This evening, 21 dedicated GoodGym Cardiff runners ran to help the Global Gardens Project in what was an incredible feat of human endurance!

Runners gathered at Yr Hen Lyfrgell at 18.15 ready to begin the run at 18.30. There was much excitement in the room, talking about the run ahead (or so I believe?) and how fun the Cardiff Half Marathon was! (albeit painful with a few complimentary blisters)...

When the clock struck 18.30 we made our way outside. It was a lovely evening, but it was starting to feel slightly colder. We only felt cold for a short amount of time as we soon warmed up when we began jogging on the spot and doing the ever familiar head count (we are getting so much better each week at this… numbers above 10 do begin to get tricky for us). We said our name, our number, whether we had been to GoodGym before and our favourite type of fruit. It was a rather fruitful outcome with a whole variety of foods mentioned. A HUGE mention to runner Rosie; It was Rosie’s first time to GoodGym Cardiff and in true GoodGym fashion this was acknowledged with spontaneously conditioned cheers and vigorous clapping. GoodGym Cardiff's very own Mikey Owens is now a run leader too and is qualified to lead GoodGym runs... exciting times folks!

After our headcount and when the clapping had ceased we warmed up. The warm up involved high knees which were feeling painful for most of the runners who had participated in the Cardiff Half Marathon on Sunday... Lucy, Emma, Emma, Mikey, Fliss, Ben, Aimee, to name a few... Click here to read the report from the race! We then lunged and did a few other dynamic warm up exercises before setting off.

Without further ado we were on our way. Ben was leading whilst Andie back marked. Andie definitely did a great job of back marking as nobody got lost - This is always a good sign! Traffic lights are red… HALT! We are very safe and sensible runners, we waited for the green man before crossing roads, this also meant we had time to regroup – Ben made us jog on the spot whilst we waited though as otherwise our legs would cease up (How very kind of him!).

We are here!!! We have now arrived at the allotment of the Global Gardens Project

After all the runners had arrived into the allotment Ben introduced Poppy who was tonight’s task organiser.

Global Gardens Project is a community growing project based in Cardiff. The vision of the project is to create a growing space that supports community-based sharing of food and cultures. Their allotment site is where they cultivate an organic kitchen garden, celebrating crops from around the world.

So this is the wonderful organisation we would be helping this evening. Poppy began by splitting runners into 3 separate groups. The Hedge Trimmers, the Pathfinders and Apple Picker-uppers.

The hedge trimmers armed with secateurs, and looking rather scary, ferociously began cutting back the overgrowth. They looked like a force not to be messed with!

Lucy, Aimee and Ellen equipped with headtorches weeded and churned over path ready for wood chipping. They are now renowned throughout Cardiff as The Pathfinders! Great posing with the weed you found Aimee (look at the photos)

The apple picker-uppers living up to their name picked up every apple that lie on the ground. Lucy and Rosie were two of the group of apple pickers who got stuck straight into the apple picking. They separated apples which were edible and disposed of the rotten apples in the compost pile.

This is probably the best time to mention about the significance of the safety briefing; You may think the safety briefing Ben gives is far fetched... e.g. apples falling from trees and potentially knocking someone out... and in truth, Ben, the GoodGym trainer thought himself it was quite far fetched. Until tonight. An apple fell from the tree and landed only feet away from Ben; He was most surprised on how accurate his safety briefing is over the actually potential of the apple hitting him on the head; he recalls the apple traveling at the speed comparable to an asteroid... and after saying this we wondered whether the apple actually did miss his head.

Runners were given 30 minutes (28 minutes in all accounts) to get the task done. They were definitely getting a full body workout this evening with all the different and physically challenging tasks!

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During the task Ben set a couple of ‘Riddles for the run’. Give them a go, comment below and next week the answers will be revealed!

Riddle 1: What travels around the world but stays in the corner?

Riddle 2: What types of words are these: Madam, Civic, Eye, Level?

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Time is up folks…

The good news... We got the tasks done! The sad news… Our time at Global Gardens allotment was now up. After a group photo under the moon and a big thank you to Poppy who provided us with an awesome task we began our journey back to Yr Hen Lyfrgell. Aimee and Emma were now back marking this time (Aimee was sporting some epic running lights - I have a feeling they will become a fashion craze!).

Thank you Poppy for arranging an awesome task. All of us have a great time helping out at the allotment and we can’t wait to run back to help out there again soon.

We took a slightly different route back and for some runners this brought flashbacks to the forefront of their minds of the Cardiff Half Marathon (The route involved running down Cathays Terrace which was a segment of the final mile in the half marathon).

FINAL SPRINT GUYS! Finishing off our run as per usual GG Cardiff fashion we did a sprint from the church to the steps of Yr hen Lyfrgell. This is now a segment on Strava – thank you Fliss for doing this! - which will now be notorious for many runs to come. Well done again to Rosie who joined us for the first time :)!

Congratulations Ellen and Emma … you’re both puntastic! You’ve won the RunPunstiltskin award this week (I've cut it in half so you can share it, please use virtual glue to stick it back together afterwards)! Who’s going to take the punt at winning the RunPunstiltskin award next week?... You have to be in it to win it!

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