St Nick's gets the GoodGym Tree-tment

24 GoodGym Yorkies ran to St Nick's Fields to transplant some trees.

With Egg away in London all week, attending courses which will no doubt teach her new and interesting/painful ways to make us all extra fit, Leanne took hold of the Goodgym reins. Tonight's task was to dig up some young trees from deep within the dark and spooky depths of St Nick's Field, and replant them at the entrance.

After welcoming new runner, Simon to the gang, Leanne introduced the Horn of Star Jumps. By day it's just a standard bulb horn for a bicycle - but on group runs, it induces 5 quick star jumps in runners every time they hear it parp. It came in especially handy for keeping everyone warm whilst waiting to cross the road at the world's slowest traffic lights.

That sound really carries - Becky

Once at St Nick's the group split up into two teams. Those without head torches stayed in the relatively well-lit entrance to dig up brambles which would make space for the trees that the other group were to provide. While they got to work, Jonathan from St Nicks led Team Headtorch down a dark path to help them identify which types of trees they should dig up.

Basically, avoid replanting any brambles

Once a substantial pile of freshly dug-up trees had accumulated back at the entrance, it was time to start replanting. Some of the group dug holes while others lopped back the bigger specimens so that they could grow back bigger and bushier in future. Meanwhile, anyone left without a job was set to work planting snowdrop bulbs.

With so many trees to replant, the one minute countdown stretched into two minutes, just to make sure the last tree was planted firmly in the ground.

It's amazing how much our productivity increases in the last minute - Nick

On the way back to base, we stopped at Clifford's Tower where everyone was relieved to find out that we weren't going to be doing step reps. The perfectly circular path in front of the dramatically lit Castle Museum made a great setting for a game of meet and retreat - once everyone had grasped the rules that is...

In other news, Leanne was happy to arrive back at the Premier Inn without having had to use her first aid kit!

Last, but not least, lets give a big cheer to Aron and Paul for helping out with the leading and backmarking tonight.