DOING GOOD

What a wonderful task last night, supporting Broadway Baptist Church with a garden tidy-up. It was one of those great tasks where there is a clear before & after & our labour felt really useful. Not to mention Nick from the church, who was delighted by our help & enthusiastically joined in... or rather jumped in as evidenced in the photos!

Broadway Baptist Church is having a garden revamp over the next couple of weeks & we came in early to help with some of the labour intensive work to keep costs low & get the job done a little quicker. One of the bigger tasks was clearing the ivy from the back fence in the garden which had grown quite unruly, as well as sweeping, collecting & bagging leaves from a small play area in the grounds.

Split into team Poison Ivy & team Leaf' it alone! (one is clearly cooler than the other here) & armed with secateurs, brooms & a snow shovel, we set to work!

The play area was cleared in no time at all, binning the leaves (pushed down by Nick!) & was our first transformation of the evening. Next was the fence, which with all GG'ers now keenly on team Poison Ivy, soon became ivy-free - almost - & looked as good as new by the end of our task.... We'll be back for those pesky few pieces!

With smiles all round, it was clear that sweeping leaves & snipping & pulling ivy was a surprisingly theraputic job. Especially when teamed with good conversation & even good'er people!

The Stats

• 7 hours 30 minutes of collective volunteering, saving the church a full day labour!
• 1 ton bag (size, not weight) of ivy removed from the fence
• 1 brown bin of leaves cleared from the play area

WHILST GETTING FIT

What also made this a lovely task was the shorter run!

At GG Derby, we're used to running further afield to carry out our good deeds & having just a 2km (cue some eye rolls!) jaunt each way was met with much enthusiasm by all. An uphill run to the task warmed us up ready for 45 minutes of volunteering & then we enjoyed a downhill glide back to base... blissful!

The resistance bands made an appearance for our warm up yesterday, getting our hip muscles & glutes nicely activated ready for our run & task. Be prepared, now they've been found, they'll become a regular fixture. Feel the burn!

THANK YOUS

Massive thanks & welcome to Ellen who joined us for the first time last night; it was lovely to meet you & we hope to see you again soon!

Thank you to our wonderful backmarker Tracey & a BIG thanks to each & every one of you for attending, smiling through the bramble scratches & making GG Derby awesome. Go team!

UP NEXT

Next week we're on another treasure hunt back on Cycle Route 6, keeping our saddle savvy pals safe! If you're keen to help out at Broadway Baptist Church & tackle some more Ivy (it's creeping onto the building as well!) we're back on the 18th Feb, so get signed up.

Big Loves

DOING GOOD

Another fabulous group run to the Age UK Centre on Chad Park this week; 11 GG'ers braving the cold to do good & get fit, just how we like it. And no visit to the centre is complete without a mini Box-Sticks taster to warm us up. Once again, we found this exercise class in equal measures hilarious, cringe-worthy & down-right good fun as we smashed our sticks together & jived to the tunes!

After supporting the Age UK centre with their lunch club very recently on our Sunday special group run, we were excited to head back on a Tuesday evening & give the garden a tidy-up. We were tasked with neatening the place to make it look even better for the centre's busy events schedule; we moved sandbags, swept away leaves & weeded the flower borders. As always, one man enjoyed a brew & took a break from the graft.

And a smashing job done, even if we do say so ourselves! Luckily, other people think so too; the lovely Diane from the centre has said that the staff & volunteers there are so pleased with GG's hard work, that they've officially adopted us as their helpers!

As well as a task well done & some fun enjoyed at the music-boxing-inspired exercise class, there were some interesting conversations floating around this week... from how dust is really just dead skin cells (gross), that Buddleias originate from Nepal & were brought to Europe by explorers & the dangers of damn crew socks. All normal, Tuesday GG chat. There's always something to learn & something to share at GoodGym Derby... but mostly just dust AKA dead skin cells. Hehe.

WHILST GETTING FIT

A pleasant 7km total run for each GoodGymer, meaning that we covered a combined distance of 77km last night, which goes straight towards the January Challenge miles, where GoodGym as a whole is hoping to hit a whopping 100,000km by the end of the month! Move over January blues! Psst... Remember that your training runs also count towards this too, so let's keep up the great work & keep connecting to Strava.

If only Derby got points in the Challenge for enthusiasm, we'd be up in the top spot based on the efforts at last nights Box-Sticks class. Grins all round (minus the odd traumatized expression), with Emma bouncing around like a kangeroo & Danny's "riding a horse" impression. Stella work GG Derby!

COMING UP NEXT

Next week we're on a treasure hunt (litter-pick) around the Markeaton Parkrun route. And if you'd like more of the Age UK gang, we're supporting their February lunch club as a community mission next month... we're coming baaacccckkk!

THANK YOUS

Big thanks to Ashley for backmarking last night, who arrived very sleepy & left looking much brighter, the power of running! And thanks to all of you for being such lovely, helpful human beings - you da best!

Let's finish with a classic from yesterday....

"Your sex is on fiiirrrreeee"

Big Loves x

DOING GOOD

Tuesday the 14th of January, a day that will go down in GG Derby history for a few reasons;

1. Torrential rain. The heaviest we've seen on a group run. Meaning that from head to toe we were drenched & wading through ankle deep torrents of water within minutes... possibly the River Derwent?
2. Many incidents of stitch. Muffins pre-run are now a tried & tested no-no. Thanks for the research Lauren.
3. Our first GG fall... or in this case, more of a splat. The good news, Katherine is okay.
4. My phone & watched both drowned in the said rain (see point 1.) My excuse for the lack of photos & the lack of miles on Strava.

Tuesday the 14th of January, a day that tried to dampen - literally - our spirits. But it didn't succeed. We found laughter in the squelchy trainers, courage in our fall (splat) & good-deediness for the local community even with muffin-stitch.

250 leaflets delivered across the Allestree area in our usual GG fashion of teams left & right. These flyers may have been a little soggy, but they still slipped into the letterbox of somebody that may need the help of the Samaritans or of a person keen to volunteer for this important charity & make a difference to the local community.

Tuesday the 14th of January, a day that we leveled up in leafleting. We found a useful instrument to assist with flyering tasks from here-forth & avoid the snapping chops of angry canines; the trusty wooden spoon. Thanks Tracey.

WHILST GETTING FIT

Tuesday the 14th of January, a day where our activities on Strava could have been logged as swimming. Or flying in Katherine's case. Luckily, we completed a full body warm-up before hitting the pavements (again, literally in some cases) working through a three-part circuit of supported press-ups, squats & reverse lunges. 30 seconds on each gave our bodies a quick blast of energy (& stitch) & we were off on our good deed mission.

We ran out towards Allestree, began flyering & once all distributed, we headed back towards Kedleston Road & back to base. Nothing exciting, or unusual, or hazardous happened on the run back... especially not on a hill. Nope. Not one thing.

Tuesday the 14th of January... A solid (or soggy) run banked, another good deed done & a day to go down in GG history.

UP NEXT

Next week we're back at the Age UK centre to support them with a garden tidy-up. It won't rain, there won't be any falls & no one will eat muffins before the run. It's going to be wonderfully uneventful :) See you there!

Big Loves