Monday we had seen biblical rain fall in the area, roads flooded, people stuck in miles of traffic for hours. It certainly reminded us that nature is stronger than us!

Tuesday, Its a new day - the sun peeps out, it's warm, it's Goodgym night!

Runners came from all directions tonight! Becky and Esther ran down from Upton House, whilst Patricia and Ali suddenly appeared from local area.

Nicola and Lauren walked up from Oakdale with a plan to run back - giving them opportunity for connection time on route!

Sian tried to hot foot it over the bridge only for big boats to ruin her stride with the bridge up! Jane came equipped with her 'Goodgym Painting Clothes' on her bike!

We all met Stan and Pat, who as ever were equipped for us! Tonight was painting of metal blue benches dotted across the play area. An evening is a perfect time to paint these as only a few kids around and hopefully all dry by the next day's play and sun!

Jane and Esther went off to help Stan with his mission to pull out wood from the bottom of the fences. Sounds easy enough! Well, over the next hour there was a lot of squelchy in the mud, digging up of grass and earth, hammering, leveraging with crow bars, pulling, pushing, talking, pondering and finally a 2 metre board was released! 4 adults, 2 hammers, 1 crow bar, 1 sharp spade and a lot of sweating and squelching- We knew it had to be a complete job!

Meanwhile, 6 other Goodgym runners were on a mission painting benches. The final bench was a team effort and took 4 members, 20 mins to cover all the old rusty bars with fresh metal paint.

It was definitely a good job well done!

Each runner went back to base, either muddy or covering in paint but all happy! Knowing the part we are playing to maintain this fantastic park and beach.

So if you are reading this report - Your final questions are:

What are you doing today to help your future self? At Goodgym, we keep active, we connect as individuals on a shared goal, we do good!

What are you doing today to help your future community? Well I think this report answers that!

Nice work Poole!

It was one of those wobbling starts that grew to become amazing! .

A last minute change of start location was needed as Daveena's cafe had some work being done at the back decking. Thankfully a few calls to Sloop across the way and the landlady had no problem with us using their pub as a base for tonight and thanks to social media the word was out. Thanks to Nicola for heading over to Daveena's to check for anyone who did not have message.

Then at 6pm there was an almighty downpour of rain - Lauren being the first to send that message to check it was all still happening! Absolutely as runners, water really just means putting on a cap or that extra waterproof layer before heading out! Great you can join us again Lauren as its half term for you - lets hope we see more of you in future as you head into a complete lifestyle change over coming months!

6.30p however the Goodgym gods cleared away the rain and we were ready for a warm up in the car park. Balance and coordination drills were included and as always this suddenly shows up a few runners who realise it is harder than you think to balance on one leg or do a hopskotch (the wobble was back!)! So come on ladies and gents - If its you then start practising that flamingo stance when you can. Coordination is one of the 5 components of fitness so if you want that PB, you have to work it!

Well done to Fiona and Jonathan who ran 5km to get to Goodgym tonight - and will also have to run 5km home. Lets hope you beat the downpour of 8.45pm that is heard as this report is written as those halestones would be cold!

It was up our favourite road tonight - North Road! Goodgym Poole takes pride is choosing many tasks that include this road as it is rated as one of the favourites - #truefact.

Richard took up the front with Jonathan on occasions suddenly appearing from the back sprinting up the front to join him.

Onto Livingstone Road and the primary school to meet our task owner and fellow runner Kirsty. Kirsty is the Early Years Leader at the school and has to be given the title of the 'most prepared for a Goodgym task' so far! The caretaker (who sounds like a complete legend for the train he has made for the book reading area - see the photos!) and Kirsty had prepared a number of areas to work on tonight. A quick divide into 4 teams and everyone was ready! Team 1 jumped onto the school bench that was been given 'blackboard' paint to be used for drawing with chalk - great idea. Team 2 tackled varnish on the 2 sheds. Team 3 were on the leaves and sweeping jobs in the play area. Leaving team 4 with a renovation of a shed with grey paint. The task was so well organised already - paint and varnish and paintbrushes set up for each area enough for everyone to use. So we really could just get on with the task in hand.

We should mention our extra visitor tonight as well - Sian - A media student from Bournemouth Uni and daughter of one of our regulars, Sarah. Sian came along to interview a few Goodgym Goer's to hear what it was all about and do a feature. We were all enjoying the task so much I am hoping we made sense of Sian's questions and she has something to work with.

30 minutes of paint, varnish and sweeping and a quick photo opportunity before Kirsty, who had got stuck in the painting too, was happy for all paintbrushes to go into pots as the caretaker will tidy it all away. There was even a water station for runners to grab a quick drink before heading off into the darkness.

Livingstone Road is next to a little hill so in order to warm up after task, there was a few minutes to do a couple of hill sprints up Cranbrook Road. It was greeted with the usual delight (I think it was a grunt from Ali on the way up that said she loves it and Jane let out a little woop, or was it a 'what'?!) Robert on the way home, discovered in his own words - 'why runners often shout bollards' as he launch directly into one on the way back down the hill. Hope your legs are ok now Rob!

Thanks Fiona for being our back marker.

Return leg via Constitution Hill and a great chance to just run with the wind in your face as we headed down back to The Sloop for a stretch.

Big thanks to the team at Livingstone School for making this task great - Check out the before and after pics to see how much we did in just 30 mins!

Tonight was a sensitive task as we visited the baby gardens at the local cemetery.

This all started following the appeal of a small local charity, Tyler's Friends, for volunteers to help their garden clean up. It coincided with our run night and although we had another task booked, it was moved around so we could support this event and join the team of volunteers.

There was 2 options on the table tonight on the run there - both involved running up! The first option was a gentle incline up and the second a longer route way round to add in extra half mile or so whilst going up. This option also gave the runners who wanted it, an option to do some additional hill work as they looped back round. Pleased to say the majority opted for the longer run! We even found a shorter section for a quick sprint 100m or so where Rob as ever showed off his sprinting ability and shot past the rest of us!

On arrival at the task, we met another half dozen or so volunteers, many of whom had personal links with the gardens. Kirsten from Tyler's Friends was there and pleased to see us and gave us some task direction. It is a small baby garden with a round 30+ graves from young children to premature babies. We spent time just clearing leaves away, pulling weeds, raking areas and making it look a lot tidier! After 30 mins the difference was really clear and Kristen was so pleased that 15 of us being there for 30 minutes could really make an improvement and save many hours by just 1 or 2 people alone.

Thanks to Richard for back running tonight as a new runner too! Welcome to new runners Julie, Ruth, Lauren, Karen and Sarah x2! You all got stuck in with the task and chatting to each other in super quick time!

Kristen was happy for us to take a final pic although we didn't take pictures during the task tonight out of respect

It was all about the girls tonight as we met in the courtyard of Daveena's cafe!

Prize for furthest distance travelled easily went to Marta tonight, who had come from Velencia and was brought along by Clare whilst on her holiday to the UK for her first Goodgym session!

We ran the 3km to Pennant house where we were greeted by Denise all ready in the garden for us!

It was bark spreading, planting flowers in the beds and a bit of weeding for us all to get along with as the summer house was not yet ready for us to paint due to repairs being done!

Anne-Marie planted some roses despite confessing to only having a balcony whilst there was pansies and other little flowers to dot around. Bags of bark soon disappeared and Denise was pretty amazed how in 20 mins we had planted it all and spread the bark! We had a bit of time to clear the leaves from under the beautiful tree before a bit of sweeping and all chatting along the way!

There are 12 residents at this block and many enjoy the garden to sit out in or just view from the lounge area. They are holding a garden party in a couple of weeks so grateful for extra hands to make it all look lovely!

On the way back we stopped in Ashley Green for some sprint sections to finish just to make sure we had a but of HIT training in there! Turns out Hilary has got some speed in those legs! Great to see Lauren from a previous couch group, now a frequent nordic runner, come and join us for the first time at Goodgym, along with Anne-Marie who keeps fit from cycling - Thats a great thing about Goodgym - infrequent runners love it too!

Great enjoyable run and task tonight!