Feeling fine and sandy but not an ostrich in sight

Calm after the storm ( the normal weather bulletin)

How lucky were we this evening ? After a armageddon type storm on Saturday and a bleak rain filled Monday we were all expecting to get very wet again this evening but, in reality,we only had a few refreshing drops fall on us until after we finished when it fell down again.

We were delighted to welcome Paul tonight who joined us for the first time. Hopefully this will be the first of many! It was great to have you come along tonight :)

Ricky also joined us for his second run and good deed. Added to these newbies were my amazing core team comprising , in no order of importance, Belinda and John, Barbara,Paul Sue, Anne, Paula,Lucy and Emily together with one more VIP.

Nifty fitty fifty

It was an epic night for our very own Tamsin who joined GoodGym just under 2 years ago when she came along with friend and colleague Paul What better way to celebrate with this wonderful, funny and endearing GG member than by a testimonial in her own words.

*So tonight, almost two years after joining GoodGym Worthing I completed my 50th task 😀

Having joined this group at a particularly low point I had no real expectations other than feeling like I needed to do something physical to feel mentally stronger and to have two hours a week where I was off solo parenting duty!

I’ve gained not only (a bit of) fitness, but more importantly great fun with this group of people who I now count as my friends ❤️

Thank you goodgymers for my 50 photo montage, for welcoming my little Jemmie along when needed, and for all the burpees and laughs 😉😂*

Cant wait to see you rocking the little black t shirt Tams and pushing towards your angel wings!

No kidding around

This evening we were helping out our local rangers at the children's playground just near the parkrun turn round point on the seafront.

We were ( kind of ) joyously greeted by our friendly park ranger Keith who it was great to catch up with as we hadn't seen him for months ( think he's been hiding from us! )

Keith outlined that our sole task tonight was to shovel up all the sand from the path around the playground and get it back into the sand pits together with sweeping up as much as possible to make it look spick and span ( with hardly any sand!)

I think we were all delighted that calmness had prevailed,especially after the recent extreme weather, for this task and, dare I say that it was almost a balmy feel under the moonlit sky.

Talking of which, with Natacha on detention at school and unable to make the task, John wasted no time in replacing his favourite french mademoiselle and posed for another 'oooh la la moment' with Lucy

Fear not Natasha ! He can manage 'deux a la fois' :)

Ships ahoy

30 short minutes later the team down tooled. Doing a fine impersonation of Rose from the Titanic, Tams pulled off a great 50th task photo on the pirate ship to seal the good deed.

After the usual level of negotiation, function fitness drills followed that were tailored to improving running technique. These included 5 rounds of walking lunges, standing squat jumps, high knee runs and burpees. This nicely wrapped up todays quota of the 25 burpees a day November challenge.

However this was not the end of tonights fitness focus. Following my fitness email last week about tempo running the team did 3 tempo effort runs focusing on 85% effort over each 1 km distance.

Special mention to Sue who achieved an epic 2 PB's over 2 of the efforts. Massive kudos to you Sue. You never thought that this would happen again after your riding accident 18 months ago!

Sand its all over

Stretches followed at Splashpoint before we wound up another happy and glorious Monday night.

In other news

• For those of you signed up to our Christmas meal it has been updated to 'dress to impress' . Sue has also very kindly invited us to pre drinks at hers. This sounds very exciting and glamorous! More details nearer the time.

• November daily burpee challenge escalates to 50 per day from this Thursday 7th November.

If you have any other newsworthy items please do send them to me to include in next weeks report.

Have a great week,

Julia X