It was a Tuesday the like of which the streets of Bristol had never seen before. Due to this being my final group run leading the troops a call was put out to the runners in red to dress in a fancy fashion with random being the theme. A disappoint they did not. There were penguins, unicorns, caped-crusaders, police dogs and so many more eye-catching outfits. It was more random than hitting the infinite improbability drive while sitting atop a dice being rolled through the National Lottery machine Guinevere into a black hole.

The task faced by our motley crew of running do-gooders this evening was to help weigh and sort food donated by supermarkets to the East Bristol Foodbank. Once all our lively characters were suited and booted and more warmed up than a freshly baked potato wearing a new jumper knitted by her nan in front of log fire, we took to the streets. The first group was led by me and back marked by the ever assistant Pink Panther. The rubbish rear group, so named due to it's leader the Godfather's bin bag attire, was back marked by Matterhorn.

The rain came but drowned not one once of joy as we paced through the 1.5 miles to meet Andy at the storage yard to get to work. On arrival I was surprised that Super Bearded Irish Clo and Box Donkey Rich had setup at little photo gallery of some of my best photos from group runs. You guys are the best! Andy explained our task and we set to work. A long line was established to collect a crate, weigh it, and then separate its contents into types of foodstuff. It was slow to start but once everyone started getting the hang of where the donations went we really got the can do attitude.

After 30 minutes of lifting, shifting, weighing, and sorting we had gone through most of the contents of room to be sorted. Alas we did not have enough time to finsih the lot but we did make a really big dent in it. Like imagine if there was a shipping container that got punched by a yeti wearing a solid gold boxing glove and was catapulted into it using a medieval trebuchet, yeah that kind of big dent.

After we finished we were thanked by Andy and we headed off into the rain. We sailed through the 1.5mile run back and stretched in Queen Square before I said my final goodbye and handed over to Paul who will be leading the group going forward. Thank you all so much for your non-stop enthusiasm and helpfulness, you are an absolute inspiration. Thanks for my the personalised buff, unicorn cake and lovely card. Keep up the greatness while I'm away, I will be back to check on you...

BYE!!!!

A Message from Us to you Gary:

125/365 Gary, #GGBristol run leader extrordinaire and master of puns is leaving us to go on an epic adventure. So we sent him on his way in the only way we know how, fancy dress and cake. Have a bloody amazing time @gazebo1984! 🌎👋 🚵😎 #GoodGym #365project

A post shared by Alice Whale (@alicethewhale) on Sep 12, 2017 at 12:50pm PDT

On a splendid summer evening over 30 smiling runners met to run to Bedminster to help the Patchwork Project to fix up some street gardens that were in weed of some attention.

The patchwork project are led by the ever welcoming Laura and Liz who met us after our 1 mile run from Vivo. They have several areas of ground in the area that they tend to planting bulbs and plants to make the street beautiful. Recently the beds on Stackpool Lane had been damaged really badly by what appeared to be a drunk gorilla wielding a strimmer while pretending it was a mic stand and performing a tribute to Freddy Mercury in full flow of rendition of I want to break free. So the task was simple. Stop, snip, chop, weed, and tidy the beds.

Runners new and regular set to work quickly choosing a patch of land to give their attention to and set to work. Alex and Neil took down some pretty big flora scalps while a couple of new runners set about planting bulbs in a patch that had been decimated by some recent waterworks. Not the crying kind hopefully, more the pipes and taps kind of palaver.

Soon it became apparent that due to our fantastic turn out we would have the job done well within time. This gave me the opportunity to take some energetic souls out for a trip around the harbour while the rest stayed on to finish the final few jobs. My gallant bunch performed sprint after sprint focusing on their form by staring at scaffolding. Hats off to you all for accepting the challenge every time I yelled "See that lampost? Sprint to it!". You were brilliant.

We all met back in Queen Square for a cool down and a stretch to round off what was a really fun evening. Shouts out to David for gaining his 50th deed on Saturday and therefore his coveted black GoodGym t-shirt, and to Alice (the) Whale for becoming our 15th centurion by completing her 100th good deed on her birthday no less! Well done Whale, we're so lucky to have you and your massive hair in our group, you fricking rock!

That left nothing more to do then to go and get some pizza and cider to celebrate so we all lived apply ever after...

Until next time,

Gary