When you're leading a GoodGym run for the first time, it's really lovely (very scary) to have Ivo, the illustrious founder of GoodGym, along for the ride. We're sure Shona is enjoying her holiday whilst we keep up the good deeds in Bristol. My Shona impression went down very well, and we were very efficient at shooing the baby starfish.

Although the run was advertised as 9K, I reassured everyone it was more like 0.9K, and it was actually only 0.6K when we'd crossed all three zebra crossings to safely arrive at FaithSpace. The lovely organisers wanted some help with gardening, mainly turning over some huge compost heaps, and some leaflet distributing for their upcoming Autumn Extravaganza. WIth 37 GooodGymmers we soon made short shrift of the leafleting and were able to head off for some extra fitness training by running around the Harbour Loop with a few challenges thrown in by the run leaders - thanks Paul, Dave, Gary and everyone else who took off around the harbour, and to our gardening run leaders Alison, Jack, Patrick and Maria. We have left another organisation utterly impressed with what we can achieve. And had a surprising 5K extra run on a lovely evening in Bristol.

A big Bristol GG welcome to Robin and João who joined us for the first time, we hope to see you again very soon.

Celebration time back at Queens Square after cool down and stretches, Mair has reached the great milestone of 50 good deeds and introduced the alternative and VERY popular celebration treat of chocolate buttons. They were perfect with a pot of tea.

Thanks for being kind to me as I was being Fake Shona I. Fake Shona II takes over next week...

It was another big group attendance tonight as our Bristol runners spread out across Bedminster to fix up some green spaces. Welcome to the new faces that joined us tonight - it was great to see you Anna, Beth, Cristina, Aga and Abigail! Also good to see some new but returning faces - good luck for the big one this weekend Stu!

Thanks to Charlie, who led the first group to Cherry Tree Garden. There, they were met by Julia who explained to them the momentous task of weeding and clearing nettles ahead of the bulb-planting they are planning in the future. After a slight delay followed by being rescued by the henceforth-named Glove Superman, Darren, the group were ready to enthusiastically set to work. Apparently, Chris decided to get in a fight with a Sycamore (as you do on a Tuesday night with GoodGym), while the rest of the group picked on something their size... Or at least, a whole lot of nettles slightly closer to their own size.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group met Laura from Bedminster Patchwork. They manage 12 patches of land across Bedminster, which they work on to make beautiful spaces for the local community. GoodGym had previously worked on this particular patch a couple of times and it is coming on leaps and bounds. The group set to work weeding and planting across the ground. Despite hitting a spider nest and finding surely the entire population of Bristol's hairy caterpillars, the group did a stellar job of making the patch weedless and freshly planted ready for summer. What a great job all round. Thank you to your brilliant back-marking Maria, which got us past all the envy-inducing pint-holding locals sipping in the evening sun, until we could get back for our own well-deserved pints.

Overall, a Tuesday night well spent, and Bedminster looking all the better for our green-fingered GoodGymers!

A brave bunch of souls defied the returning April showers this evening as we ran to Victoria Park to help the Action Group fix up the willow tunnel that GoodGym Bristol helped put up two years ago. It was great to see several new faces in the crowd - we are looking forward to seeing you all again soon!

Fun fact: did you know 'Soy Sauce' means 'I am willow' in Spanish?

After Dave successfully found a bunch of short cuts (including some through the bushes...) to keep the groups neck and neck on the run there, everyone got (literally and figuratively) muddy with a very competitive game of Stuck in the Mud. The Bristol Medical Students almost got a full house of stuck GoodGymers, but the red t-shirts fought back at the very last minute.

Alex from the Victoria Park Action Group taught us about willow's wicked and wonderful ways. The willow keeps growing in all directions so the tunnel requires regular attention to keep it looking great. We were soon set to work weaving, knotting and rebuilding the willow. We even saw Paul showing us his task skills after stepping-down from Bristol Trainer! The group did a great job of fixing it up and even building some windows for the tunnel - I am sure you couldn't even feel the rain through that perfect structure at the end!

Well done to everyone for their great work tonight and thank you for welcoming me as the new Trainer for Bristol - I am looking forward to many (warmer) weeks to come!

Also, some fantastic inputs to Strava puns tonight... putting my newbie pun-attempts to shame (Matt, Darren, I am looking at you)!

Tuesday come good deeds be done, by loads of runners and then more some! This evening 30 runners came to help us take on unscheduled tasks litter picking and delivering flyers for Helpful Peeps in Lawrence Hill. Welcome back to all those faces we've seen before and a a massive hello to new runner Anna.

Our task to help Incredible Edible this evening was cancelled due to our host Hannah being ill (get well soon smiley lady!) so we put our legs and hands to good use helping elsewhere in the city. After meeting up at Vivo and warming up we split into two groups, one to litter pick around the Lawrence Hill roundabout and the other to deliver flyers for helpful peeps just down the road.

I led the litter lot followed Clo Slee by my reliable back marker. Paul led the leafleteers with excellent back marking from Alex. On arrival at the roundabout it was obvious to my group that we had arrived not a minute too soon. The whole place was litter-ally strewn with rubbish, so it was time to stop the trash talking and start picking our battles. The whole group went right to work grab and bagged as much as they could to brighten the area up. There were more Baggins than you would find in Bilbo's family tree. The best find of the day was most certainly a mug with a princess cat on it. Truly a treasure to behold. After around 30 minutes on the task we had filled 21 bags of rubbish. Not bad for an evenings work at all.

Meanwhile team flyer were going the distance to post as many leaflets for Helpful Peeps as they can. Promoting the great work their website does to promote a community where people share their time, skills and knowledge to help each other for free. They covered a large area and hopefully drummed up lots more support for such a giving community.

On the way back my group had a couple of relay races in Castle Park and Queen Square including a game of "Don't squat 'til you you get enough". My favourite moments being Lindsey's celebratory scaling of the steps despite running a longer route than required for her lap, and the strong performance by Liam and his team to win both races. As we were finishing up the other group arrived and put in lap of the square with a sprint leg. We then congregated for a stretch and sign off.

Thanks to everyone who came along, we really made a big difference tonight by cleaning up so much trash and hopefully uniting random strangers to help each other.

See you lot again soon!

As Yazz once said "the only way is up" and that was certainly the case tonight. 22 spring legged runners met to tackle the hills of Redland to deliver leaflets for Above and Beyond promoting their Christmas parties and Bristol to Paris Bike ride.

We met at Vivo and warmed up with some leg spinning and introductions before breaking into two groups with Dave and Alice leading the front and myself and Clo the rear. Jacob Wells Road provided the main challenge with it's slow curving gradient rising like a genetically manipulated cobra uncoiling upwards to protect itself from the immanent danger of a oncoming gigantic mongoose wading through across the river towards it.

We reached the Godfather's car that was parked nearby and picked up the leaflets we were to deliver. These were distributed between the runners and then we took our two teams of 12 to separate parts of the area, Team Godfather to the West and Team Gazebo to the East. As if the hills were not enough most of the house in the area had steep steps too so the climbing just kept on coming. But this did not deter our hardy runners in red and they stepped up to the challenge and they certainly delivered a fantastic performance as every single leaflet was posted with time to spare.

They way back to Vivo was a breeze as it was all downhill. We met up in Queen Square where Dave's group arrived a little earlier so performed 3 types of lunge before my group came to meet them and stretch out.

Thanks for coming along everyone, I think that must have been a record for the number of leaflets delivered in on GoodGym but not having counted them we have no idea, but as we said let's just say it was one more than our last record hey.

See y'all again soon.

We made sure we got off to a brisk start today so we could squeeze every last fold out of our second card bed workshop with their inspirational designer, Elliot Lord. There was still time though to welcome new members Simon and Mike on their very first Goodgym run - hope you enjoyed yourselves tonight chaps - be great to see you along again soon! Welcome back also to Praminda - lovely to see you on a group run again after all those coach runs.

Our run was a short one, around a mile and a half through Bedminster. We split into two groups so that an advance party could help Elliot get the card ready before the remainder joined us a few minutes later. Special thanks to Charlie for leading the other group, Clo and Richard for backmarking, and Emma for helping out with navigation!

Once the card was unpacked, Elliot explained what we had to do.

Elliot has worked out a way to take discarded cycle boxes and fold them in such a way that they form a stable bed. The card sections can then be disassembled and flattened down into small packs so the beds can be stored away when not in use. The packs are distributed to homeless people at soup kitchens or shelters and allow the sleeper to keep off the ground making for a warmer and more comfortable night. More information can be found on Elliot's site - including a lovely interview with some of their users.

Having benefited from the Island's kind offer of space at last years workshop we were fortunate this time to have a new host in the guise of the United Reformed Church on West Street, Bedminster. Sincere thanks to Stef and Tony for making this lovely big space available to us for the evening, it was very much appreciated and meant that we could get FIVE tables set up for making beds.

Having distributed a few craft knives and pencils it was wonderful to see these little bed-making teams working busily together drawing round templates, cutting slots and folding tight creases using a block of wood. It never ceases to surprise me how effective our runners can be in such a short time working together against the clock. Thanks also to our tidy-uppers for keeping on top of all the card debris.

Sure enough in a little over 30 mins, we had three completed bed kits and Elliot showed how one of these could be put together - thanks very much to Ceri for taking a quick nap to demonstrate the bed in action.

It was then just a matter of clearing away the left over card and tidying up the hall before loading up the kits ready for distribution - all in all a very productive evening.

In fact, we were told that not only were Goodgym Bristol the most efficient card bed workshoppers but also the most accurate; being the first group not to make a single mistake. Go Goodgym Bristol!!

A quick return run and a few stretches later we were done. Thanks everyone for working so hard tonight - you are all amazing!

Thanks also to Vito for the pun.

30 amazing peeps came out to run 6 km to spread the word about Helpful Peeps

As the clouds cleared to leave us with a beautiful evening for running, lots of you came out to play and run in the sunshine - it truly was a gorgeous sight to behold the sea of red flowing out from the city centre over to Windmill Hill this evening.

Having tried to shoo in the chickens before opening the gate, which was just a little bit messy, as part of our warm up, we congratulated the achievements of Mel and Fi, both of whom had joined the 50 good deed club last week, both achieving the mark in style via a coach run - a lovely way to do it! We also celebrated Richard G, Matt and Chris L all now having hit the 150 good deed mark and the achievements of the Bristol gang for their running exploits in Riga.

We were joined tonight by newcomer, Andrea, and welcomed her to the GoodGym gang and we really hope that you enjoyed your first running experience with us. It was also great to see Mair back after 12 months - apparently seeing all the red shirts running at the Bristol 10k helped to inspire her return.

Also along for the ride, err run, were Simon and Helena, who are behind the wonderful project that we were supporting tonight, Helpfulpeeps - it was great to have you both running with us.

Splitting into two groups, led by Paul and myself, and brilliantly back marked by Mel and Richard G we made light work of the mile run across to Victoria Park where Simon explained some more about what Helpfulpeeps is all about.

Helpfulpeeps is a community where people share their time, skills and knowledge to help each other for free - which can be anything from teaching someone to play a musical instrument, to learning a new language, to decorating etc - a wonderful way of helping each other in our local communities as life is better when we help each other.

Our job was to deliver flyers to houses in the streets around Victoria Park and having not counted how many flyers we normally distribute on a GG task we wondered if we were going to be able to get through the 1000 that Simon had brought along for us.

Paul had done a great job of coordinating the streets to be targeted and splitting teams into groups of four, provided them with a map, highlighting the streets to flyer up to avoid any duplication and sent them on their way.

There was only one problem. You guys are just too quick! Within no time at all one group was back for more flyers and very soon the supply had run out, smashing the task in super-quick time! Brilliant work!

As groups were heading back to the meeting point one by one there were a variety of runs and drills awaiting them - we had groups running loops of the park, Matt was leading some through a series of lunges(great for leg strength) and I took an ever increasing group off to do some hill repeats (an excellent way to develop speed and strength). There were some moans and groans but the pictures tell you that everyone was secretly enjoying it - or maybe you just can't help smiling when you see a camera! In the meantime Matt moved his group onto planks, which seemed to turn into a one man plankathon.

And then it was back to Queen Square, with enough time to head there via the newly opened bridge on Prince Street (yay!) where we were able to wind down with some good stretches and further announcements, celebrating those who had attended missions over the weekend (Ian and Richard G had both managed two), including Matt's use of the word "bailiwick" in his mission report and wishing good luck to Lisa who is running the Edinburgh Half Marathon on Sunday.

And then it was time for a big cheer for Chloe who was celebrating her 50th good deed tonight - nice one Clo!

We look forward to see Mel, Fi and Clo donning the black t-shirts soon! Well done all - a great achievement!

As is customary, we celebrated with a variety of goodies, including flapjack, biscuits, chocolate cars and, naturally, pink wafers, sharing stories and laughter at Vivo - a lovely end to a fine evening!

Thanks to Paul and Matt for the extra pics too - some great action shots in there!

Top stuff everyone!

It was a great evening for a run as loads of lovely folk met up at Vivo Gym to do SOME GOOD!

We ran to the nearby neighbourhood of Barton Hill where we met with a splinter group of our runners who'd gone there early to ensure we had the flyers that we needed to distribute - thanks chaps!

From there we split in to several groups - one group headed off to Old Market, about a mile away, and the other group split again to leaflet several of the tower blocks in Barton Hill. I hooked up with one of the groups and we jogged off...

We got in with ease - the door was open for us, and we took the lift to the 14th floor, alternating floors with each other until we got to the very bottom. I have to say that the view from the top was great!

We then hooked up with one of the other groups and tried to find another of the places that we were supposed to flyer, but failed - how can someone hide a tower block? After losing a tower block we then lost another of our groups but after giving one of them a quick ring we realised that they were headed back to the start so we followed.

It was a really hot night and some of the runners were finding the length of the run a challenge, but we all made it back in one sweaty piece for a bit of a mexican jump squat relay and then a lot of stretching - two very cute kids decided that they wanted to join in so we opened up our circle and welcomed them! Their mums also joined in a little!

As it was Alice's birthday the day before and as she'd brought cakes, lots of us repaired to Vivo to sit by the river, drink and eat delicious chocolate cupcakes, a perfect end to a great run.