The world is hearing about what GoodGym Cardiff and The Vale is doing and they are inspired!

The temperature has dropped in Wales over the past week and we've been having temperatures sub zero. Fortunately that didn't stop 32 GoodGym Cardiff runners showing up to GoodGym this evening, though. Tonight at GoodGym we had one new runner, Gareth. Gareth heard about GoodGym a while ago and has been meaning to come for some time - It was so nice to have you join us this evening and we also look forward to meeting your colleague next week too!

Acknowledgements

• Congratulations to Darren and Nicola who are having a GoodGym Cardiff baby. Darren and Nicola met through GoodGym. Serendipity in its truest form.
• A HUGE well done to GoodGym Cardiff Trainer Ben Annear who has reached the 200 good deed milestone
• Well done to Marie for reaching 50 good deeds!
• Clap Clap Clap to Mike for reaching 50 good deeds!
• Hip hip hooray to Lewis who also reached 50 good deeds!

Don't forget; when you reach 50 good deeds you are able to claim your black goodgym milestone tee

Which group will you choose?

We had 3 separate groups tonight. Aimee led the walk run group, Ellen led the relaxed pace group and Ben led the speedy group. Aimee and Ellen took their respective groups along Newport road, up towards Albany road and then straight to St. Edward's Church, whilst Ben took the speedy group through Cathays, up Richmond Road, along Albany road and then up some hills in Roath before heading to the task.

Welcome to St. Edward's Church. The meeting place of Forget-Me-Not

Forget-Me-Not are a support group and Cafe for people feeling isolated and vulnerable with Dementia, Memory loss or Stroke, carers and relatives. Their support groups run every Tuesday 2pm until 4pm at St Edward's Church. They provide a friendly and welcoming environment. They encourage people to come in and have a chat and to make themselves at home.

In order to be able to help this wonderful organisation we had to complete the tasks they had set us. Here were the tasks we were set:

• Move all of the chairs from the church hall onto the raised area, sweep, mop and dry the floor and return all of the chairs back to their original positions
• Cut back the overgrown bushes in the church gardens, whilst paying close attention not to disturb the Terrence the hedgehog's home.
• Clean and sort mugs
• Clean the church windowsills

Many hands make light work as they say. It took only minutes for everyone to move the chairs. Once the chairs were moved a group of rapid goodgym runners assembled to clean and dry the floor. Once this was done all of the chairs were returned back in their original positions. It was so quick! You know that saying, "blink and you will miss it", well it was almost that quick!

Whilst all that was going on inside the church, outside there was a team cutting back the overgrown bushes. It was cold out but at the speed they were working they wouldn't have noticed.

"Thank you so much. We cannot believe you managed to do all this so quickly. It's remarkable."

Kathie and Alan were both amazed by how quickly we got everything done. They were so thankful and were smiling cheek to cheek. This made the task feel worthwhile.

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2020 Tweet Off

Well done Megan! You are now on the leaderboard!

• MOH - 2
• MJ - 1
• Razzle Dazzle - 1

RunPunStiltskin award

Come up with the title of the run report and be in with the chance of winning the RunPunStiltskin award. Well done to EW - You're in the lead!

• EW - 2
• BA - 1

It was the day after the night before! And the evening before was pretty epic! We were formally announced on stage as the winners of the BBC Sport Wales, Getting Wales Active award. Ben, GoodGym Cardiff area coordinator and lead running coach said "accepting the award is a testament to the hard efforts the goodgym walkers and runners make every week combining their running with helping in the community. It's a testament the charities, schools and community organisations that request our help and the older people who trust us to run and help and spend time with them." On an even more personal note, every GoodGym runner was by my side when I collected that toward. You are all incredible and equally deserving.

Let's give a shout out to the other achievements over the week

• Well done to those who did parkrun
• Marie who completed her first ever 10K and everyone else who participated in the Merthyr Mawr 10K
• Ellen and Ted who completed a mission to help an older person
• The runners who fundraised for Macmillan Charity

A HUGE welcome to Rosie, Laura and Anwen. 3 runners attending GoodGym for their first ever time ever! Rosie has been previously paired with a coach, so she knows about GoodGym and has already been making an impact in the community in Cardiff by supporting older people who are lonely in their homes. Anwen was brought along to GoodGym by Sioned. This means Sarah has earned herself a red lace #LifesGoals! The red lace is unproven to make you run even faster!!! - Please only tell us if it makes you run faster. Following the same strategy, 100% of feedback has been positive. Laura found out about GoodGym because of the Sport Wales awards - We're so glad you came along and you were inspired by what we do! It would be lovely to have you keep coming back... you feel like part of the family already. :)

Let's get our run on!

The charity we were going to help out this evening was the Samye Foundation. The run to Samye started as one group, however Mikey then increased the pace and took the front runners to the task at a quicker pace. Ben led the runners who were opting for a more conversational pace, ensuring they ran a little bit further because it was actually quite a nice evening!

Welcome to the Samye Foundation

We arrived at the Samye Foundation and were greeted by Lorraine. Lorraine has many titles at the Samye Foundation. She is the lead mindfulness trainer, chief executive of the Samye Foundation as well as being one of GoodGym Cardiff's closest friends and biggest fans! Lorraine attended the Sport Wales awards with us yesterday evening and helped Ben calm his nerves so he could feel more relaxed before going on stage and accepting the award. After Lorraine told everyone about the Samye Foundation, she announced the list of tasks that needed doing

• "12 people need to flyer the streets opposite the Samye Foundation and all the ones adjacent until you have no leaflets. We have 300 leaflets that need delivering"
• "All of the weeds on the pathway on the left hand side of the car park need uprooting"
• "We have 3 hoovers for 3 runners in the building on next door"
• We need gravel laying so that there is a disabled access path into the Samye Foundation

Everyone got stuck in and helped out for 30 minutes. Despite this being a short amount of time, everyone working together ensured the tasks were completed.

Thank you all for your help GoodGym - Don't forget, you are all welcome to attend our volunteers party this Friday evening at the Samye Founation

Lorraine and the team at the Samye Foundation thanked us for our efforts. They had kindly laid on food for us to have been our run back. Ben cheekily joked that there would be sprint drills on the way back.. but he isn't really that cruel.

The run back to the Big Moose cafe was direct and when we arrived back there we participated in a warm down and spoke about what's happening at GoodGym over the coming weeks.

The tweet off!

Marie claimed the final tweet off point before the scores on the doors are counted and winner is announced on Saturday (There is a clear winner). A HUGE well done to EVERYONE who participated in the 2019 tweet off Bonanza! After Saturday the scores are reset. Can you get ahead before 2020 and win next week's tweet off!? Only time will tell.

The final scores of the 2019 Tweet off are:

• LM 13
• MO 10
• EW 5
• MJ 5
• DRN 4
• MG 4
• NS 2
• RJ 1
• BA 1
• NI 1
• AG 1
• WD 1

Christmas is often a really difficult time for families who are homeless, so tonight's task was a very sensitive and emotive one. It was a task that we hope brought aspects of joy to the lives of families during a very challenging time

This evening 38 runners showed up to Big Moose to join in this evening's GoodGym run. Yes, 38!!! 38 is the most runners we have EVER had on a GoodGym Cardiff run. There were 3 new runners tonight too- A huge welcome to Sarah, Abby and Lucy! It was absolutely fantastic having you run with us. Jayne brought along Abby to GoodGym that means she earned herself a red lace #LifesGoals! Jayne will now have one faster leg when she runs until she brings another friend and claims another red lace.

The evening started with Ben leading a warm up. He then gathered everyone together to do the usual introduction and acknowledge any achievements over the past week. They included:

• GoodGym Cardiff and The Vale (That's us!) winning the BBC Sport Wales, Getting Wales Active Award
• Ben (GoodGym Trainer) running the 3 Day Ultra Trail Marathon in Ibiza; running over 105km over 3 days
• Lucy Marsh reaching 200 good deeds - Woo!!!
• A wonderful Community Mission at Herbert Thompson directed by Ms Guy

Runner of GoodGym Cardiff and Global News room journalist, Peter Gillibrand turned up in his star costume this evening. If you didn't know by now, Pete is attempting to break a Guinness World Record by running the 2020 London Marathon dressed as a star - Well done Pete you looked fab!

Arriving at Nightingale House

We've run to Nightingale House twice before yet we always managed to forget which building it is - Running up and down the street gives us a bit of extra exercise though, something that we shouldn't be averse to as GoodGym is about getting fit after all.

The staff at Nightingale House welcomed us in with the warmest of welcomes. They were very shocked to hear that 38 runners had turned up, a jump from the 20 that were signed up a couple of days ago.

Our tasks this evening were to decorate the communal areas with Christmas themed decorations and wrap presents, in secret, in the building at the rear of the garden. Some of the runners also gave the garden some TLC by picking up leaves and doing some weeding.

What an incredible task

Everyone found a role and got stuck in. At least 3 Christmas trees were put up. One of the children had James playing with an inflatable Santa for most of the time. Imogen was also being chased with tinsel by some of the children. There was a baby who was dressed in a VERY cool Christmas outfit, who was amazed by the Christmas tree and kept gazing at it in amazement.

In the back building aka. Santa's workshop, runners were speedily wrapping presents. After wrapping one present they would quickly be on to the next. Every bit of space was made use of for the task. Chloe and Sue spent 30 minutes in the toilet wrapping presents.

Thank you so much for your help

The staff and the residents at Nightingale House were extremely grateful, and we were grateful that they allowed us to celebrate some of Christmas with them. Everyone wished each other a Merry Christmas and then we disappeared into the night.

Dave led the run back to Cardiff City Centre, although he quickly ran back to Nightingale House as he had forgotten his bag (Some more unexpected exercise!).

A task that will definitely make a difference. Well done all!

Next week's GoodGym run is on Wednesday - Make sure you come along!

Next Tuesday we have the BBC Sports Awards so the group run will take place on Wednesday. The plan is to help Samye Foundation. I will also be looking for an additional Christmassy themed task. I would love to see you next week - I will bring the award to show you too. Click here to sign up to next week's run.

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Tweet Tweet

Gosh that was quick! Megan has claimed another point on the tweet off leaderboard! Well done! ALL points count and there are less and less opportunities to move up the leaderboard as each week goes by.

• LM 13
• MO 9
• EW 5
• MJ 5
• DRN 4
• MG 4
• NS 2
• RJ 1
• BA 1
• NI 1
• AG 1
• WD 1

Lucy... "Here". Emily... "Here" Darren... No answer Peter..."Here" Stuart... "Here" Nathan...Nathan... "Hi miss, it's Andrew, Nathan told me he was going to miss School today to plan his 2020 challenge."

Tonight's task involved running to Gladstone Primary School. This school is very close to one of our GoodGymmer's hearts, Nathan's. He used to go to this school in his younger years... and rumor has it he wasn't always well behaved! But that's the Nathan we know and love.

So tonight started with a few warm up games. We played, 'Rock, Paper, Scissors' and 'North Pole, South Pole'

We then did a head count and welcomed two new runners to their first ever GoodGym run. A HUGE welcome to GoodGym Grace and Sioned.

Time to get our run on

Tonight we ran as one! Ben led the group and Lewis, the hero that he is, backmarked with a huge smile on his face.

Welcome to School year 9

Okay Okay, we are a bit older than year 9, but we thought by saying that we were year 9 if we displayed any immaturity we might be able to excuse it on this basis.

Donna welcomed us to Gladstone. She told us about the incredible school it is and then explained our task for the evening. Donna tasked us with painting the library. She knows we love a challenge, one could say, she read into us well.

The runners quickly armed themselves with paintbrushes and rollers. Andrew spotted a guitar and it wasn't long before he picked it up and began serenading everyone.

During the task Ben rolled a dice. Roll a 1 and you have to tell a joke; Roll a 2 and you have to state your favorite TV show; Roll a 3 and you have to tell everyone what your favourite book is; Roll a 4 and you have to pull a funny face; Roll a 5 and you have to answer a trivia question; Roll a 6 and you have to Roll again.

Thank you so much GoodGym. Once again you've proved yourselves and the children will be amazed with how much has changed overnight... it's like Christmas has come early!

Mikey then led the run back. Everyone had smiles on their faces and a warmth in their hearts, feeling pretty epic after helping out at an incredible school.

We're now nearing the end of 2019. Hasn't it been an amazing year? I hope you can make it to the final GoodGym runs of 2019 as you make them amazing!

Hope to see you next week!

Tweet Tweet

Ring a ding ding ding. Lucy loo has claimed another point on the tweet off leaderboard! Well done! ALL points count and there are less and less opportunities to move up the leaderboard as each week goes by.

• LM 13
• MO 9
• EW 5
• DRN 4
• MG 4
• MJ 4
• NS 2
• RJ 1
• BA 1
• NI 1
• AG 1
• WD 1