It was another big group attendance tonight as our Bristol runners spread out across Bedminster to fix up some green spaces. Welcome to the new faces that joined us tonight - it was great to see you Anna, Beth, Cristina, Aga and Abigail! Also good to see some new but returning faces - good luck for the big one this weekend Stu!

Thanks to Charlie, who led the first group to Cherry Tree Garden. There, they were met by Julia who explained to them the momentous task of weeding and clearing nettles ahead of the bulb-planting they are planning in the future. After a slight delay followed by being rescued by the henceforth-named Glove Superman, Darren, the group were ready to enthusiastically set to work. Apparently, Chris decided to get in a fight with a Sycamore (as you do on a Tuesday night with GoodGym), while the rest of the group picked on something their size... Or at least, a whole lot of nettles slightly closer to their own size.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group met Laura from Bedminster Patchwork. They manage 12 patches of land across Bedminster, which they work on to make beautiful spaces for the local community. GoodGym had previously worked on this particular patch a couple of times and it is coming on leaps and bounds. The group set to work weeding and planting across the ground. Despite hitting a spider nest and finding surely the entire population of Bristol's hairy caterpillars, the group did a stellar job of making the patch weedless and freshly planted ready for summer. What a great job all round. Thank you to your brilliant back-marking Maria, which got us past all the envy-inducing pint-holding locals sipping in the evening sun, until we could get back for our own well-deserved pints.

Overall, a Tuesday night well spent, and Bedminster looking all the better for our green-fingered GoodGymers!

On this sunny eve in May, the GoodGymers of Bristol were once again on the hunt to help.

AU, get up that golden hill*

*science pun

A small group of adventurous volunteering-warriors were led by Paul (who thought he had got away from all this Run Leading malarky) on a 7.5km run (on a Tuesday!) up the quad-complaining hill to Golden Hill Community Allotments.

There, Pete from Golden Hill introduced them to their task: clearing a hefty pile of stuff from an area of the allotment, ready for a polytunnel to be built there in the future. As our hunters love to help in any way they can, they whipped up the area into order in no time, and set on their merry way on the quad-thanking downhill home.

Can you believe the amount of tins?

This left a larger group of help-hunters prowling central Bristol to find a good cause to get stuck into. Although it took three different routes of different lengths to get there (thank you Liam and Mel for opening my eyes to the many streets of Bristol!), we all eventually made it to the East Bristol Food Bank distribution centre.

Andy from the Foodbank had set up not one, but two, weighing stations, so we could double our speed and joy of using them scales. Amidst tinned-tomato proposals, the group did a brilliant job of sorting food donations, carting crates and emptying boxes to leave Andy's team with a lot of boxes of categorised and weighed food ready for distribution. Well done team!

Just in case everyone's arms had not been pumped up enough on their task, the run home saw us stop for a couple of joyous tricep dip and press up stations and I only got drowned out by complaints for half of that time, win!

It was brilliant to see lots of new faces out with us tonight, you all did a brilliant job and we are looking forward to seeing you again soon!

A brave bunch of souls defied the returning April showers this evening as we ran to Victoria Park to help the Action Group fix up the willow tunnel that GoodGym Bristol helped put up two years ago. It was great to see several new faces in the crowd - we are looking forward to seeing you all again soon!

Fun fact: did you know 'Soy Sauce' means 'I am willow' in Spanish?

After Dave successfully found a bunch of short cuts (including some through the bushes...) to keep the groups neck and neck on the run there, everyone got (literally and figuratively) muddy with a very competitive game of Stuck in the Mud. The Bristol Medical Students almost got a full house of stuck GoodGymers, but the red t-shirts fought back at the very last minute.

Alex from the Victoria Park Action Group taught us about willow's wicked and wonderful ways. The willow keeps growing in all directions so the tunnel requires regular attention to keep it looking great. We were soon set to work weaving, knotting and rebuilding the willow. We even saw Paul showing us his task skills after stepping-down from Bristol Trainer! The group did a great job of fixing it up and even building some windows for the tunnel - I am sure you couldn't even feel the rain through that perfect structure at the end!

Well done to everyone for their great work tonight and thank you for welcoming me as the new Trainer for Bristol - I am looking forward to many (warmer) weeks to come!

Also, some fantastic inputs to Strava puns tonight... putting my newbie pun-attempts to shame (Matt, Darren, I am looking at you)!