What a lovely run! It was hot for the first part as a seemingly endless horde of runners left Vivo Gym to run to the Childrens Scrapstore to sort...er... scrap! We found a great rhythm and were soon in the labyrinthine Scrapstore.

We were given several tasks to do - make toys safe by removing batteries, tags and other stuff, cutting up lengths of rope with a heated knife that smelt quite pungent, cutting up netting and fabric (which looked like a massive old tent!), taking thread from industrial sized cotton reels, and the GoodGym classic of taking water damaged phones out of boxes and sorting them in to their component parts - note that we've been to the Scrapstore around 8-10 times and every time we've had those phones to deal with. Well, they are NO MORE! The last 6 boxes were sorted. Phew!

As always at the Scrapstore, we found a variety of random and unexpected items - this time it was a cage full of shop floor dummy legs! These were used in our group photo at the end, and whilst there was a bit of a faff to get them back in to the warehouse, we warmed up by running up and down on the kerb just outside.

Running back was more pleasant - the heat had abated somewhat and we cooled off in Queens Square with a few exercises for our core, and a lovely lying down stretch sequence. As it had been my birthday the day before, the gang spared no expense and presented me with one of the Scrapstore phones, a tuft of rope and a bit of glitter. It almost brought a tear to my eye...

Massive mchugebig congratulations to Richard for making it to the grand number of 100 runs with GoodGym, and also belated happy birthday to my birthday twin Alex, who was also celebrating the day before!

28 cool and crazy people met up at Vivo Gym for one of our shorter runs last night, including many new faces - welcome new guys!

We ran to a very busy area of central Bristol - Stokes Croft. There we met Sara from Incredible Edible and armed with gloves, trowels and bin bags proceeded to weed a large area of garden that covered the space in between 2 large lanes of traffic.

It was a warm night and the area was very dusty - it got in to our eyes and noses and there was a bit of sneezing going on. It seemed to have special clinging properties! Sara was just lamenting the lack of a broom as there were lots of dust on the ground and bits of plant, and then like magic new girl Natasha conjured up two of them! Amazing!

After a good 30 minutes of hard graft and shuttling a vast amount of weeds to a community compost area just up the road, our work here was done... but the hard work was just beginning. So was the rain...

Gary led about half the group on a very hilly run up to the University grounds. There were steps. Many many steps. Just remember that steps are your friend and will make you fitter when you run up them.

I (Pru) took the other half back to Queens Square where we did some fitness drills to improve our running technique... and you thought you were getting off lightly!

We were having a good stretch when Gary's gang got back so did a few announcements (remember that there's a run on Saturday!), and then Gary's group had a stretch too, and we were done!

An almighty 32 people gathered at Vivo for a run to a local food bank. What a great turnout, including several newbies - welcome to the GoodGym gang!

We set off at a sprightly pace to head to the food bank, which is based at a big yellow storage warehouse, however when we got there, our contact Alan was nowhere to be seen. We called him but got a voice mail message.

Oh no! Back up plan A (litter picking) was not applicable as I didn't have any bin bags or gloves, so we all grabbed a little bit of litter as we ran to make back up plan B happen (circuits around the city). We headed to a large open space at Temple Quay where two teams started to do a bit of shuttle running and lunges... but then Alan called back! And so we ran back to the bank where we met up with him. The fault was mine - I'd underestimated the pace that we were going to run at so we were early. I'm so sorry for all that extra running.

At the food bank we were tasked with sorting donated goods in to various types (canned goods, dried goods, toiletries, etc). Because this was one of those days, the task was completed in double quick time, so it seemed that no sooner had we arrived that we were leaving again, to re-tread some now very familiar routes back to Queens Square where we stretched out and finished our run.

A couple of massive congrats:
Ciara for getting to the food bank
Sion for her 50th run
Paul for his 100th run All the newbies for sticking with us
Everyone else who keeps coming back to GoodGym.

You all rock big time. Come back next week and rock some more!!!

23 up and at em runners met at Vivo on Tuesday to run and basically move a massive mound of manure. A big welcome to Kate and Debs who joined us for their first run, and a bit of a 'keep it up' to Paul for whom this was his 98th run!

The rain threatened us but held off as we headed up the lovely but busy Bristol to Bath Path, a cunning hill disguised as a bit of flat, and ended up at Easton Community Gardens where the pile of poo awaited us, as well as some weeding and some grass sheering too. The question that Christina, our contact that the Garden, had on her lips was... could we shift all that... er.. guano in time?

The gang set to the task knowing we'd be running off again very soon, and grabbed spades, forks, wheelbarrows and kneeling pads for the weeding.

The weeders and the shearers seemed to get a bit addicted to their tasks - just one more weed, just time to snip a few more blades of grass but all too soon the time to run back was upon us... Had the massive mound of muck been moved, had we dealt with the dung?

YES!!!!

A cracking job from the wheelbarrow team saw the squishy horse apples safely stowed in compost bins. HURRAH! Christina was thrilled!

We headed back down the path and regrouped in Queens Square for a lovely long stretch and chat about forthcoming runs - The Chew Valley 10k, the New Forest 10 (miles!) and the Bristol Half. I'll send out links for all of these runs in my weekly email so that people who were not on the run can also see what we're planning.

TOP WORK TEAM!