Cabin Fever

A brilliant group of 21 ran to do good in Barnsley for the first time!

Yep, that's right. Barnsley has landed. It was a perfect, sunny evening for a run to the Barnsley Carer's Garden - a place where carers can go for a bit of respite and where people suffering with mental health problems are given support to help them get better.

We were supported in our launch by a dedicated team of travelling GG Yorkies, a GoodGym Bristol tourist Debs and a super GoodGym Sheffield contingent too. But most importantly we welcomed lots of fantastic new runners from Barnsley who'd heard about GoodGym and wanted to get stuck in!

I'm so pleased Barnsley has started, if I ever missed Monday and could still do good on a Tuesday! - Hannah, GoodGymer from Sheffield

One of these runners was Josh, who took on the very important job of chief navigator. My directional ability is questionable at the best of times, plus my curious instincts to "run up that hill that looks nice".. throw in a road closure that Google Maps didn't know about and it could have ended up been a much longer run, so you can all thank Josh for stepping in and doing some excellent co-leading.

We arrived at the Carer's Garden to be met by the lovely Bev of Together UK, and Head Gardener, Gordon. They told us a bit about the groups they get and all the great work they're doing before Gordon told us about our tasks for the evening; painting the cabin and shifting a "small pile of timber."

If it's brown, paint it brown - the instructions were kept nice and simple, phew!

Now, that 'small pile of timber' was in fact a rather massive pile of timber. A massive pile of varied sizes and pallets and all sorts of awkward stuff. It had to be moved down the far end of the garden where it would be used to make some raised beds both outside, and in the polytunnel. There was also a grand plan to build a small summerhouse down there too.

The timber team worked quickly, avoiding nails and obstacles whilst racking up their mileage with multiple trips up and down the garden, Sheffield run leaders Sam and Stephen took charge of dissecting the pile in a safe and organised manner.

Meanwhile the painting posse were getting a mean upper body working with frantic speed-painting, squatting down low and reaching up high. New Barnsley runner David was the tallest, so he was lucky not to have to do much squatting. Working hard on the painting too was Lyndsey - who we all cheered as she is Barnsley's first ever fully-fledged GoodGym member, nice one Lyndsey!

With less than five minutes to go, the painting was almost done and painters were running over to switch allegiances and give the timber team a helping hand. Both tasks were completed with 30 seconds to spare!

How do we celebrate a good job done at GoodGym? With a lovely bit of fitness of course!

Ball Bags

We played a fast and furious fitness game where runners had to collect balls and complete different numbers of exercises based on their ball choices. Exercises included:

• LUNGES!
• Jumping Squats
• Press ups
• Star Jumps
• Burpees
• Curtsey lunges
• Squat-thrusts
• Inch-worms
• Mountain Climbers

With everyone suitably sweaty and disheveled for the final group photo, we run back to the - predominantly uphill - Shaw Lane. Runners were cheered in to the finish through a runner tunnel in a great and supportive GoodGym manner. It was wonderful to see such big smiles and a big sense of community already building for this fabulous group.