian and Hannah completed the Bromley 10k, with Hannah achieving a PB! Meanwhile Goodgymers Tav, Ella and Faye were at Brighton Marathon, all completed 10ks and then cheered on the marathoners!

Saturday 27th April sees the Goodgym and GB Bootcamp takeover for Parkrun, a list of volunteers has now been submitted but all are welcome to come along and help on the day.

With everyone updated on the weeks news, we set off for our task including a warm up as we went. We started with high knees and butt kicks straight out of leisure world working our way up to a side step. The warm up got even more creative as we left Castle park and we had a group flossing session followed by tricep dips in the subway.

We picked up another goodgymer on our way, taking us to 21! (Great number, and also my age now and for any foreseeable birthdays)

We arrived at Worsnop House where the residents were happy to see us and cups of tea were offered without hesitation. Although being the conscientious lot we are, we were eager to get on with the task in hand. Unfortunately, the tools required for the task were locked up and with no-one around with the keys we were left tool-less.

However, we didn’t let that stop us! Being not only conscientious but resourceful we set about doing the best we could with some black bin bags and a couple of brooms, paths were swept and any rubbish cleared away. Job done.

Seeing as we made light work of that, we headed over to the Old Rec, to complete a Junior Park run (2k, 2 laps). We managed to do about a 1/3 of the course given most of us are least double the age of the junior runners, I don’t think we did too badly!

Goodgymers then set off back to Leisure World for a stretching session and then homeward bound having improved their fitness with a 7km run.

*Yet another Goodgym evening full of energy and inspiration. *

Tonight we not only helped Next Chapter but also met Toby and Harriet who are organising a 400m race for young people with disabilities on the 4th of May at the University of Essex at 2.30pm.

We started with lots of news and congratulated Emily on her successful Ibiza Marathon with lots of hills as well as Hannah for her great run at Norwich Half Marathon. I reminded people of our upcoming Parkrun takeover on the 27th April with the volunteer roles disappearing fast.

After a moving warm up along the River the group set off on the 1.5 mile run to our destination and set about the task of removing overgrown weeds and grass, trimming and chopping trees and hedges and generally improving the area and increasing the visibility for staff. We found a few hidden gems such as a children's book, a little unicorn toy and a Woody from Toy Story toy.

We were told about the amazing work that Next Chapter do and how they help people before Toby and Harriet took centre stage to tell us about Wheeler Walk Way, their fund-raising and how Goodgymers can help through promoting the event and helping to volunteer.

Both Next Chapter and Toby (and Harriet) got a huge round of applause.

After a few photos we set off for a little bit of hill work. Sophie, Jade and Beth and Hannah particularly impressing with their efforts. The group paired off and ran a section of East Hill at 1/2 pace then 3/4 before sprinting in a final flourish. We weaved our magical footwork back to Leisure World where the group helped with some wonderful stretching.

Finally a giant Goodgym welcome to Sophie, Josh, Harriet and Toby. You are always welcome back.

13 keen, enthusiastic (maybe slightly bonkers in this heat) runners arrived at Colchester leisure world for our wednesday group run! We did a quick welcome and caught up on team news - well done to Ella and Hannah on completing the Mersea Island half marathon at the weekend - before heading off out in to the sunshine. This week's task was a task for Colchester Borough Homes and saw us completing one of our longest runs to date to get there - nearly 5 miles in total. Once we arrived at Heathfields we were met by Maureen and her lovely dog Barney. They handed us the brooms, bags and dustpans before giving us some instructions. The team split in to 3's and set about sweeping us the dried leaves and garden debris as well as litter picking in the bushes out the front of the bungalows. It was a short task on account of the distance but we had a lot of fun meeting Barney and Maureen. After a final wave goodbye we headed back to leisure world for a very well deserved cool down and stretch off!

It's no yolk, this evening's run was egg-ceptional! First we welcomed our newest hatchling to the group, little Allegra - it was great to see David and Angela, too. Angela was egg-stremely impressed with how much the group has been growing recently. We also welcomed Kate to the group, joining us for her first Goodgym outing, and Beth visiting from GG Wandsworth.

Congratulations were given to those that attended the Little Bromley 10k on Sunday and well done to Ian and Susie for getting egg-cellent PBs.

After a quick game of knee-tag to get ourselves warmed up we made our way to Firstsite, with Ian leading at the front and Michelle back marking.

Upon arrival, Eddie greeted us and was egg-static about the number of GGers there to help. We made our way to the room we would be painting, but as there was such a good turn out, Eddie hatched a new plan and opened up a second room to be painted, but in a slightly different shade of white! We scrubbed, we sanded, we painted and we rolled and Eddie was left shell shocked at the amount of work we were able to get done in such a short amount of time, a task he wouldn't have been able to get done on his own. Once tidied up, many of us enjoyed a cup of tea before heading outside for some egg-ercise in preparation for the upcoming Goodgym Olympics.

We started with a 'Not-quite-100m Sprints' and then moved on to what we were really egg-cited about... egg and spoon racing! We raced forwards, we raced backwards and we even hopped, but there were very few eggs dropped. Watch out Goodgym Olympic area teams, you have competition! That said, I saw a few people cheat at egg 'n' spoon, but omlettin' it slide...

After that some of the group peeled off to enjoy some egg fried rice and other delicious non-egg based foods at the Noodle Bar, whilst the rest of us made our way back to Leisure World.

Many thanks to our egg-spert punners Ella, Tav and Fay, for giving fine egg-samples of puns, it was egg-sactly the egg-stravagence this report need!

As always, it was an egg-cellent evening Rollin' with my homies...!

What's the verdict, would one egg pun have been un oeuf?

It was a blustery evening in Chiswick last night, but that didn't stop the 13 runners who knocked out a speedy 6.4k to help out a local charity that supports those with longterm mental health issues.

But first of all we welcomed three whole new lovely members to the group, let's hear it for Ieva, Aysha and https://www.goodgym.org/runners/emmanuel-oyelowo. Give them a cheer!

We also had a another special reason to celebrate last night as it was Will's 50th ever good deed! What a superstar. That's a lot of running, and a whole load of doing good. Well done, Will.

After all that cheering we headed outside to warm up with some dynamic exercises, during which we found out which animal we would all be. There were a couple of cats, a squirrel, a grasshopper, a bird of prey, a rat and a, erm, dragon.

For the first leg of the run we set off at a good pace, stopping only for a few jumping jacks and squats to keep the group together. With an 8 minute mile, we were doing well, so pushed it even faster in the second and got to the Friends of Cathja shop in record time. Waiting for us there was terrifying Bruce the Dog, complete with natty red kerchief, and Karl and Rin who run the shop, which raises money to be able to support local people with mental health illnesses that rely on their help.

Our job tonight was to shift a load of mattresses and furniture from the front of the warehouse to the yard outside, and we got straight to it. Ieva and Emmanuel moved furniture and swept, Matthew, Adam and Andy got those mattresses moving, and Ross could be found teetering on top of a pile of boxes and tables sorting out all the stuff the shop could sell. Meanwhile the rest of the team was efficiently shifting and carrying things to the yard and bin area. 20 minutes later, we were done.

Apart from the grueling HIT session ahead of us, that is. We waved goodbye to Bruce and the shop, and ran the short distance to Waterman's Park where we found a nice spot to work hard. Five hard exercises each for 20 seconds, followed by 15 seconds of high knees, a short rest, then starting again. It was tough going, but the idea is that short, high intensity, high effort bursts of exercise are fantastic for burning fat, increasing cardio capacity and endurance. While that was enough for most of the group, Andy, Adam and Will stayed behind to complete Will's 50th challenge, which involved three sprints, 25 push ups and 25 press ups, before running to catch us up on the way back.

It was getting windier, which as Michelle pointed out was just good resistance training, and after a good steady run back to Chiswick Town Hall, we stretched out what was a fantastic but tough session. Then, because we had truly earned it, and it was a celebratory night after all, pub. Well done everybody, and welcome to the group for those whose first run it was. Hope to see you all next week for some more doing good, a shorter run, and of course a whole load of squats.

Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to us, happy birthday dear Hounslow, happy birthday to us!

That's right, the Hounslow group is officially ONE. We have taken our first wobbly steps into the world of doing good, and have the quads to prove it. Last night was truly a night of celebrations. We cheered Andy who shares his GoodGymiversary with Hounslow, and Will who was also at the first ever group run. We welcomed the lovely Jeremy to the group for his first ever run - throw a cheer his way, Hounslow! A huge well done to Remy who tackled the horrendous-sounding Luton half and showed that race what for.

After a discussion on the best thing about birthdays - cake, friends, joy, cake, gin, gin and wine,having a whole week off work, cake and more cake - we did our warm up and set off for William Hogarth School. It was a short run there so we did it fairly nippily, looking forward to our indoor task. Unfortunately, when we got there ready to do some flatpack assembly, we found that Ikea had literally not delivered, so we were tasked with raking the outside area which was providing a nice home for many, many leaves.

Undeterred we got stuck in, filling up no less than seven black bin bags to the brim with those leafy pests. Great upper body work out, team. We stopped for a quick photo underneath the apt 'celebration of work' banner and then hit the road again. It was so nice of Hounslow to put on a fireworks display for our first birthday just as we finished the run, and it was only right that we stopped for a quick rest to enjoy them.

But not for long - we had a birthday fitness session to do! We divided up into three teams and played a game of Ana(erobic)grams. The idea was that everybody collects letters by doing exercises - one tuck jump for every good deed, high knees while naming Hounslow tasks, guessing the number of good deeds, planking if you were at the first ever run, high fiving someone whose name began with 'R' and many more - until all 15 were collected. Then came the great unscramble. It really came down to the wire, but it is my pleasure to announce that in first place, winning a round of drinks, was.....the Chizzee Rascals! Way to go Andy, Will, Natasha and Claudia.

All that was left that a trip to the pub for the quiz - kudos Team BetterGym for coming SECOND! - and to eat some cake. Except it didn't quite happen like that, did it? Least said, soonest mended - but check out the photos for the full story.

It's been a cracker of a year, Hounslow. Here's the the next, and the one after, and the one after that. And a huge cheer for all your brilliant personal achievements over the past week.