Cold Hands, Warm Hearts

On an evening where temperatures were dropping to -2, I was very excited to have a group of 5 GoodGym runners, who ran 6km to help a local community in Boscombe.

Lovely to see Caroline again after her trip to India....Ross, Daryl and Shauna, shout out to you and your commitment too!!!

We wasted no time running up to Eastcliff and to Churchill Gardens, stopping only to dance with traffic at a roundabout - we were literally stopping traffic in our high viz! 

Our task was to help the group who run the local Joy cafe in Churchill Gardens. We've been here before to help them out and think the work Becky and her group are doing is just brilliant in bringing together a fragmented community, reducing isolation and sharing resources. Her latest project is a new home to be used as a community resource, housing charity workers and hosting group events....like the upcoming carols and mince pie session! 

The place was HUGE and we were to help out blitzing the place as it was tired, mucky and just a little bit nicotine-stained! We found some interesting objects while working...spiders and a brain jelly mould (random). Apparently we missed the false teeth, found before we got there! Our two boys also help lug some furniture around and once we'd finished up and said our goodbyes we realised there was time and energy to spare.

A quick drill in the park opposite: each person ran a circuit, on their return they nominated next runner and an exercise for the group to complete while the runner was on the circuit. We learnt that hopping is VERY hard work and remembered the joy of squatting on a cold dark night with passing strangers heckling at you!

We dashed back to Boscombe Pier and finished the session with a couple of hill sprints up up and away from the sea.

Really excellent effort from you all and glad we all found the warm fuzzy GoodGym feeling despite the Baltic conditions!!!

See you next week!