Well this is a bumper edition of the run report!

Today is the 175th anniversary of A Christmas Carol - written by Portsmouth born (oh yes!) Charles Dickens so look out for the related puns...

News & Updates:

Judy managed a 5km PB at Great Run Local on Sunday - she's been taking big chunks off her times recently - nice one Judy!

Rachel is doing her 50th Parkrun on Saturday before she flies off for some Aussie sunshine. Come on down to Southsea to run as well, give her a cheer and maybe celebrate with some cake after!

Festive Tai Chi is now on this week: Saturday 11:00 at the Coffee Cup. Free to attend and guaranteed laughs.

Tonight's Task

Tonight we welcomed back Shakira who has returned to the south coast for her Christmas break... just remember your friends here in Portsmouth when you're a super star!

For our first task, we returned to Buckland community centre tonight to offer many willing hands and some seasonal cheer. Mary wasn't expecting quite so many people but we split into various groups. The hardcore folk went outside to sweep up wet leaves in the rain, those who stayed in the dry sorted out the charity shop area, leaflet stands and swept the floor of the cafe area - mince pie crumbs, glitter and dried peas were the main haul. Louisa was singing Christmas songs whilst brandishing the mop, if only I'd taken a video it would've been a viral hit!

After the task we headed back to Fratton Community Centre to share food and fun. Task number two was a task with a Twist - try to eat all the food that we had collectively brought along to share! There was plenty of festive good cheer and no sign of Bah Humbug! as we shared Christmas plans (Lapland and Australia by far the most exciting) and good news about future new members of the gang!

And we also had the Awards - perhaps there were Great Expectations for this part of the evening. It wasn't quite the Oscars but the right people got their certificates! Here's the round up:

Top of the Pops (most good deeds this year excluding tonight!) in reverse order were: Judy (15), Rosie(16), Maura(18), Laura(18), Sam(19), Tony(30), Mel(30), Angela(31). Pompey Angel with a massive 34 good deeds in 2018 is Jo.

Forrest Gump award to Angela for most kms logged with a total of 439km!

Hat Trick award to Mel in recognition of her coach runs, missions and group run good deeds.

Mr Bump award to Rosie for most random injury. Sustained not in a group run (in case Ed is reading and wondering about the missing accident report!) but on the way to GoodGym when she was lassoed by some plastic binding.

Congratulations to all our winners AND also a big thank you to everyone who comes along to GoodGym and makes it a great place to be. Tonight we hit 487 Good Deeds for Portsmouth - awesome team work!

Here are a few things to be aware of as we head into the New Year:

The January GoodGym Good Deeds Challenge - we have set a stretch target of 90 good deeds for the month and a collective running distance of 650kms. We are competing against all other GoodGym areas for the coveted Golden Trowel trophy! So sign up to the group runs, community missions and keep an eye out for anything else we can get involved with - please speak to me or one of the task force (Mel, Jo, Angela & Sam) if you see a good opportunity. AND please link your Strava accounts to your GG profiles if you haven't already!

RED January - This started life as "run every day" in January to support your mental health but this year is slightly different - it's about being active every day so that might be running but walking, biking, gym class, dancing etc etc all count too. You can sign up and use it to raise money for MIND if you would like to or just get involved via their social media accounts on Facebook & Twitter.

Strava Club - Rosie has kindly set up a Strava Club for us called GoodGym Portsmouth if you also join this we can see how far we can all run together in 2019... How fast do you think we will get to 2019km? Place your bets!

Group Runs restart on Wednesday 9th January with a mystery task! Before that you have a chance to come and join in with a coached session on Monday 31st December and a beach clean on Saturday 5th January. Plus there's an additional Southsea Parkrun on Christmas Day at 9:00 and the opportunity to do the double on New Year's Day - Southsea at 9:00 and QE Country Park at 10:30

If you are still awake at the end of this report, well done! Thanks again for playing your part in GoodGym this year. Here's to more fun, runs, puns and good deeds in 2019. I will leave you with a genuine quote from A Christmas Carol which seems fitting:

There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour

Have a brilliant Christmas and New Year. See you on the other side!

Katie :)

I wonder whether the run report title will mean more people read it this week... we will see!

Firstly, welcome to Kev for his first GoodGym experience. We were a bit topsy-turvy this week as we didn't have to move to get to our task! Normal service will resume next week when we head to St Judes (note there's no walk group next week either as it's a bit too far).

Thanks must go to Anna, Clare and Paul for their patience with showing us how to make the lanterns. These lanterns are specifically for the Phoenix dance group to perform with at the Fratton Festival of Light on Thursday 6th December. If anyone would like to join the procession (not the dance performance), sign up here. There are also other lantern workshops listed on FBL's facebook page if you want to make more!

The X referred to in the title was of course the letter we were using to decorate the lamps as the theme of this year's parade is letters. We did advocate for G - our favourite letter of the alphabet - but it's not relevant to the dancers! Tony's quote of the evening is possibly a little too retro for some of our younger runners:

I wouldn't give a XXXX for anything else

After our lantern making was completed (an excellent job by all concerned, even those who apparently are no good at art!) we headed off into the dark and cold. Jo's walking group turned into a walk/run as Lara & Tracey fancied more of a challenge! They completed 2.2 miles (further than the run group!!!) in 42 minutes. The run group had a good warm up, 1km ish to Fratton Bridge, 4 x 8s hill reps, stair challenge at the railway bridge, 7 star jumps and a sprint before heading back down Fratton Road. Awesome enthusiasm from everyone.

Dates for the diary:

• 19th Dec: Christmas bring and share after our final run of the year
• 25th Dec: Christmas Day Parkrun at Southsea 9:00
• 1st Jan: NY Day Parkrun at Southsea 9:00
• 9th Jan: First Group Run of the year

I think that is everything for the moment. Thanks for another great GoodGym night. :)