Rake Expectations

12 GG Yorkies ran 8km to work off Easter chocolate and rake mowings in Heworth

We welcomed 3 brand new runners to GoodGym tonight; Rachel, Stefan and Graham - give 'em a big cheer! After a warm up using nothing but a chair each, we beat the lights and headed up Micklegate with Paul in the lead and Lizzie as our back-marker.

We were met at the Heworth Without Community Centre by Roger and his car full of rakes. Some of our members have become quite expert at raking and were very pleased with the quality of the tools on offer at tonight's task.

Our job was to rake up all the mowings from one area of the field to make it less fertile and encourage wildflower growth, moving them all to another area where a spot of extra fertility is needed.

Piles of grass were raked up and gathered onto tarps before being dragged across the field and scattered around newly planted (and carpet-lined!) trees. We then raked all the grassy pathways to neaten them up and to give us extra grass to scatter around where it was required.

Try not to get grass on the carpet!

As we finished all the raking, Alison found a bizarre pile of semi-burnt French homework which remains a total mystery. Nonetheless, we cleared up all the rubbish too because we're good like that.

There's a great play area and an awesome zip line in the park but we resisted the urge to play because we had some very serious exercises to do. Working in pairs, we boshed out some split squats to feel the burn in the legs before doing the press up and tricep dip challenge.

We celebrated our good deed with a few walking lunges before Paul set a decent pace back to the Premier Inn where we were all very glad for the water they'd left for us.

We'll be heading back to Heworth for a bank holiday mission on the 1st - keep an eye out for the details!