HERE'S THE LOWDOWN ON LAST NIGHT'S TASK

Kudos

It was great to see so many of you with us again this week. Huge kudos to everyone for coming out and giving up your evening to do good in your community. You really are awesome and each week, you make me so proud (hope that doesn’t sound patronising, but you really do!). Well done to everyone who is clocking up amazing mileage with their marathon training. You’re totally killing it!! And to those of you who are getting moving – whether you’re walking, cycling, swimming, or pole fitting – you’re keeping fit and active, hat’s off!!

Thank You

Huge thanks to Phil for acting as back marker this evening and ensuring that nobody was left behind. And as our latest TaskForce recruit, Amanda oversaw the walking group (even though she may not have been aware she was overseeing it – note to self for future reference! ;-)). You’re both stars!! Thank you to Kate at Motherwell for having us this evening and giving us a nice warm indoor task!!

Tonight’s Task

We were graced with another dry evening and a lovely clear sky. Perfect running weather. We kicked off our evening with biscuits – as always – followed by our warm-up. Tonight we warmed up by doing various sports. We tried our hand at boxing, swimming, running (obvs), canoeing, skipping and fencing. Poor Jordan took some ribbing from his lovely sister Sasha about his fencing technique (lunges). I didn’t think you looked THAT bad Jordan!! ;-))

Our red army set off along the streets of Crewe once again, having to take particular care around lots of tree roots this week – pesky things!! There were no broken-down cars to rescue this week though, so we just headed merrily on our way, chatting as we went. We had a large walking group this evening who had set off before us and were waiting for us on our arrival – possibly feeling quite smug that they’d beaten us ;-))

Our task this evening was to help sort leaflets into bundles. Motherwell is a local charity that offers support, counselling, therapy groups and well being days for women. They needed some help sorting leaflets into bundles to go out to local schools to promote their forthcoming women’s days. There were 20 of us and it took us 45 minutes. Imagine how long it would have taken for just two people do the same task?! It was a lovely night – we were in cosy, warm surroundings (there was even a bit of background music!) and even though there was lots of counting and concentrating, there was also a lot of laughter – especially when Sasha exposed a minor mix up with the leaflets and we had to go through them all again. We’re not entirely sure what happened but I will take one for the team! You can blame me!! ;0)

We put all the bundled leaflets into a very grateful Kate’s car and headed back to base. We took a slightly different route home which took us via clutch bite hill (renowned driving test route for the dreaded hill start!). Everyone flew up it with no trouble at all.

It was another fantastic night with the GoodGym Crewe Gang. I always come home on a high. Roll on next week. Can’t wait to see you all then!!

Stay safe, Lots of Love, Nicola xxxx

PS – Pam and Barry are off to Spain shortly so won’t be with us for a while from mid-March. Thought I’d just let you know in case you weren’t already aware….. ;-)))))

Kudos

Great to see Heather back tonight after a few weeks away and wow Heather, you made light work of our run this evening – well done!! And well done to everyone for coming out on a cold, dark and damp night. You are all heroes!

Thank You

Huge thanks to Suzanne for becoming the 5th member of the Taskforce. Thanks so much Suzanne! Big thanks tonight to Maurice for being our walk leader once again (which is fabulous as I think he knows the streets of Crewe better than anyone!) and to Nigel and Rose for taking on the role of back markers this evening. And Nigel, thank you for returning the abandoned shopping trolley with me -2 good deeds in one night!!! Thank you to Catherine Cleghorn - Vicar of St. Andrew’s and John the Baptist churches in Crewe – for the hospitality and very warm welcome ;-)

Tonight’s Task

Next week is Shrove Tuesday and not being one to let an occasion pass us by, this week's warm up obviously had to involve pancakes!! Sadly there was no eating of said pancakes, just racing with them in a pan and flipping them!!! A totally normal way to warm up for a run – well in Crewe at least!! It turns out that we have some pretty awesome pancake flippers in our midst (me not being one of them!!!). Roll on next Tuesday when you can put your freshly honed skills to good use again with the real deal!!

We set off on our task, winding our way through some of the busiest streets in Crewe. Our walkers had set off a little earlier – could we beat them?!! Once again, we were super blessed with dry weather – although Lauren didn’t manage to stay dry for long after stepping in a big puddle and totally submerging her foot!! Oops!!

Tonight, our task was delivering leaflets for a newly launched youth club – something that the area is desperately crying out for and has been organised by the local churches and members of our community. Upon our arrival at the church, it was clear that the walkers must have stormed rather than ambled because they looked like they’d been there for hours! Juice and biscuits had been generously laid on for us but my personal highlight of the evening was when Sophie asked if it would be ok use the loo and was greeted by a response of ‘are you scared of spiders?’, to which Sophie replied, ‘No’. And a truly good job that Sophie ISN’T afraid, as there was a whole congregation of spiders hanging out in the church loos apparently!!

We left the church, armed with leaflets and good spirits, sometimes running, sometimes walking and covering many more streets and roads of Crewe and managing to deliver every single leaflet!! Yep, every single one!! A brilliant achievement. Well done everyone!! Awesome team work.

We headed back to base and ended our evening with GoodGym Crewe’s very own attempt at a human shaped heart – I think it’s fair to say that it needs work!!!

I know I said it last week but I’m going to say it again - Thank you for making my Wednesday evenings so wonderful and for making Crewe a better place to live. It's always an absolute pleasure.

Hope to see you all next week! Have a fab weekend everyone!

Stay safe, Lots of Love, Nicola xxxx

Welcome

A massive welcome to Sam who joined us for her first GoodGym experience tonight! We hope you had a great night Sam and enjoyed the craziness that is GoodGym Crewe! Hope to see you back again soon.

Kudos

Great to see Michelle back for her second task, even though her new hairdo completely threw me and I re-introduced myself like a total numpty!! (sorry Michelle!!). Great to have Barry, Louise and Phil back with us after a bit of a break (no pun intended Barry!!!). We’ve missed you!

Thank You

Huge kudos to Sophie for becoming the 4th member of the Taskforce and for taking on the role of walk leader along with Maurice to lead tonight’s walking group. Thank you Sophie and Maurice. Big thanks to Karl who took on the role of back-marker this evening, ensuring nobody was left behind. A massive thank you to Cheryl & Rob at St. Pauls for taking 22 runners into the foodbank this evening and allowing us the responsibility of sorting and organising your shelves!

Tonight’s Task

This week is Valentines, so naturally, we had to have a Valentines Theme! It started with the pre-run refreshments (or should I say pre-run nutrition…….erm) – jammy dodgems and love hearts (very healthy) with a few chocolate fingers thrown in for good measure (and to cater for us chocoholics!!).

Our warmup was meet and greet (basically, you have two teams. One person from each team sets off and runs in a big circle until they meet the person from the other team, they high-five each other and return to swap with the next person). I think it’s fair to say that we’ve all become good friends since GoodGym launched in October so I couldn’t understand their reluctance when I suggested they kiss their partner as they swapped over (well, it is Valentines after all!) ;-0)))) LOL! In the end, we settled for shouting out the name of a song with the word ‘LOVE’ in the title instead – they seemed happier with this – no idea why! ;-0)

Once suitably warmed up we set off into the (once again) dry night (so lucky). We had a large walking group this evening (7 in total which is fantastic!) with the rest of us running. The runners took a slightly longer route to the foodbank, heading up through the town centre. I always love to see the sea of red t-shirts as they weave their way along the pavement – we never fail to get a reaction from passers-by (even though people do sometimes look a bit like a rabbit in headlights when they see us all coming!!). I always love to see the reactions!

We were greeted with a wonderful welcome from the lovely Cheryl and Rob at the foodbank. They showed us all the food that had been generously donated by the people of Crewe and needed to be sorted (481kg in total!!!). We set to work like a team of worker ants – sorting, stacking, carrying and organising tins, packets, jars and boxes until they were on the shelves where they needed to be. As there were 22 pairs of hands tonight, we had spare capacity to sort some of the bric-a-brac that had also been donated to the church. We had great fun trying to inflate an airbed, adorning ourselves with large diamond rings and making conversation with pottery ducks – as you do! We even had time for a brew and a biscuit that had been kindly laid on by Cheryl and Rob. Michelle and Karen were chief brew pourers as I can’t be trusted apparently (can I Karl? ;-0)))

Once our work was complete, we set off back to base via the infamous ‘Rocky Steps’ (well Crewe’s version at least!) for a short workout. We were ‘encouraged’ in our exercise session by some local youths. Everyone took their encouragement in good humour as we did our one-legged squats, plie squats and a couple of circuits around the perimeter of the steps. We made sure that our ‘supporters’ knew who we were and what we were doing, so who knows… maybe they’ll look us up when they’re old enough…

Another amazing turnout tonight and such a huge credit to each of you for being genuinely wonderful human beings, who come out on cold nights week in week out to put something back into your community. Not only is it truly inspiring but it restores my faith in people and our society. There’s a lot of good in our local community and it’s a huge privilege to be a small part of it. Thank you for making my Wednesday evenings so wonderful and for making Crewe a better place to live.

Hope to see you all next week! Have a fab weekend everyone!

Stay safe, Lots of Love, Nicola xxxx

Welcome GoodGym Crewe welcomed another new recruit this evening – the lovely Emily It was great to welcome you to GoodGym Emily – we hope you enjoyed your very first group task and we hope to see you back next week (and the week after, and the week after that and the week after that and………….. ;-)

Kudos Well done to everyone who took part in the Alsager 5 last weekend. Great to see so many of you pop up on my Strava having achieved cracking times and PBs. Well done everyone! And again, thank you to John, Dan and Chris for putting themselves forwards to be Taskforce members. This is something that anyone who has completed 10 or more deeds for GG Crewe can be part of if they wish (with no commitment).

Thank You Thank you to Chris who took on the role of back-marker again and to Maurice who lead the walk this evening and thank you to the weather gods once again for giving us another great evening to run and walk in! ;0)

Tonight’s Task For our warm-up tonight we did a slightly mind bending game – I really don’t know how else to describe it other than, the in, out, left, right game. You need to see it to understand it! Lol! It warmed us up and confused us in equal measure!

With our brains slightly addled, we set off on our walk and run. Once again blessed with good weather, we ran through the streets of Crewe with our sea of red t-shirts our for their weekly airing!

Our task tonight was filling Goody Bags for a local charity called Motherwell who do great work within our local community to support women. They are such a great charity and alongside their services, do many fabulous events, including Women’s Day which is the event we were filling the goody bags for.

We split into 4 groups, each with different tasks. Everyone worked efficiently and quickly, and the job was soon done! Kate from Motherwell said that that task normally falls to her and her daughter and takes them days! Yet again, proof that many hands make light work (team work makes the dream work as they say!). Lots of lovely chatting and getting to know one another better while we were doing the task and I don’t think anyone became victim of a paper cut! :0)

Once all the bags were filled and Kate's car was packed to the rafters, we headed back to base. Our route home took us via the infamous Walthall Street – driving test hill start territory…… and also the perfect place for a few hill reps!! We split into twos and did a few rounds of hill sprints – just to get the heart pumping a little bit more!

Back at base we finished off with our stretches and had a bit of a giggle at Alex’s expense about his lack of balance – sorry Alex!

Another fantastic night with the awesome GoodGym Gang!!

Hope to see you all next week! Have a fab weekend!

Lots of Love, Nicola xxxx