GoodGym takes the edge off

32 GG Yorkies ran 6km to help tidy up Fishponds Wood.

Before the festivities commenced, there was a lot to celebrate including:

• Barbara completing her 100th parkrun
• Laurence coming first at York Parkrun and getting a parkrun PB
• Nick, Stef, Lindsay and others running 10ks in Tholthorpe and Wetherby

Lindsay was announced as GG Yorkie of the Month for August. Lindsay had set herself a goal to complete her 50th good deed by the end of the month and absolutely smashed it with loads of community and older people missions. She also ventured out of York on some GoodGym tourism, and completed a top secret mission to collect the January Challenge golden trowel from Bristol in the process. Give her a cheer!

We welcomed no less than three new runners:

• Elyse (who was a big help with setting up. I think that counts as her induction into Team Tall!)
• Jean-Michel
• Lin Lee

In sadder news, we acknowledged Tom's last run with GoodGym York. We'll look forward to checking out his antics with GoodGym Swindon in the near future.

At Fishponds Wood, Kristina greeted us with a van full of tools. Each runner selected their weapon of choice before venturing into the woods to complete our tasks for the day which were:

• Edging the paths
• Raking up arisings
• Cutting back nettles

The group split into three teams and got to work. Martyn wasn't too satisfied with his tool and announced

I'm going to find one of those diggy things

Meanwhile, Max was having fun with the leaf blowers, trying to create himself some sort of Iron Man suit.

Paul Kelly told me that I should boss people around more - and then immediately followed up with 'not me - I should get special treatment.' It turned out that the group were working well together and needed hardly any bossing about. Within half an hour, everything was looking a whole lot tidier.

Burpees for Sean

On the way back to base, we stopped off for a very special fitness session.

Following the sad news that local hero and GoodGym Yorkie, Sean Coxhead lost his battle to cancer yesterday, it seemed fitting to exercise in his memory. A few weeks ago, Sean had messaged a few of us to let us know that he only had a few weeks left to live. Egg asked him 'What can we do to make your weeks as good as possible?'

Make em do burpees for me :) buahaha (Sean)

So in memory of the wonderful (if slightly evil) Sean, we did a lot of burpees, with added planks, plank jacks, rotating planks and plank walkouts.