Fifth Coat's a Charm

17 GG Yorkies ran to Changing Lives to paint three pink rooms magnolia!

Whilst a team of 7 went on a special Christmas mission in Woodthorpe, the rest of us ran to do some very challenging decorating. We welcomed along Shelley, who only moved to York yesterday, so we showed her all the best bits of York on our run like err.. the front of the train station and Marygate car park. Make sure you give her a big cheer!

Cara was armed and ready when we arrived, her paintbrush never left her hand. Our challenge was to cover the bright pink walls in three rooms with a much more soothing magnolia. Leanne quickly realised that her running jacket blended perfectly with the wall and if she could just stay very still, nobody would even know she was there.. but she's too much of a good'un to miss out on some hard graft.

We split into three teams and I cranked up the Christmas tunes to bring a bit of festive cheer to the task. Over in room three, Cem was already causing carnage just by finding somewhere to put the lid of the paint tub without dropping it on the carpet. Having already experienced GoodGym paint mishaps, Tim was supervising closely.

Room two was the first to get a GG logo painted on the wall, but had also managed to pull some of the wallpaper off. Lizzie was handed a scraper to perform her best surgical work and remove a tidy square, it was like it never happened.

Just paint over it! - Cara

The previous colour of the wall was vibrant to say the least. We quickly discovered that several coats would be required and were trying to paint over dry bits as soon as we could but the pink just kept shining back through.

If you just look out of the corner of your eye, it doesn't really look pink anymore! - A very optimistic Shelley

50 minutes down and we'd done the best we could without waiting for it to dry completely. At this point were were just spreading wet paint around and not really making progress so we vowed to return to paint more on another day.

The look we've gone for is patchy and rustic - Babs

It was time to clear up, rinsing was happening in every available sink and Nikki was absolutely determined to minimise cleaning by using up every single bit of paint from her tray.

Nikki is never going to stop

With Nikki and Becky finishing the rinsing, everybody else was holding the pose ready for a group photo. There was a rumour going around that they were taking their time to save everyone minutes from the impending fitness session but I was sure that couldn't be true. They even did sink squats to prove their dedication to the fitness cause.

We ran back for a partnered up fitness session with all sorts of exercises in pairs, including:

• Explosive jacks
• Jumping squats
• Plank and squat hold
• The sit-up and punch challenge
• Walk-out relays

Next week is our last run of 2017 so get signed up for a 5km to St Nicks!