G-rafting for St Nick

27 GG Yorkies came along for our last group run of 2018!

On our very last Monday night run of the year, we headed over to visit our besties at St Nicks for a double task bonanza. Our two tasks were to build as many water vole rafts as we could, and to scarify an area of the park, sow some seeds and see it thrive as a wild area for 2019.

But before we got onto all that, we had some stuff to celebrate.

• TWO NEW RUN LEADERS - Tim and Mitch both completed their GG run leader training over the weekend are are now officially qualified to be in charge (terrifying? yes!)
• The return of AMAZING ARON - oh how we've missed him
• GG Yorkie of the Month NOVEMBER (finally!) - Craig!
• GG Yorkie of the Month DECEMBER - Vicky!
• And last, but definitely not least, Centurion Tim doing his 100th GOOD DEED!!

Make sure you go and give them all a huge cheer!

Ellie B and Katie K were on a walking mission and had set off ahead of our warm-up, they must've walked super fast because they were just hanging out waiting for us to get there (nothing to do with me running straight past the turning whilst in deep conversation with Huw). We split into two groups, with each group having 16.5 minutes on each task with a halfway swap.

We were all very confused by some sort of machinery device that Jonathan had with the wheelbarrows and tools.

That is something called a lawnmower - Jonathan

We ignored that weird thing completely, if it's not manual labour, it's not our bag. Wheelbarrows were quickly filled with scarified (read: fiercely raked up) grass and dumped in the compost area.

Meanwhile, there was a frenzy of activity in the raft-building area. The plywood was supposed to be cut in a particular rectangular shape and was even marked out with how it was supposed to be cut but Ed has gone completely rogue and made a super large, square one for "the really big water voles". Mitch had managed to make one that looked like it was made by a two year old.

No self-respecting water vole will poo on that

He wrote "Tim McKenzie, aged 6" on it, so nobody would ever know.

We swapped tasks and the water vole raft crew hit the ground running, or "chaotic" as the lovely Maria described it. Usually a smaller group take half a day or so to put these together so 13 people sawing frantically is not what she's used to.

Time was up. Our scarifying task was complete and 23 water vole rafts had been constructed. We ran back (still beaten by the walkers) just in time to complete one final, massive, epic fitness session.

The 12 Days of Christmas Workout!!!

Oh yes, what better way to warm up from a cold Yorkshire winter run than a very tough workout in a boiling hot room!?

• A single lovely burpeeeee
• Two walk-out press-ups
• Three squats-a-jumpin'
• Four hula hoop hips
• Five fllllyyyying kneeeees
• Six walking lunges
• Seven partner sit-downs
• Eight can-can kicks (with added awesome singing)
• Nine high fives
• Ten fast high knees
• Eleven planks-a-jackin'
• Twelve mountain climbers

...and at the end of one very sweaty workout, Huw brought out the homemade mince pies, Tim brought out the biscuits and Leanne ran to get to the front of the queue in the pub. It was the perfect end to a truly fantastic year of GoodGym.

Big thanks to Sean for tonight's photos - check out the whole album here

We are back on the 7th January from our NEW START LOCATION, see all our group run listings here