Bearpit and Broomsticks

Rain. Mostly it’s stayed away for Good Gym runs, with the weather gods smiling down on our hard work to stay fit and help the community. Would it stay away for this run? It seemed unlikely given the torrential busts of precipitation we’d been experiencing in Bristol.

11 fab Good Gymers ran the risk and headed off from the unlikely location of Pru’s car, but not before celebrating our first black t-shirt wearer – Kim Dowsett! 60 good deeds and counting.

Our run was probably our shortest yet – 1km. But it didn’t have to be easy so we headed up hill to get our hearts racing, then ran down past the BRI, ending up in the Bearpit where we met up with Chris, one of the chieftains of the Peoples Republic of Stokes Croft. He explained our task, to brush up a lot of left over sand from recent building works, issued us with brooms and we set to it with usual Good Gym vigour.

It was a really interesting task as we were in a prime thoroughfare for pedestrians and several times passers by asked who we were and what we were doing; hopefully they’ll join us soon!

As our sweeping came to an end, we started to experiment with different methods to use a broom for exercise – overhead brush squats, broom-bunny hops, and of course the mighty limbo was tried. El came up with an un'bear'ably good pun, and the group gathered around to listen to Chris of Stokes Croft explain how they are developing a community space, and have loads of great ideas… but we didn’t get to hear the ideas as it started to rain!

Expecting another massive downpour, we pelted away at high speed, back up past the hospital and further and further up hill towards the Triangle. Luckily the rain held off – perhaps the weather gods had seen Kim’s black t-shirt and didn’t want to get it wet! So we headed in to Berkley Square and skirted Brandon Hill, finishing back at the car with a good stretch and hearty congratulations. Thanks, weather gods…