Brace your elfs

Dr Who's up for a challenge ?

On our final GG task of the year we rounded off 2018 with a toasty task.

11 runners arrived at Byron road homeless hostel to cook up a feast. Welcome and thank you to Belinda, Michelle and Romeo, Barbara, Anne, Ros, Paul, Tamsin, Emily, Sue and Gill for your time and your energy tonight.

Last week was a great rehearsal for how to improve this weeks experience so tonight the task was divided into 2 choices to accomodate the delightfully larger numbers. The group chose between cooking cheesy cottage pie or planting bulbs in our GG seafront bed number 41.

Gill had very kindly enabled one of the tasks by picking up the spring bulb selection from the town centre office earlier in the day. Thank you !

Kudos coming your way to all of you who adopted the festive hat theme. Check out the photos to see Barbara who wins top outfit of the evening , being the most festively organised with her christmas cards together with the top dating advice of the evening to Tamsin ( Ooooh Matron ! )

Need Light bulbs for planting

Armed with light tools, bulbs and head lights Sue, Belinda, Michelle and Romeo and Ros headed off on the short run along the prom to our flowerbed that we have committed to keeping looking amazing for 2019. A selection of bulbs were swiftly planted and in no time at all the team were back at the hostel.

Smashing time cooking

Meanwhile back in the kitchen the 'ready steady cook' team were at full power. Potatoes, carrots, peppers and onions were chopped , mince fried before all the ingredients were combined by chief stirrer Tamsin.

With the cheese grated and now topping the gourmet home made mash we finally worked out how to use the oven and loaded the masterchef(s) creation into the oven before heading off for our festive fun and fitness session.

Advent(urous) team conquer Christmas pyramid

After a short run to the pier we settled on a sheltered seafront (?) spot for our 12 days of Christmas fitness pyramid. Everyone chose an exercise, Paul was chief chorister and off we went .

In reality this proved slightly more energetic than the team realised .Combined with the wet ground and cold, it meant that keeping the teams spirits and hands warm was challenging . With hindsight gloves and an alcohol shot may have been a good idea!

Heres the playing order !

1 Star Jump ( Ros) 2 Squats ( Barbara) 3 Planks ( Michelle) 4 Press ups ( Tamsin ) 5 Burpees ( Julia ) 6 Mountain climbers ( Michelle) 7 Bicep curls ( Thank goodness for Belinda! ) 8 Tricep Dips ( Sue) 9 Inchworms ( Paul ) 10 High knee runs ( Anne) 11 Lunges ( Julia - representing Gill ) 12 Christmas Stars ( Smiley Ros)

Finishing with 12 Christmas stars and having maximised the burpees the team peeled off with Paul, Tamsin , Emily , Anne and I heading back to rescue the cottage pie out of the oven to serve to the residents.

With a slightly fragmented task I didn't remember get a team photo so have decided to use a team one from a different night for our feature photo.

With many thanks for some fantastic experiences and memories both energetic and social during 2018 heres to an even brighter and burpee filled 2019

Wishing you all a happy and peaceful Christmas and hope to see lots of you at The Christmas Day parkrun

Julia X