Amoosing double group run. No moose ends!

Tonight was TTT, no not Turnips, Trifle and Tiramisu (TTT means - Two Task Tuesday!) and that meant helping out two amazing organisations was on the agenda... The Big Moose Coffee Co and St Monica's Primary School

We met at our usual meeting point at Yr Hen Lyfrgell and quickly split into two groups, Group 1, who headed to the Big Moose Coffee Co and Group 2, who headed to St Monica's Primary School

Helping out at the Big Moose Coffee Co - Run led by Ben

We headed off soon after Group 2 and made our way to Alexandra Gardens. On the way there we did our best attempt to write GoodGym using our bodies in front of the City Hall - *Try and guess which photo it is! *We passed by Sam on the way there who was helping out someone who was unwell on the high street. -Well done Sam, although your Strava didn't track it, you really went the extra mile tonight, we're proud to have you part of the GoodGym family x.

When we arrived to the Gardens we admired the beautiful blossom trees! They were Lush! We then got stuck into the fitness part of the session; we got into partners and alternated with our partners doing 0.33 mile sprint runs of the gardens which equated to a 1 mile run (So there was a rest in between sprints)!

After the fitness session our legs definitely felt they had a good workout! We then made our way to Big Moose with feelings of anticipation about the task that lie in waiting.

Welcome to the Big Moose Coffee Co!

As we arrived Jeff and Ian were there to greet us. Jeff set up Big Moose after his friend nicknamed Moose past away. He developed the Moose brand as a catalyst to leave the world in a better place by working with homeless charities, namely Llamau in the Cardiff area. Ian is the project manager for the Big Moose Coffee Co building.

Jeff explained to the runners that there was lots of wood and debris on the outside roof terrace that Big Moose needed our help clearing. Jeff didn't realise that these words were music to our ears and we couldn't wait to get stuck in and help out!

A massive chain was formed from the roof terrace to the van that was parked outside the Big Moose entrance. Bit by bit, "to me to you" style, all the off the rubbish from the roof terrace was being quickly packed into the van. Darren got pretty attached to some plastic trays that he found on the roof terrace and on 3 occasions after the plastic trays had been packed into the van Darrren requested them back one last time. Fiona was working on her squats as she passed items to the Lydia who was waiting on the stairs - It was all quite exciting!

After 30 minutes time was up and the task was complete! Group 2 met us before we left to join in the group photo and Jeff thanked us for our hard efforts.

Helping out at St Monica's Primary School - Run led by Mikey and Ellen

After splitting into two groups the we left those ‘too cool for school’. It was a direct route to meet up with the organisers at St. Monica’s School.

We stopped at a couple of lights which helped to regroup and rest, there were still weary legs after the Newport marathon and 10k so this was still a challenging run.

Once there we were escorted to the garden project, an old church that had been rejuvenated into a cafe project that has given the land to the school to use. It also has the children from the local school share memories with the elderly community once a week to produce dramatic re-enactments of their life stories.

We were shown the four patches that had been used previously an so the timer was started and the countdown began.... Time to fork n dig. It was all hands to work as old plants were removed and sods of earth broke down. The three groups changed attend and bonded, we discovered the plans were for the children to plant quick growing veg, beetroot, kale, lettuce, radish, salad leaves etc. They only have until the children broke up for holidays. Aimee became a local as she uttered the Welsh words ‘where too’, Emma spoke about the presentation she was doing and we all talked with happiness about what GoodGym do.

After 30 minutes of hard work and three tasking riddles from Ellen our time was up. We thanked our hosts and ran to meet up with the rest of the group.

A big thank you to both of the task organisers, The Big Moose Coffee Co and St Monica's Primary School for giving us a #ReasonToRun!