Line of Duty

On GoodGym York's ONE YEAR anniversary, we had a record-breaking attendance and completed two tasks for the local community.

We welcomed three brand new runners to the gang tonight, so a big shout out to Brett, Hayden and Chance - give 'em a cheer!

With the two teams for the two tasks set, we headed off in opposite directions as a genuinely concerned member of the public told Leanne that some people had gone the wrong way. The traffic lights to cross Micklegate take so long that we often get to talk to members of the public and many a random pedestrian has been educated about GoodGym there.

Task #1 Glen Gardens: digging and leaf clearing

26 runners met Iain at the gates of Glen Gardens; he wanted us to entirely dig over a corner plot in the park so that it was ready to be seeded with grass. He also wanted us to clear all the leaves along the outside of the tennis and basketball courts.

A squad of four leaf clearers grabbed their big scoopers and ventured off to fill many bags of leaves whilst everybody else got straight into the digging. When over 20 people are digging, it really doesn't take very long but everybody was happy to keep it going because digging keeps you really warm.

Digging, however, is also very hard work and the minute I called for some extra support for the leaf team, Bev, Helen and Maddy were straight in there - Bev even did some extra running getting more of the big green bags.

In just 25 minutes, the whole patch had been entirely dug over and raked to smooth perfection by Shelley, Amy and Leanne. The leaf gatherers had filled 8 bags and our work was done.

We ran back to a tunnel on the cycle path to complete our *flashback workout', repeating some of the exercises we did at our very first run one whole year ago. First up, it was wall sits and sprints in teams of two. Poor Rob was partnerless so I jumped in to keep him company and we (mostly Rob) were a dream team of quad strength.

After the tunnel, we ran on to Morrisons Tower for the final part of the flashback workout, where six teams completed six rounds of exercises including:

• Bench press ups
• Tricep dips
• High steps
• Star jumps
• Jumping sit squats

There was some seriously hardcore effort going on as Shelley showed her press-up prowess, Alaya did some brilliant clapping bench press ups and new runner Hayden beat his own record for number of press ups in one go.

The push ups made my face hurt! - Hayden

Bev also showed us her best thrusting, which we all loved.

Task #2 Painting lines on the sports pitch at Woodthorpe Primary School (report by Tim)

6 intrepid good deeders struck out on their own to lay down some beautiful (if not quite straight) football pitches. Led into the school by expert football pitch line designer Michal we grabbed our paint and some string and got working. After some good (and not at all wonky) work from Ellie, Carl quickly took the helm of our painting.

I'd be happy with just one line not doing all of them!" - Carl

Carl's expert manoeuvering saw us zip round the two pitches only running into slight trouble with the centre oblongs... sorry circle.

It's a lovely... apple! - Michal

Before we knew it time was up and we left Michal to lock up whilst Paul led us home at an excellently swift pace allowing us to all count it as speed training!