Wet Wet Wet

On a very soggy bank holiday Monday, 28 GoodGymers turned up for a lovely run in the rain!

We welcomed along Caroline all the way from GG Sheffield and celebrated Beth and Jenna's first half marathons over the weekend, as well as Laura's first 10k and Andy's 10k PB, phew.. loads of weekend running.

We split into two teams and the walkers, led by Ellie D, headed off whilst the rest of us had a little warm up (still in the sunshine).

Mitch led a group to Greenfields Garden, where the team had three tasks to complete:

• Clearing an area of old wood chip (essentially, grass) to lay new wood chip
• Scything an overgrown path to make space for a new manure pile
• Moving carpets, moving soil between bays, adding layers of soil, hay and guinea pig droppings and covering with carpets whilst moving sticks and folding up bags into other bags...simple, right?!

When the rain began, everyone took shelter and enjoyed having dry feet to to our excellent drainage system which we created in 2017 - still going strong! Despite the weather, the tasks were finished and everyone warmed up with a good fitness session and some hearty singing of rain-related songs.

I liked the bit where we ran under a bus shelter - Amy's highlight of the evening

My team at Rowntree Park were clearing the borders of the sensory garden, which is being reinstated after a long period of neglect. Our task was to dig up all the weeds, leaving only the plants and herbs.

First thing I dug up, definitely had a plant label - Debs

We had to pull up a lot of dock, as well as something that looked a lot like dock and wasn't, and the funny little white flowered weed too. Weeds were piled into three wheelbarrows and run up to the park gates where we filled giant bags, ready for collection.

When the deluge hit, everyone just carried on doing good but when it hit even harder the second time, some of the group took shelter. The rule was that if you were taking shelter you had to squat continuously as an alternative to doing good.

Once the sacks were filled with weeds we warmed up with a little fitness session on the new grassy labyrinth. The fitness session doubled up as a helpful task as our stomping and fast feet flattened the grass to make the labyrinth outline more distinct. We did some lunges, side hurdles, jump to squat and leap frogs for those who were feeling brave.

Let's hope it's back to the usual dry and sunny York for next week!