Planks to the last minute... the show mosque go on!

14 GoodGymers made their way 4.0km to help the Dar-ul-Isra Mosque in Cardiff.

: Tuesday, 2nd of January 2018
: Led by Benjamin Annear

Welcome to 2018! In what has been worst weather so far this year it was really great to have so many of you come along.

First things first, have you seen the highlights video from 2017… if not, here it is!

2018 is going to be a very prosperous year for GoodGym Cardiff and tonight started with a bang. When runners arrived to Yr Hen Llyfrgell and signed in to tonight’s run Ben had post it notes next to the sign in sheet. As people signed in they had to write on the post it notes their running goal for 2018 and at the end of the run they would each have to pick a post it out of the cup and find the person who set themselves that running goal. So what were some of the goals: To run 800km total for the year; To run a 10k race each month; Run a half marathon PB; Improve on hills; To run the Cardiff Bay 10k; Run with GoodGym each week!

As the clock struck 6.30pm the session began. Ben started off the session with a Mr Men themed warm up… runners definitely felt reassured at this point that they were running with the BEST GoodGym running club in the whole of Wales and there was no doubt in anyones mind that 2018 was going to be a fantastic year!

The game had runners running in a circle, and when Ben shouted out Mr Men characters runners had to abide by the Mr Men warm up task.

Mr Bounce = Runners had to jump twice
Mr Motivator = Runners had to shout “Lets do this” and do 10 star jumps
Mr Dizzy = Runners had to spin around twice
Mr Lost = Change direction
Miss Squat = Runners had to squat…
Mr Butt Kick = Runners had to do butt kicks

You get the gist!..

We also did a headcount which included welcoming LEWIS! Lewis was and remains Jack’s friend. Jack brought along Lewis to GoodGym which also meant that Jack earned himself a RED LACE! This was the first red lace given away this year… who is going to be get the next one? The red lace race gate is on!

During the headcount we also mentioned our favourite food which we had over the Christmas period; When Rachel mentioned her favourite food was Brussel sprouts Ben announced that his dog was blamed for a lot over the Christmas period when in fact she was completely innocent - TMI Ben!

After doing our warm up we all headed out into the cold, wind and torrential rain (the worst weather of the year). We don't mind the weather though for we are GoodGym Cardiff and we will brave the elements.

Lets run to the Mosque! We Mosque not be late!

We ran the streets of Cardiff heading to the task in two groups. The first was led by Ben and consisted of runners who wanted a hard and fast run! The second group was led by Mikey consisted of runners who equally wanted to push themselves but paid more attention to not slipping or being blown away (in the worst weather of 2018).

We’re here!

Being respectful of the Mosque’s practices we took our shoes off when we entered and made our way upstairs where we met Mohammed. Mohammed thanked us for coming along in spite of the weather conditions and explained to us about the centre. He also mentioned that for 15 minutes there would be prayer going on at the centre and that we had 15 minutes of calorie burning and core workout time before we could get stuck in the task.

Time is never wasted!

For the first 5 minutes we had a plank off… Well done Darren, Rachael and Jess for smashing the plank off. Following this and encouraged by Jess, Rachael then led us through some yoga movements – Thank you for doing this, they were fab! We definitely want some more yoga again! Ellen also led us through a Tai Chi practice... We are still imagining the ball...

Time to get stuck in.

Mohammed reappeared after 15 minutes and asked us if we could hoover the mosque, polish and take out the bins. “No problem” we said! Whilst we got stuck in doing this task Mahammed came around and offered us some sweet dates – Delicious!

Time is up!

We managed to get the task done very quickly and everyone from the centre was impressed with our efforts. Alaa, who volunteers as a scout leader at the centre, also arrived and thanked us for coming along. Big thank you to Alaa for helping arrange tonight's task and to Emma (GoodGym Cardiff runner) Everyone we met was really lovely and we look forward to running to the mosque to help out again - thank you for having us.

The riddles from the run:

What can be served but not eaten?
You are in a room with no windows and doors. All you have is a knife and an orange to escape. How do you get out?

The journey home involved stopping for some sprint drills. With some competitive sprinting between Nathan and Darren (Darren was quick to state the Nathan went out early before Ben had said go). Afterwards, whilst everyone held wall squats Ben explained about how anaerobic running assists performance in both short and long distance running.

After we arrived back to Yr Hen Lyfrgell we warmed down and then went to the Glassworks for a cheeky well-earned drink (Soft drink or otherwise).