Total Kermit-ment

20 incredible runners and one amphibian joined forces to give some trees a temporary home

For some reason last week feels like an absolute age ago, so it felt good to be back amongst the red heroes tonight. We welcomed one new runner Frances, who got proved straight away that she's one of us by providing our frog-based pun (more on that later). Welcome Fran! Go and give her a cheer!

We started out with some news, letting everyone know about all the awesome stuff that been going on in the last week, including a big kitchen clean, a big parkrun trip and an awesome hilly training session! The fun doesn't stop there either, with a parkrun at Potternewton park this Saurday to celebrate international women's day, and our first social hike on Sunday organised by Alex. Check the event listings for more info.

Tonight's run was to take us back to Growing Better where we've been heading to quite regularly. They always have big ideas but we're never quite sure what we'll end up doing till we get there! We started out with a quick warm up, which was a brief preview of the running drills they'd be doing in the fitness session later (but of course they didn't know it at the time)!

The run down was more eventful than usual, with Joe admitting that he's been out for a 'practice run' yesterday to make sure he was up to GoodGym after not running much recently. Suzi was lamenting the lack of half-time oranges during a GoodGym group run (so if anyone wants to bring refreshments for her sake then feel free! Finally Riv had just got her layers all wrong...

"I'm so hot, I think I need to take my thermal off! Can I just take my clothes off at the lights?" Riobhne just stopping short of causing a scene!

Luckily everyone remained fully clothed and we arrived at West Leeds Activity Centre ready for a fun session of surprises. The first surprise was a cute little frog (or toad, we weren't entirely sure) that came out to say hello when we were all gathered round to find out what we had planned. Dorota had two main tasks for us, the first was to build some compost bins, but after showing us their existing ones that we wanted to emulate, she realised she didn't have strong enough rope, and so this task has been pushed back to next week.

The main task for the evening then, was to plant a huge number of saplings in big bunches, to help keep them alive until they were ready to plant them properly. Carol decided they were actually Mandrakes (from Harry Potter), which mean the bunches now came with added screaming!

We headed over to the allotment area and got to work! The trees didn't need to be dug in particularly deep as this was just a temporary solution before they found their 'Forever home'. Dorota explained where the trees would end up.

"We've just got an additional site at a Farm near Harewood House, so a lot of the trees wil end up there, ans we're also working with three schools in Kirklees" Dorota, task owner.

As we were running low on tools, a few people broke off to rearrange the ground covers which had been thrown around in the recent storms. It also gave Riv the chance to discover her "favourite stick" (see photos for evidence!) Suzi also had a lovely moment where she felt really connected to the trees she was planting.

"I thought this tree was called Hazel but I realised it's just a type of tree" Suzi, showing that we're always learning at GoodGym!

After all the trees were planted, we had time for a quick session, consisting of 30 metres of running drills with walk-back recoveries. We focused on form, fast feet and getting a good spring from our strides which should really help our running form. The drills were:

• High knees
• Heel kicks
• High knee skipping
• Side skips

There was some really great work on show, with everyone really committing to the drills (with varying success rates!) The side skips in particular take a little practice, so we'll definitely do these again soon.

After we were all wrapped up, we said our goodbyes before starting the long slog back up the hill. Katie and Carol took up back-marking duties, and everyone took it fairly steady on the way back, where we all regrouped and finished off with a quick stretch.

You were all on excellent form tonight, with everyone getting stuck into the task, and too much silliness for me to include it all in the report! See you all next week!