No rain tonight so certain people who asked which task was inside needn't have worried after all :)

We had two tasks, one to help out Baggator youth project paint their Pickle Factory and one to help out Full Circle, hosts of the Docklands Youth Project.

The Pickle Factory painters were led by Charlie and were charged firstly with checking on the origin of the name. In fact, in a bizarre and unexpected twist of fate it turns out that the Pickle Factory is so named because it used to be a Pickle Factory. Apparently it still smelled of pickles for some time after the factory closed. Thanks Charlie for confirming this.

The second objective was to get busy sanding and painting at this fantastic local project which offers the local youth all manner of activities ranging from bicycle maintenance through table tennis and even programming workshops run in their lovely theatre space. I'm pleased to report that great progress was made here too, though there is still a little left for a return visit in a couple of weeks time.

The Full Circle five plus four, so called to poorly mirror the alliteration on the previous task but actually inaccurate as the fabulous Emma joined us later, set off to clear their outside courtyard of leaves and brambles so the grass mat could be relaid. We were a little early so we squeezed in some step ups - where someone apparently fell over in an embarassing manner but I can't possibly reveal who - and an unnecessary second flight of steps.

Ann-Marie met us and we were soon at work raking brushing and bagging everything in our way until we had 6 or 7 full bags and a nice clear courtyard. Some of us will return to lay the gravel and mat next week, but Ann-Marie seemed really please with our progress so far!

After a varied pace lap of Queen Square we congratulated the runners at last weekends Kelston 10k and reminded everyone to check on their plans for Bucharest! Finally, a number of us went on to our monthly eats at Bella Vista, brilliantly organised by Clo and featuring a genuine Emma selfie at last.

And the run title? Well, Richard came up with the excellent It'll be all white on the night, but I'm pretty sure its been used. So I've gone with Caroline's lovely tongue twister instead - just because it made me smile.

Another fantastic turn out tonight as 30 of us set out on a fairly short run over to Dame Emily Park in Bedminster.

The park is cared for by the Dame Emily Park Project (DEPP), a small group of volunteers who work hard to keep the space tidy and the equipment maintained as well as hosting events for the local community.

On arrival at the park we were met by Ursula and Sarah who split us into groups and set about equipping us all with litter pickers and rubbish bags. We were then all assigned different zones of the park and tasked with clearing away all the litter we could find.

With October fast approaching the early evening light is starting to fade fairly quickly and the simple task of navigating around the park was made somewhat more challenging as a result. It was nice to see a few head torches appear and with a couple of our new lights in play we managed to carry on a little longer and finish our task.

Apparently the park had had unexpectedly been cleared early that morning so we were expecting that maybe there wouldn't be too much to do, but Goodgym runners have a real knack for finding litter so it was no surprise to finish up with over 10 full bags of rubbish by the end of our session. Amazing work everyone - DEPP really appreciated all our efforts. It was nice to have some of the skaters in the park helping out too.

Another short run and we found ourselves back at Queen Square with a lttle time to spare so we finished off with a trio of running trains heading around the perimeter. The bursts of speed required to move to the front are a good form of interval train-ing (get it?).

Finally we presented a set of red shoelaces to Kerry for brining along here sister Megan on Saturday and we promised a similar award to Abigail next time for bringing along Sophie tonight.

A very warm welcome to our new runners, Kate and Hollie. Hope you had fun!

It was a Tuesday the like of which the streets of Bristol had never seen before. Due to this being my final group run leading the troops a call was put out to the runners in red to dress in a fancy fashion with random being the theme. A disappoint they did not. There were penguins, unicorns, caped-crusaders, police dogs and so many more eye-catching outfits. It was more random than hitting the infinite improbability drive while sitting atop a dice being rolled through the National Lottery machine Guinevere into a black hole.

The task faced by our motley crew of running do-gooders this evening was to help weigh and sort food donated by supermarkets to the East Bristol Foodbank. Once all our lively characters were suited and booted and more warmed up than a freshly baked potato wearing a new jumper knitted by her nan in front of log fire, we took to the streets. The first group was led by me and back marked by the ever assistant Pink Panther. The rubbish rear group, so named due to it's leader the Godfather's bin bag attire, was back marked by Matterhorn.

The rain came but drowned not one once of joy as we paced through the 1.5 miles to meet Andy at the storage yard to get to work. On arrival I was surprised that Super Bearded Irish Clo and Box Donkey Rich had setup at little photo gallery of some of my best photos from group runs. You guys are the best! Andy explained our task and we set to work. A long line was established to collect a crate, weigh it, and then separate its contents into types of foodstuff. It was slow to start but once everyone started getting the hang of where the donations went we really got the can do attitude.

After 30 minutes of lifting, shifting, weighing, and sorting we had gone through most of the contents of room to be sorted. Alas we did not have enough time to finsih the lot but we did make a really big dent in it. Like imagine if there was a shipping container that got punched by a yeti wearing a solid gold boxing glove and was catapulted into it using a medieval trebuchet, yeah that kind of big dent.

After we finished we were thanked by Andy and we headed off into the rain. We sailed through the 1.5mile run back and stretched in Queen Square before I said my final goodbye and handed over to Paul who will be leading the group going forward. Thank you all so much for your non-stop enthusiasm and helpfulness, you are an absolute inspiration. Thanks for my the personalised buff, unicorn cake and lovely card. Keep up the greatness while I'm away, I will be back to check on you...

BYE!!!!

A Message from Us to you Gary:

125/365 Gary, #GGBristol run leader extrordinaire and master of puns is leaving us to go on an epic adventure. So we sent him on his way in the only way we know how, fancy dress and cake. Have a bloody amazing time @gazebo1984! 🌎👋 🚵😎 #GoodGym #365project

A post shared by Alice Whale (@alicethewhale) on Sep 12, 2017 at 12:50pm PDT

A double whammy tonight as both our task and run leader had to be substituted at the very last minute.

Our trainer Gary was unwell so he was unable to join us for his penultimate Bristol run. (There were some rumours that he just needed the extra time to put the finishing touches to his fancy dress costume for his farewell session next week).

Not only that, but our original task had been canceled! Fortunately, the emergency red GG Bristol phone had rung just hours earlier with an urgent request for help down at the Malago Greenway Berry Maze. The project (which we visited just last weekend) had run into difficulties after ploughing had revealed a veritable mine field of rubble that was sure to take out the rotivator when it arrived later in the week and put paid to the Mock A Maze day planned this Saturday.

Naturally we jumped at the chance to help out - our members love nothing more than to help a project in need - so we headed out along the Malago Greenway and got stuck in moving as many rocks as possible out of the soil and into a pile. Meanwhile Tom, Ian, Alex, Andrew and Richard were on wheelbarrow and refuse sack duty moving the pile into a location for collection by a skip.

Everyone worked hard collecting up rubble and rubbish. As is often the case we made some interesting discoveries - a shoe, an old orangina bottle and indeed it appeared that on this occasion that we had discovered an ancient car burial site as first Liam uncovered a tyre and then Rachel located a steering wheel in amongst all the dirt.

By the time we were due to leave we had uncovered most of the rocks so Mock a Maze should be able to go ahead!

Thanks everyone for adapting so willingly to the changed plan. Raluca was really grateful for our help and this was one of those occasions when it's difficult to see who else could have done all that manual labour at such short notice. You all rock!

Our work finished, we returned to base and then headed off to our monthly eats. A really great turnout at the meal tonight (as you can see on the selfie!) - lovely to have you all along both at the task and at the restaurant afterwards!

Thanks to Dave for leading the second group and to my back markers Alex and Clo. Thanks also to Caroline, Richard and Jack for the glove run!

Welcome also to new runners Emma and Richard

Don't forget it's (optional) fancy dress next week for Gary's last run. No theme, the more random the better!