Painting the blues away with a nurturing task that left us tyred

Getting fit and doing good. GoodGym Cardiff shows their artistic skills painting at St Alban’s Primary School

What a fantastic run we had tonight, and here is the low down

With Big Moose still closed we met at the Run and Become store on St Mary’s Street. Chitika is the manager at the Run and Become store and every week she welcomes us in with a smile. She asks what good deeds we are going to carry out and wishes us all an enjoyable run - It's so nice that we are made to feel welcome.

Tonight’s run was kind of special, why? Because we had 4 new runners come along to GoodGym this evening! Nabeel, Louise, Caterina and Sarah. It was fantastic to have you come along and we hope you run with us again (As Yoga was taking place downstairs, we hope you appreciated our silent theatrical cheers that welcomed you to your first GoodGym run).

We headed outside for a quick warm up, jogging, doing high knees and butt kicks at different paces. We then split into two groups to run to the evening's task. Ellen led the sexy runners and Ben led the speedy runners (I still like to think of ourselves as sexy runners too, though :))

Ben put the speedy runners through their paces. The run there consisted of interval sprints (to everyone’s delight… or maybe no ones… muahahah). Ben also then spoke about the energy system that was being worked on by the sprints and demonstrated correct running form to maximise efficiency. Then, after a few sprints and a few wrong turns, we finally made it to St Alban’s Primary School!

Welcome back GoodGym!

Rachel greeted us with a warm smile. She thanked us for coming back again to help out and told us about the wonderful primary school that she is headteacher at, St Alban’s Primary School. Rachel told us that our task tonight would be to paint the portacabin inside walls cream. The portacabin will be used as a wellbeing/nurture space to help support children at the school. A select few runners also took on a separate task which consisted of moving tyres to make an outdoor racing track for the school children to use on their bikes - How exciting!

After hearing about the school and the tasks we would be carrying out this evening we couldn’t wait to get stuck in. Andrew became lead photographer and began taking photos of runners carrying out the task. Ellen got immersed into painting (Very glad you didn't try to lick the paint brush this time!). Caterina got some paint on her running leggings... talk about getting stuck in!... We hope it comes out in the wash.

There was silence… A rare moment in GoodGym history was made. Everyone was concentrating so hard at the task at hand that they forgot that could talk with one another! Ben then set them all a challenge. He said…

There is a rule in English Grammer, I before E except after C, however this is not always the case, can you think of any words that break this rule?

Immediately Rosie bellowed “Concierge” – An epic input from Rosie. “Science” followed Peter… It was now neck and neck… No further suggestions were made so Peter and Rosie both won the evening’s challenge!! Well done both!!

With only minutes to spare, and in a last ditch attempt to get the task near completion, everyone's painting speed sped up! Peter set the sand timer to 1 minute and before we knew it the task was over.

Thank you all so much for your help

We had a quick group photo and said our goodbyes. Ellen then led the run back with Emma backmarking. We had to get back quickly as the run finishes at 8... On the way back we spoke to one another about how good we felt for helping out at the school.

Well done everyone who came running tonight! I can imagine the children’s faces tomorrow when they see their new racing track and their nurture classroom freshly painted; they will definitely think it is really cool that a group of runners came along to help at their school overnight.