A visit to Norwich Foodbank is always a very rewarding task and for this we had a whopping 36 GoodGymers come out to attend... in the rain yet again!

A big welcome to 3 new runners in Esther, Jess and Andrew, I hope you all enjoyed your 1st GoodGym experience :-)

A thank you to Bill and Elizabeth for being back runners.

After a warm-up that included (everyone's favourite) Bear Crawls, we set out on the soggy 3km outward journey. As there were so many of us (and you all know how much I love Health & Safety...) I put everyone in pairs so that one person can be in the warehouse while the other does a running loop, then they swap over. So as well as doing good, everyone got to run a little further than they expected to ;-)

Keith, the warehouse manager, had a mixture of things for us to do, which included: date sorting tins of beans, sorting out 2020 food items, weighing crates of new items, sorting Xmas items, sorting nappies, preparing Xmas boxes, sorting coffee/tea/hot chocolate items as well as some other jobs.

After 40 minutes of doing these tasks and running in between, we set off on our way back.

Helping with Norwich Foodbank for Christmas hampers

If you'd like to help the foodbank with their donations for the Xmas boxes, they're in need of the following items:

• Tins/cartons of tomatoes
• Tinned vegetables
• Long-life fruit juice
• UHT Milk
• Pasta sauce
• Rice pudding/custard
• Instant mash
• Tinned fruit
• Tea
• Tinned meat
• Tinned fish
• Christmas treats - chocolate/sweets/crisps etc

If you bring them along to Goodgym on a Monday night, we'll collate any items together and make sure they get to the foodbank. If you can do this by the end of November this will help with distribution in time for Christmas!

Reminder of the following:

Parkour Social Jump is this Wednesday.

GoodGym Norwich Xmas Meal is on Wednesday 11th December.

If you want to join the Secret Santa you need to sign up by lunchtime today!

Next week's Group Run is a Games Night @ The Hamlet Adult's Centre.

We had a visitor at the start of the evening tonight as Liz from NUA gave a little talk about a project in Winterton we might be able to get involved in as a Community Mission one weekend. If you have any questions about that please me know.

A slightly different set up tonight as myself and Katy have got to rest injuries so I led the run on my bicycle and Katy led the walking group. Bill and Andy shared back runner duties.

We welcomed Kathryn on her 1st GoodGym experience this evening.

Sarah and Dave Thomson have now completed 25 good deeds, fantastic effort both of you!

Tonight's run/walk (or in my case cycle) was about 1.5km each-way as we visited Silver Road Community Centre to do some weeding that had grown during the summer.

As there was a lot of us I paired everyone up and set a little relay challenge where one person would run while the other does some weeding and then they change over one the runner gets back. It avoided me having to add a fitness session in at the end ;-)

There was a slight shortage on the glove front. I know you've been intrigued as to what the pun refers to... well know you can work it out.

There were a lot of weeds but the 30+ GoodGymers pulled up the whole lot and it looked fantastic afterwards... despite me forgetting to take before and after photos.

There's a social event this Friday. For Darren's birthday there will be drinks at 8pm at The Rumsey Wells.

Next week we're visiting The Hamlet Children's Centre.

Tonight's task saw us go to Marriott's Way to do a litter pick and there were 32 of us in the process!

Angela, Gemma & Angelika were taking part in their 1st GoodGym encounters so a big welcome to you all :-)

Rich was taking part in his 25th good deed!

Elizabeth & Andy shared back runner duties.

It was a short 1km each-way run tonight and everyone decided to run so no-one walked this week.

Adrian met us at the start of Train Wood and gave us the litter pickers, bin bags and gloves. He then told us the areas that needed covering and we assembled in groups and hit the litter (not literally).

Due to the weather this summer a lot of areas have over grown so were unreachable but this didn't stop the team getting plenty of rubbish including a chair and a wheelbarrow! Credit to Darren for the pun - unless you say it in a Norfolk accent it might not make sense!

The group were delighted to avoid running up Grapes Hill on the way back, once my calf injury is better we'll make up for lost time ;-)

I'm now away for 2 weeks so Katy will be at the helm - please support her on the next 2 group runs, which starts next week when you visit Catton Park to do path repairs.

Another week of warm, sunny weather and another great turnout.

We had 4 new GoodGymers so a big welcome to Jonathan, Raffaella, Jennifer and Kevin.*

Elliot was completing his 25th good deed!

Andy and Helen shared back runner duties with the latter also being responsible for photography.

Darren was walk leader.

Tonight we were visiting the lovely Waterloo Park and were greeted by Jean and her great team of volunteers who look after the gardens there. I was sure to remind people to say "Hi Jean" on arrival... if only there was a Vera to say "Aloe" to and a Primrose to say "Evening" to as well.

We had a Community Mission here several weeks back and it's great to see the flower bed that we cleared has now been planted with lovely flowers and plants. It's not that often we get the chance to see the final outcome of our hard work.

There were plenty more flower beds that we had the task of clearing out this evening so the team assembled with tools (we had a whole array of them to pick from) and went off to get stuck in. There was also a group edging the existing flower beds and some others weeding them.

By the end of the evening we had cleared the the remaining overgrown flower beds, once they have been planted the gardens will look phenomenal. It has a real community feel about it and some of the local children are growing sunflowers in one of the other flower beds.

I look forward to going to have a look later in the summer to see how pretty it is.

Next week we're doing a litter pick on Marriott's Way.

We had a whopping 5 new GoodGymers this week so a massive welcome to Rosie, Emma M, Michaela, Emma W and Rute.

Darren was completing his 50th good deed this evening, well done big man aka our regular pun connoisseur.

Catherine was backrunner and Robert walk leader - thanks for volunteering to do these duties.

This evening we were heading to The Feed on Prince of Wales Road, a short 1km trip but rumours were flying around that there would be Gas Hill later in the evening ;-)

Lucy met us at The Feed and had a box of flyers for us to hand out to local businesses and residents, to help promote their cafe. We group split into 6 groups of 5 then went off in different directions to get as many delivered as they could, which they did a sterling job.

Probably at some point they were all thinking "what exactly was Hitch doing while we were posting flyers? Was he sitting with his feet up having a cuppa? Was he taking stupid selfies in the mirror in his sexy leggings? Hmm". The truth of the matter was That's Norfolk TV were filming us so I did an interview with them discussing how GoodGym is the best thing since sliced bread and that everyone needs to get involved.

Being the kind trainer that I am I also got the group out of running up Gas Hill so that they could be filmed during a fitness session at The Forum. On paper this sounds like a win win situation... until they found out what the fitness session involved.

Could it be make or break for the new runners? It was a risk I was going to take and I did emphasise that I'm giving them abs, to try and take the pain away. So yes this meant one thing, the 4-minute ab-hold tabata workout was upon us. During this 4 minutes of sheer hell (I can't think of a better way to describe it) I granted permission for anyone to curse me as much as they wanted to haha.

It will be interesting to see how that comes out on TV!

Afterwards, a good group of us finished the evening at the pub to wind down.

Next week we're visiting Oxfam.

31 amazing GoodGymers ran over 11km to have a board games night with residents of Redmayne View Care Home.

Jamie was on his 1st GoodGym encounter - what a distance to start on!

Thank you to Bill and Elizabeth for being back runners.

Well done to Neil and Millie for doing their 10th GoodGym good deeds.

On arrival the residents were spread across a few tables with various board games set out including: Buckaroo, Connect4, Kerplunk, Pull My Finger (don't ask haha) and various others.

Michelle cottoned on to Peeing Pup and subsequently started giving facials to everyone, she even got some in my eye.

When I asked Ivy if she wanted to pull my actual finger the told me off for being rude haha. She was also very competitive as when she lost at Buckaroo she threw the pieces across the table in sheer disappointment!

Stephen was in his element when one of the residents let him take her mobility scooter for a spin across the hall way - one thing ticked off his bucket list!

We had about 45 minutes there and we finished up with some soup and a roll. We couldn't stomach the cake so Bill, Robert and Hayley had the task of trying to carry them over 5.5km back to The Forum in one piece.

Next week we're packing fundraising hampers for Break Charity.

There was a plank involved and there was a 69 involved... so you better read this whole run report to see what on earth I'm talking about!

We started off by giving Frances a big welcome on her 1st GoodGym outing.

Several of tonight's GoodGymers completed the Valentine's 10km yesterday so we had a catch up on that with some achieving PB's - AMAZING!

Tonight's task was to visit Hayden Court Sheltered Housing Scheme to clean resident's cooker hoods and ovens as well as communal areas. This is the point you're probably getting a little disturbed at the thought of 69 coming into the equation?

We only has 1 mile each-way to do this evening, when we arrived, one of the residents, Joyce greeted us and had a list of the flat numbers that needed cleaning. We did groups of 4 for the 5 flats and then the rest targeted the communal areas.

It was a bit like an auction, I said the flat number and then those who wanted it put their hands up. 103, 79, 69, 59... so yes one of the flat numbers was 69, there were no inappropriate positions (apart from the plank).

Each group finished at different times and we regrouped in the communal lounge when finished. After the 1st 2-3 group had finished we did a plank challenge with the prize being the final chocolate brownie and the accolade when to Liz K for destroying the rest of us.

We then got the New Age Kurling set for a quick few games, with the Emerson sisters kurling one out against each other.

After all of that entertainment we headed back via Chapelfield Gardens for a quick sprint session before several of us embarked on a trip to the pub for some grub.

Next week is a longer run as we are visiting Redmayne View for a board games night with some soup. For anyone not wanting to run the whole distance you could meet us at the North Walsham Road roundabout on the ring road at 7pm.

We hit a new GoodGym Norwich turnout of 40 this evening!

1st Group Run of 2019 and what a start.

Lizzy J was completing her 10th good deed, Michelle was completing her 50th good deed and Catherine completed her 100th good deed last week when she visited her Coach - unbelievable achievement ladies.

6 new amazing runners joined us tonight in John, Angela, Sophie, Amy, Sarah and Oli.

Catherine was back runner and Sandra walk-leader.

A painting job was on the cards at Adat Yeshua, which is creating a new kitchen and food bank with one of their spare rooms.

Myself and the task owner weren't expecting so many people so on arrival I decided to split the group in 2. Half would paint while the other half had a fitness session and then they swapped over after 20 minutes. This could be a new tactic with so many people wanting to do good in Norwich.

For the fitness session we went over to Jenny Lind Park and it was split into Interval Pacing, Tag, Shuttle Relay and a Short Effort. It was good job we did this as the guys painting were smashing through and there was no way we'd fit 40 people in that room.

Sandra worked out what GoodGym is in Hebrew - check out the photo.

After both groups had a go at painting and completed a fitness session, we got together for a group photo and then headed to Chapelfield Gardens on the way back for a quick sprint session to top off a good all round running evening.

It was finished off with a good stretch at base and one of Darren's brownies to celebrate his successful London Marathon entry through the GoodGym ballot.

Remember we have a Group Run this Saturday as well as Monday - see details of all runs here.