The Meteo Office’s Yellow Warning didn’t stop Brighton GoodGymers to run to this community mission at the Cardinal Newman Catholic School – a voluntary aided comprehensive school located in Hove and the largest in England. We were lucky to catch a window of dry weather on a full moon evening, despite shadowed by low clouds, and we didn’t feel very cold neither. That was probably the effect of the uphill and a few detours before arriving to our destination to join our mates. Armed with polisher and cleaning clothes, our Heroes’ task was to polish the High Gothic style Chapel, and so we did meticulously with our (Mr Muscle’s) superpowers 😊

Curious to know more about this school, I dig into internet and found out Cardinal Newman’s motto: “Heart speaks unto Heart”. Inspired by these words, Newman calls us to hear God speaking to our hearts and to listen for our mission from God.

It was another Good Mission, GoodGym!

When GoodGym gangs oot intae the street,

Our red clad pals tae surely meet,

And runs up tae a grand auld school,

That has wet wipes fae one and all,

We find the job simple and plain,

Just wipe the dust, scrub ev'ry stain,

From corridor to lofty stair,

We made short work of whit wis there;

Then oot tae warm up with a quick Strip the Willow,

Afore heading awa' tae oor welcoming pillows,

Hame again noo and tucked up tight!

On this, the eve of Rabbie Burns Night 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Goodgym Brighton’s Tuesday evening run (jog, walk, crawl) to Cardinal Newman Catholic School in Hove took in, in my opinion 80% of Brighton’s steepest hills, I really did crawl at some points !

In tonight’s news…… Well done to Helena on your shiny Silver medal (for the Sussex 2019/20 Cross Country League) and also to Katharine for running further than she's ever run before. And ideas for next weeks social are most welcome (in the Whatsapp group).

Armed with feather dusters microfibre cloths in assorted colours and enough spray cleaner to rid Europe of the corona virus we set about our task of buffing the hell out of the staircases. Noticing a sign on the stairs saying UP ONLY, I could only imagine the pile up at A&E as uninitiated year 7’s figured out inventive ways of getting back downstairs.

As we chanted our mantra ‘cleanliness is next to godliness’ handrails were spruced , strings were polished, stanchions scrubbed, balustrades buffed and newel’s rendered spotless. We were so devoted to our task that many of us missed an impromptu acoustic gig taking place in the music room…….

Task completed we retired to the field to complete our exercises, good+gym =

And just a reminder that we are having a Goodgym volunteering takeover at Junior parkrun this Sunday. Sign up here.

I don’t know about you but I found that hill tough tonight so apologies for not easing you back in gently and making you tackle one of Brighton’s biggest hills on the first run back of the year! IT strangely felt up hill in both directions too!

But before the run we had lots of Christmas and New year park run progress to catch up on. Congratulations to Roy for finally smashing his target of getting under 21 minutes at both Hove Prom and Hove Park and to Rosie who also took a big chunk off of her PB at the Prom. And well done to Katherine who finally discovered the joy of park run and completed her first ever, quickly followed by her second ever! And talking of parkrun its our meet up at East Brighton this Saturday so hope to see a few of you there.

So with much chat about how we’d all enjoyed the festive season we headed up the massive hill to Cardinal Newman school, picking up Benita, Emma & Tabitha on the way. Premises Manager Pedro set us to work on cleaning the hard to reach parts of a large staircase, concentrating on the dusty railings, high level cobwebs and dust and scuff marks on the walls. With 15 of you working hard we got the job done in about 20 minutes leaving time for a quick fitness session of plank variations in the school corridor. The variations were all designed to target your glutes as well as your core, so great exercises to do to strengthen and condition yourselves for running!

And with all the excitement of the first one back I forgot to mention the January challenge to see which Goodgym area can do the most good deeds and run the most kilometres. Distance ran will be only include those runs logged onto Strava so if you’re not using it then now would be a good time to start! For those that don’t know about Strava its an app that records all your runs and a great way of documenting your activity and process and you can follow your friends to see what activities they are doing as well.

See you next week for a lovely flat run to George Street to help in a charity shop. It’s another longer run at 6km but I’m hoping to have an alternative run and task delivering newlestters for Extinction Rebellion if you don’t want to run so far, so watch this space! And its our weekly social next week too.

Our congregation was a little smaller this time – maybe because the temperature was also in single figures? – but we welcomed a brand new runner, John. New to Group Runs, to be precise, because John has been running to see a GoodGym coach for over a year – nice one!

After a gentle 3k up North Street and various mercifully small hills, we arrived at Cardinal Newman school in Hove. They must like us there as we were entrusted with cleaning up the school’s very own chapel. After reverentially dusting, hoovering and polishing up the woodwork, we jogged round the corner and did some penance in the shape of various plank exercises in the park. But of course we feel better for it.

All that was left was a nice 3k back to base to cool down and say our goodbyes, which were less sorrowful than usual as we have some birthday fun to look forward to on Saturday. As three GoodGym regulars are turning 30, 40 and 32 respectively on the 23rd – Abi, Rosie and Paul – everyone’s cordially invited to a celebratory Preston Park parkrun this week. See you in the café afterwards and don’t drink all the bubbles before we finish!

It was back to school tonight as we visited Cardinal Newman High School, one of the biggest in Brighton, to help them keep on top of keeping the vast school grounds tidy.

We welcomed Andy tonight, whom many of us have met before when he offered his considerable gardening expertise when we replanted the garden at Sloane Court, but this was the first time he had the full Brighton Goodgym experience. We are very happy to have you (and your ability to tell the difference between a plant and a weed!) on board. In the absence of any PBs or racing news I might have accidentally let slip that I got my pic in Athletics Weekly this week, its really not a big deal but page 55 if you happen to have a spare 5 minutes in WH Smiths!

A mostly uphill 3km to get to our destination where we split into two groups. One group tackled sweeping up dead leaves and weeds from outside the school gate and also cut back some overhanging ivy from the front wall. Group two headed to a quadrant at the back of the school where we swept up loads of dead leaves and moss from the brick patio as well as loads of litter. Working in the dark it wasn't possible to get some good before and after photos but we scraped several bags of moss and leaves and left both areas looking considerably better than before.

As you'd already worked so hard on the run and the task we kept the fitness session fairly sedate working on balance and stability with some lunges, plank taps and a bit of Warrior III pose. These are all great moves for runners and easy to practice at home or even in the office. Go on...do some now!!

It was much easier to get back to base running by a different but mostly downhill route. A quick stretch and another week of getting fit by doing good done! See you next week for a new destination at the Brighton Table Tennis Club and it will be monthly social time after.