Tuesday come good deeds be done, by loads of runners and then more some! This evening 30 runners came to help us take on unscheduled tasks litter picking and delivering flyers for Helpful Peeps in Lawrence Hill. Welcome back to all those faces we've seen before and a a massive hello to new runner Anna.

Our task to help Incredible Edible this evening was cancelled due to our host Hannah being ill (get well soon smiley lady!) so we put our legs and hands to good use helping elsewhere in the city. After meeting up at Vivo and warming up we split into two groups, one to litter pick around the Lawrence Hill roundabout and the other to deliver flyers for helpful peeps just down the road.

I led the litter lot followed Clo Slee by my reliable back marker. Paul led the leafleteers with excellent back marking from Alex. On arrival at the roundabout it was obvious to my group that we had arrived not a minute too soon. The whole place was litter-ally strewn with rubbish, so it was time to stop the trash talking and start picking our battles. The whole group went right to work grab and bagged as much as they could to brighten the area up. There were more Baggins than you would find in Bilbo's family tree. The best find of the day was most certainly a mug with a princess cat on it. Truly a treasure to behold. After around 30 minutes on the task we had filled 21 bags of rubbish. Not bad for an evenings work at all.

Meanwhile team flyer were going the distance to post as many leaflets for Helpful Peeps as they can. Promoting the great work their website does to promote a community where people share their time, skills and knowledge to help each other for free. They covered a large area and hopefully drummed up lots more support for such a giving community.

On the way back my group had a couple of relay races in Castle Park and Queen Square including a game of "Don't squat 'til you you get enough". My favourite moments being Lindsey's celebratory scaling of the steps despite running a longer route than required for her lap, and the strong performance by Liam and his team to win both races. As we were finishing up the other group arrived and put in lap of the square with a sprint leg. We then congregated for a stretch and sign off.

Thanks to everyone who came along, we really made a big difference tonight by cleaning up so much trash and hopefully uniting random strangers to help each other.

See you lot again soon!

As Yazz once said "the only way is up" and that was certainly the case tonight. 22 spring legged runners met to tackle the hills of Redland to deliver leaflets for Above and Beyond promoting their Christmas parties and Bristol to Paris Bike ride.

We met at Vivo and warmed up with some leg spinning and introductions before breaking into two groups with Dave and Alice leading the front and myself and Clo the rear. Jacob Wells Road provided the main challenge with it's slow curving gradient rising like a genetically manipulated cobra uncoiling upwards to protect itself from the immanent danger of a oncoming gigantic mongoose wading through across the river towards it.

We reached the Godfather's car that was parked nearby and picked up the leaflets we were to deliver. These were distributed between the runners and then we took our two teams of 12 to separate parts of the area, Team Godfather to the West and Team Gazebo to the East. As if the hills were not enough most of the house in the area had steep steps too so the climbing just kept on coming. But this did not deter our hardy runners in red and they stepped up to the challenge and they certainly delivered a fantastic performance as every single leaflet was posted with time to spare.

They way back to Vivo was a breeze as it was all downhill. We met up in Queen Square where Dave's group arrived a little earlier so performed 3 types of lunge before my group came to meet them and stretch out.

Thanks for coming along everyone, I think that must have been a record for the number of leaflets delivered in on GoodGym but not having counted them we have no idea, but as we said let's just say it was one more than our last record hey.

See y'all again soon.

Those runners were as fast as lightning! In fact it was really exciting, and we gardened with expert timing!

On a lovely bright Saturday, 11 runners met up at The Greenway Centre in Southmead to run to Southmead Hospital where we helped to make the neuropsychiatric ward's courtyard garden a little more inviting for the patients there. Some of the GoodGym people drove there (like me!). One cycled (after doing Park Run!), one caught the bus, and the others decided to run there instead, covering some serious ground and the relentless hill which is Gloucester Road! Serious kudos to those folk!

It was that undecided weather - did it want to be cold or warm? Was it a run to wear a coat or not? We certainly warmed up well as we ran through a nature reserve called Badocks Wood, replete with smell of wild garlic and the sight of spring bluebells (and a chap picking up litter - I almost stopped to help!). We left the wood and took back streets almost all the way to the hospital, and then wound our way up the hill through the maze of the Bristol Brain Unit and the Bristol Speech and Language Therapy Center, passed the delivery ward and ending up at the Rose Burden Center where we met with Penny and Rhona who both work there.

The garden was very overgrown with bamboo, to the point where some of the patients could only see that and nothing else of the garden, so armed with gloves, a variety of chopping implements, and the usual GoodGym enthusiasm, we attacked the overblown baneful bamboo with bamb-oomph! It was a fiddly task to get the overgrown grass in to bags, so a bright spark came up with the idea of tying it in to bundles instead, which worked really well.

Our gusto was aided by a lovely selection of biscuits, jelly beans and squash, which made the whole experience very civilized, and everyone agreed that they'd more than happily return another time, especially if there were more snacks on hand!

Due to the scale of our task, we spent quite a while there, and probably could have spent much longer, but after a good hour of hard labour, we cleaned up and ran off, leaving some very happy ward managers behind us.

It was a really lovely task and made a great change to be away from the city centre for once - hopefully the start location worked well for all concerned as we'll certainly come back to the hospital if they'll have us back! Great job, gang!

First - massive props to Charlie for coming up with the name of the run tonight.

Second - massive apologies because it's wrong!!!

Here's what went down:

40 (not 39) amazing souls met up at Vivo gym to go for a lovely run to help clear some space at a garden which will become allotments for the community. I counted 39 but then someone else must have slipped in, or I just cannot count any higher than 39 because I've not needed to apart from once before.

Why so many people? Well we had absolutely perfect weather for running - a slight chill in the air to keep you from overheating, a beautiful clear sky with no hint of rain at all, the clocks have changed so we had daylight all the way through the run. All of these elements combined to make the ideal run, but for one slight fly in the ointment; our contact was not at the run location! EEK!

We were lucky that there was a gardener there, a chap called Ian but who I called Tim for over half an hour (sorry Ian). He sorted us out with tasks and tools, and we stuck in.

There was a lot to do so it was handy that we had so many people to chip in. There was a massive amount of ground to clear with only a few tools to do it with, so most people were on their hands and knees weeding away. We also had people taming blackberries, picking up the large amount of litter that was in the garden, and others were tidying up after the weeders. All in all, we got a heck of a lot done in a very short time.

After 30 minutes of intensive gardening, we ran away and headed to the Bear Pit where the massive running horde split in to two mini-hordes, or hordlets, if you will. One bunch did one legged lunges off the low wall, and the other ran up and around the Bear Pit (which is effectively the middle of a roundabout made presentable with the beginnings of a garden and various benches and stuff. There were no bears though). Then they switched, and repeated the drill, then all posed beautifully for a group photo, and we were almost done.

All that remained was to head back to Vivo and stretch, and of course give ourselves a hearty pat on the back for a job well done.

Will we get 40 people again? I really hope so, but perhaps later in the year when the weather is EVEN better, we could get a few more? YOU can make it happen!