Well that was something else, as the clock ticked down to 7pm I won’t lie I was a little nervous however as soon as I pressed live (and it worked, this has not always happened in practice) we were off.

So after all the prep it was show time, Saturday night, after a whirlwind 2 months from thinking it up, it went live and I have to say what a fun experience it was.

Please note, Chris has done a super job of updating the website which features all the events, all the area videos and if you fancy watching the whole thing again, bingo it’s there.

Live Show

Events

Area videos

So in total 29 areas got involved sending in clips of their finest duvet making, tin stacking, shoe putting on, tin blowing, boat wafting, planking and jumping clips it was something else, we even had a virtual elimination 5km race, which if I don’t mind typing was extremely tense. I was bowled over by the level of entries, not only that but we also were sent loads of different area videos which feature a bit about what some of the GoodGym areas have been getting up to during these times. We even got the marching band back together to play the GoodGym Games Anthem.

All in all it was wonderful, from the commentators who provided such good commentary throughout to the participants who just got involved. I was delighted to see so many watched throughout and loved reading the comments, the aim for organising these types of things is to hopefully bring members of the community together as I think we have so many different and wonderful characters.

The overall winners of the two trophies up for grabs were GoodGym Lambeth taking the Kerry-Barnard Cup and GoodGym Haringey taking the Hunter-Sidhu Shield on the last event.

Not only did we have that going on, my inbox was full of delicious bakes and carefully crafted veg/fruit. I think the standard just keeps going up a notch through sourdough loafs to delicious cupcakes, however the winner this year in the public vote was Imogen with her winning baking creation "3 We're all having a good lime (cake)"

Craving it up on the veg side was a wonderful creation named "The Eye Test" curated by Andrea Lo. Both I’m sure we can agree were outstanding. Please see their winning creations on Here

Please note more photos from the entries will be added in the coming days.

I also do want to thank the GoodGym Games committee who have been wonderful to work with, I brought this idea to the table when the GoodGym in Oxford was postponed and together we made it into last nights show, they are deserves a massive cheer, with special mention to Mark Gilyead, who had edited more clips than I would like to say, thank you.

Thank you Aidan Padfield, Beth Hoskins, Graham Atkins, Mark Gilyead, Steph Turner and Will Dowsett. Massive cheers. Special mention also to GoodGym members John Gutteridge, Chris Howsen and Tim Wheatley for all your help putting this together also and to the wonderful GoodGym members who were the sounds for the night the comentators Steve Jenkins, Teresa Gebski, Tim Dwyer, Peter Gillibrand, James Kerry-Barnard, John Hunter, Catherine Speed and Ivo Gormley, just fantastic.

Here's a video for all the team: video

Keen to stay active and do good, a group of GoodGymmers from across the country took to their local streets today to clock up some miles in support of a wonderful charity, Llamau.

Throughout the day, news (WhatsApp) reports emerged of the runners' progress:-

• Fiona smashed out 5km in less than 30 minutes - go Fiona!
• Rosie and Mojo combined their daily exercise with a mission and a run around Roath Park Lake.
• Aimee and Emma beat the worst of the midday heat with a 5km around central Cardiff, bumping in to fellow runner Lucy Marsh who would have been running the London Marathon today in support of the MS Society (we know you'll smash it when you get to run it and we're proud of all your training).
• Martin ran an incredible half marathon distance, celebrating with the usual Graffinator jump!
• Nathan and Lauren made the most of the sunshine and drew a very impressive Strava art 2.6.
• Emma ran through the countryside in a very socially distant run covering 5.2 miles.
• Darren managed 26 laps of his garden/local park, also using Strava art to draw a 2.6.
• Ellen managed 5km on top of four hours of allotmenteering!
• Sophie brought the baton home with a late afternoon 10km around Roath Park lake too.

After a great day of local running, it was time for the big reveal. Our aim was to cover the distance of two marathons - would we do it...? At 6pm, the scores were in - Sophie revealed that we'd covered an amazing 89.46km or 55.58 miles - we'd hit our distance target! In other news hot off the press, we also hit our fundraising target of £260 all for a great cause.

One final bit of good news for the day - this was Sophie's 50th good deed! We'll look forward to celebrating when lockdown is over - well done Sophie!

Well done to all the team, far and wide - so glad that you could all play a part!

Less than 48 hours after being arranged, 7 goodgym members met at CCAWS to help tackle their overgrown garden.

[CCAWS (Community Care and Wellbeing Servic) are a charity serving the social and mental wellbeing needs of Cardiff's communities through counselling, befriending and advocacy services.]

The group donned protective gloves (or doubled up on gloves in Mike's case) to hack away at the thorns and weeds that had overcome the garden. There were bugs and slugs, spiders and more spiders but the group were undeterred, making real headway in the garden ready for another group of volunteers coming to CCAWS over the bank holiday.

It was a night of firsts, as Ellen tried her first ever Freddo during the brief chocolate interlude after an hour of weeding, and Lauren completed her first community mission and her first in official GG colours. Care was also taken in-between hacking down the thorns to collect a small harvest of blackberries (carefully transported to Nathan's freezer where they await being made into a crumble).

An hour and a half later the group were done for the evening having made great progress on the CCAWS garden and, after removing mud caked shoes one their way through the offices, headed home their separate ways.

Lets hike up Scafell Pike they said. It’ll be fun. The views will be breath-taking. The memories will last a lifetime.

Two out of three isn’t bad!

On 9th August 29 runners from Goodgym Cardiff, Bristol and Bath headed north to the Lake District, with the aim of scaling England’s highest peak. Having hiked Pen y Fan in 2017 and Snowdon in 2018, the odd tradition of completing a hike set as a new years resolution by one off the GG Cardiff members looked set to continue.

The weather however had other ideas, yellow warnings of torrential rain and wind were putting the hike in doubt. The runners headed to bed on Friday evening (in the wonderful YHA Wasdale Hall) unsure of what the morning would have in store. Trip organiser, Nathan, was fearing the worst, confided in some over a surreptitious tumbler full of white wine that they’d give it a go, but wasn’t expecting to get far, or to be joined by many of the group.

The Hike

Saturday morning. Low cloud and mist covered Wastwater while the Goodgymers tucked into their breakfast. Despite the conditions, despite the weather warnings, they were going to give it a go and at 10am 23 goodgymers congregated in the car park. A short drive to Wasdale Head and the group set off. 200m in and the heavens opened, out came the waterproofs, hats and hoods, but spirits weren’t dampened – how could they be with Pete’s tunes pumping from his rucksack, his sheep impressions, and his far too revealing shorts if behind him on an incline (pretty much 3 hours of incline).

The weather was such that the usual brook the path to the summit crossed had turned into a small raging river. Other groups undertaking the three peaks were being advised to turn around, or go the long way. By this point most jackets and trousers had given up pretending to be waterproof, and the group couldn’t get much wetter. All 23 goodgymers took the plunge and waded through the knee height water (kudos to Adam and Alison for standing in the water and giving a steady hand to the rest of the group).

Visibility was such that at points you just followed the outline of the person 10m ahead of you. This pattern of wetness, mist, rain, wind continued until a split in the path. Half the group opting for the scrambling route, half opting for the longer-but-more-reliable-under-foot route. About an hour later, having been further buffered by wind and raid, both groups met at the summit and huddled together for a mandatory summit selfie. All plans for a picnic at the highest point of England were abandoned as the rain turned to hail, and the group headed back down the mountain.

It seemed that the group split off in about five direction to head back down, but a few hours later, a quick head count in the Wasdale Head Inn confirmed that 23 had made it back down. A combination of minimal eating on the hike, mulled wine and baileys hot chocolate meant that they warm pub was a joyful place to be. As groups set off back for the hostel, the 6 goodgymers who hadn’t hiked Scafell arrived, looking equally sodden, windswept and in need of a drink.

The Screes

Saturday morning. Low cloud and mist covered Wastwater while the Goodgymers tucked into their breakfast. Given the conditions, given the weather warnings, they decided this was not the day for scaling Scafell Pike. At 10am, as 23 goodgymers congregated in the car park, 6 goodgymers prepared for a more sedate hike around the lake, heading for the same pub the Scafell-ers would congregate in a few hours.

Their chosen route was the South-eastern shore of Wastwater. A notorious route – advised the friendly YHA staff.

Little did they know that in the Lake District, notorious translates to “Improbable, but not impossible”. “…walking along the southern shore of Wastwater gives the most unpleasant mile of terrain within the entire Lake District – ankle breaking potential if ever there was as this is not so much traditional scree as loose boulder hopping at its most delicate…”

After 5 hours of traversing loose scree, climbing boulders, straddling boulders, hating boulders, being advised by google that swimming home was the best option, the hikers arrived at the Wasdale Head - just as those smug Scafell hikers exited, heading for a warm shower, having had time for a drink or two already.

The evening

As the night set in, the hikers met for food to share their tales of the day. The group had a short quiz, although Ellen’s car bar proved too great a distraction for one or two. Congratulations Team Scree, who it seemed had spent their hike swotting for the quiz. Being a conscious group, the goodgymers headed to the basement to continue their celebrations with flipcup, beerpong and a wonderful playlist straight outta the 80s.

he return journey

One or two of the group awoke on Sunday with sore heads – but none having as bad a morning as Lowri’s car, which refused to move. After failed jump starts and push starts, the recovery services were called. The remaining groups set off home. Martin hadn’t had quite enough adventure for the weekend and decided on driving Hard Knott pass “often described as the most difficult and outrageous road in Britain”.

Predictions for 2020 have already begun rolling in. We look forward to the big announcement on 1st January.

In the words of Alan Partridge, "AHA!" Tonight there were a whopping 25 runners at GoodGym

We're getting an amazing number of runners now every week - Isn't it great? Tonight we had 3 new runners! A HUMONGOUS welcome to GoodGym Daisy, Lauren and Karin. It was so lovely to meet you and we hope to see you at another GoodGym run soon. AND, before I forget, Karin was brought along to GoodGym by Sara and Lauren was brought along by Nathan. This means Nathan and Sara both got a red lace #LIFE GOALS #RunFasterWithARedLace #MakeSureYouGetItInsured

To warm up we played a game of Stuck in the dance. This game evolves busting some moves like you would on Mill Lane on a Saturday night, or like Mrs Doubtfire. We then played a game of In The River, On The Shore. Lewis was in charge of spotting whether people didn't make it to the shore / in the river in time.

What else is worth of a mention?

• A huge round of applause to Lowri and Adam who both took part in Barry 10k - They wore their GoodGym tops and boy did they look good!
• Ellen and Mikey completed a mission run to help an older person - You are A-MAZ-ING!
• A number of you took part in Parkrun this week too - Great work!

Get into your group peeps

We ran to the task in 3 groups tonight;

1.) The Speedy Group - Led by Mikey, this group runs at the speed of light (factually incorrect, but it sounds cool - they actually run pretty quickly though)

2.) The Sexy Group - Led by Ben, this group runs whilst being mindful to their running form. A more graceful pace.

3.) The Pacer Group - Led by Ellen, running at a slower speed to appreciate Cardiff's views and to have a good ol' chin wag .

Before setting off everyone was reminded to set their Strava's and Run Keepers so that the distance they run is captured on their running app (Not everyone has running apps though, so no pressure if you want to come to GoodGym and don't track your running).

We've made it to Grangetown Gardens

It wasn't long before we all arrived at the Gardens. Lorna from Keep Wales Tidy was there ready to welcome us surrounded by litter picking equipment. With all of the equipment Lorna had ready for us it looked like we were about to go for war against the litter... It was, GoodGym Cardiff vs. The litter of Grangetown... and we were notgoing to lose.

Ben challenged everyone to find the most interesting pieces of litter during the litter pick. With the challenge set, the competition had begun. Who on earth found what?! Well...

• Ellen found a Dora the Explorer game
• Emily found half a shopping trolley, a piece of bread and pink laughing gas - haha very funny... no, she really did!
• Emma found an empty energy can
• Lucy found a magnum stick
• Darren collected 107 cigarette butts - Well done butt!
• Marie found a Gregs coffee cup

After 25 minutes collecting litter and making ground breaking discoveries like the ones listed above, the task was over. Everyone began making their way back to where Lorna was waiting for us for our weekly group photo - obviously 1 of these photos includes having our hands in the air - Daisy, Karin and Lauren appeared proud with their litter picking performance on their first ever GoodGym run. Nathan did look very proud of Lauren too, and at the fact he now owns a red lace!

Thank you GoodGym for coming to help out Keep Wales Tidy this evening - It was lovely to see you all again and I look forward to seeing you in the not too distant future.

13 bags of litter! Who would've thought it. It really shows what can be achieved when a group of awesome GoodGym runners get stuck in.

We headed back as one group. We did step ups to allow runners to catch up who were further behind and we also had a go at bounding.

Click here to see a video of bounding in action

When we arrived at Big Moose we spent time stretching to warm down and reflected on the evening's run.

We then headed over to the Glassworks for drinkypoos and for the weekly tweet off.

The Tweet Off

Marie's incessant reading of 'How to win a tweet off' is paying off. She now has 4 points on the tweet off leader board over 4 consecutive weeks - They are going to be writing books about this someday. Tune in next week to see whether she makes it 5 weeks in a row.

• LM 9
• MO 4
• MG 3
• DRN 3
• EW 3
• NS 2
• MJ 2
• BA 1
• NI 1
• AG 1
• WD 1