Taking Pole Position; No Cane, No Gain

Tonight we were off to the YMCA community allotment. Due to train strikes and other circumstances we had fewer numbers than expected tonight. No bother though, more fun 'allotmenty' work for us. The run to the task tonight was a nice gentle uphill. We started by crossing the roads feeding the roundabout at the sets of traffic lights. Kirsty was so eager tonight that she started doing squats at the stops without even needing a prompt! Kudos for the 'keen-ness'!

When we got to the allotment, we opened up the container and waited for the folks from the YMCA to arrive, unable to 'contain' our excitement for what might await us tonight. We didn't have to wait long for them to arrive though and they showed us what needed attending to; we were to clear an area of sticks and branches that may be used for built compost bins in future. The branches were to be categorised by us into two types; ones deemed suitable for use as supporting canes and thinner ones that would be used to build up the fence/hedge that is currently ⁷under construction along one side of the allotment. The thin ones for the fence/hedge were carried over in bundles and added on top of the branches that were already in place. It was bundles of fun! The more sturdy ones were stacked left of the pallet insect hotel for future use using our 'one-stack minds'.

The good folks from the YMCA also said that we were welcome to some chard if we wanted as it wasn't likely to last much longer in Barnsley's inhospitable winter climate. Magically, we were able to....

Pick a chard, any chard!

This task took up the lion's share of the time and before we knew it it was time to start wrapping up.

We locked up the container and prepared for some bouncy exercises on the allotment; it was time to do some box jumps onto the benches supported by rubber tyres. We lept 30 times (plus a couple of extras for the camera), focusing on arm movement to propel us up. We always bounce back!

Following this flight-filled frolicking we set off back to Glasshouse roundabout for our next fun-filled fitness session; the Fitzwilliam Strava segment! On the way there we bumped into a familiar face, Kirsty's mum who was out on a run. As our 2 new members were unable to come tonight and another was stopped in her tracks due to strikes I thought it would be nice to have another person join our fitness, so I of course asked if she would like to do the segment with us... and she did. Woop! Kirsty was just running the segment for "fun" as her battery had gone on her phone, and little did I know, I was too as my phone wasn't recording properly (thanks battery saving mode!). It's great sprint training anyway. With this done, we got to talking about a running circuit very close by, which both ladies have experience of doing. We thought we might aswell give it a bash as it was so close. The route incorporated some slabby downhill running, a bit of off-road and some more sprinty uphills; we just can't get enough of them!

After all of the exercise tonight, the three of us headed over the road to Glasshouse to finish with some guided stretching.