Ooh ah, just a litter pick, ooh ah a litter pick more!

Tonight on GoodGym Barnsley's first group run of 2019, 10 runners came together to run the streets of Barnsley town centre, collecting as much litter as possible!

Tonight we met at our brand new start location at Glasshouse, Gateway Plaza at the slightly later time of 6.30pm. It was super cosy inside by the fire, on what was a bitterly cold night in Barnsley, making it that bit harder to get our legs moving! Nevertheless, everyone was full of beans and raring to go, fighting each other off to get the best litter pickers and keen to get going! Our team tonight included the fantastic four from Sheffield and super six from Barnsley! We welcomed new runner Clair to GG Barnsley tonight, lets show her our support and cheers here. Great to have you along Clair!

We headed off in the direction of the litter, attempting to bag a few Strava segments on the way. To warm up the legs, the group first ran quickly towards an uphill segment in town, heading up Victoria Road climb. It's not about the winning, it's about the taking part and everyone put in a lot of effort to get up that hill! Great job Jason for getting a Strava trophy!

After the up hill there was a lot of down hill, which was a nice relief for the legs. When we reached the bottom of Honeywell Lane, the team got to work carefully collecting all the rubbish caught in the fence line and edge of the road. We found lots of plastic bottles, bags and packets and some oddities including a half eaten banana hanging from a tree, a shoe, some gloves and a pair of knickers! After collecting rubbish from one small area in Honeywell close to the train bridge, we had filled 5 large black bags!!

From there we headed further down Honeywell Street collecting rubbish from bushes and shrubs, filling a further 3 bags! It was back up hill from there towards the town centre, picking up any large bits of rubbish on the way! The last littered area I had planned for us to tackle on our route, had miraculously been cleared since I had done my litter recce on Sunday, so we tied up the three remaining bags, mission accomplished!

This left just enough time for one final segment, the hill of doom (my made up name), Fitzwilliam street! It's a steepy! The challenge was to beat my PR of 0.36 seconds or should they wish, the leading Strava time of 0.17 seconds! Everyone dug deep for one final push, releasing the last bits of energy they had and did an amazing job!

After a quick stretch off and chit chat about January good deeding, we said our farewells! We'll be back for more next week, where we'll be painting the sports hall at the YMCA! Sign up here if you can make it!

Over and Out!