On a proper cold and wintry night, we went to Glen Gardens for a big double task.

There were many things to celebrate tonight, not only did we have a PB-tastic team running the Dalby Dash over the weekend we also....

• awarded Centurion Carl his cape for running his 100th good deed last week
• announced Amy as GG Yorkie of the Month for October for being our insta queen, boshing her first half marathon and generally being an excellent GoodGymer.
• welcomed new runner Cara to the gang, who'd pitched up on the windiest, coldest night of winter so far!

We headed over to Glen Gardens where Iain, Adi and Karen were waiting for us. Adi and Karen (Friends of Glen Gardens) had already been in the park for TWO HOURS making piles of leaves. If I could award good deeds, I would dish those two out one each.

There were two main tasks. The first was to shift the gigantic pile of mulch to the borders, and the second was to clear as many leaves as possible from the paths and the grass, and fill the new compost bins.

The mulch movers were bizarrely armed with snow shovels, possibly not the most effective tool for the job but they seemed to he enjoying themselves.

Several sub-teams of leaf gatherers headed to different corners of the park with huge sacks, brooms, rakes and giant leaf grabbers. Once everyone was tooled up, Iain presented two leaf blowers, which Rich and Ellie were extremely excited about.

Much to my utter delight, Rich discovered that the 'lunge and leaf blow' move was quite effective. However, after handing the leaf blower to Leanne he also learned that trying to catch leaves in leaf grabbers whilst they were being leaf-blown, was hugely ineffective (envisage the final Crystal Dome challenge of Crystal Maze, 90s kids!)

The compost bins required lots of jumping in to compress the many piles of leaves and after 45 minutes, they were absolutely full to the brim. With most of the mulch shifted too, we had a little bit of time left for some fitness.

Fitness involved a partner challenge where one person skipped or bunny-hopped the length of the Pavilion and sprinted back whilst their partner squatted or lunged.

I'm so hungry, the bunny hops have sent me over the edge - Lucy

We utilised the leaf-blowers for some excellent Centurion Cape footage, gave Carl some massive team high fives and ran back just before the rain arrived, phew!

We all went to Castle Howard parkrun, it was a bit wet but still very lovely.

Becky Mo is officially back (for now) and all the Moylett clan were in attendance including the tiny and beautiful cockapoo pup, Dora Mo.

The good dog Digby managed to take out both Craig and Lizzie, but everyone else escaped unscathed!

Then it was cuppa central and breakfast baps all round with a brownie chaser (thanks Tim!)

A mammoth crew including four new runners came along for another two-task night at GoodGym York

We celebrated a massive weekend of racing with new parkrun PBs, new 10 mile PBs and completion of the English Cross Country National Championships - phew!

Mitch led out the 10km crew for a final hurrah at Rawcliffe whist I led the 4km crew to New Walk for a bench cleaning and path-widening challenge. Craig and Tim were our back-markers today, thanks chaps.

We arrived at the start of New Walk to be met by Win, with lots of buckets of soapy water and a few spades. Those who were logging their run wondered where the remaining kilometres were going to come from since it had only been 1km to the start.

It's the bench cleaning relay!

Working in pairs, runners took turn to either scrub the really mucky benches or scrape back the edges of the cycle path, whilst their partner walked, ran or sprinted to Blue Bridge and back. They swapped continuously for 15 minutes, before I switched the running bit to 20 squats, and then 10 lunges.

Lunges? How? It's my first time

Yes that's right. It was a momentous occasion for Jessie doing her first ever lunges and we made sure she had the technique nailed with perfectly angled knees and everything. Nick was going rogue with side lunges and Leanne was practising her balance by lunging down the white line in the middle of the cycle path. Lots of people stopped to ask what on earth we were up to and one man just spontaneously burst into lunges.

Mitch's team ran 5km along the Ouse and arrived at Rawcliffe to finish off the giant task of filling in the wetpour hole. They were tasked with filling the old hardcore site with 7 tonnes of soil; which will then be reseeded so there is full grass cover. In usual GG fashion, they dug out as much soil as possible until the bags were ‘draggable', then hauled them across to tip them out.

Ed apparently tried to start a rave with the music from the nearby fitness session (not ours) and started to dance but Emily was the only one who joined in with him, gutted. The task was finished quickly and the team boshed back along the river.

Last person to finish the run buys the round! - Craig, before realising he was the back marker

With the benches seriously cleaned up and hundreds of metres of cycle path widened, our work was done.

It's a trick, there's more fitness

Oh yes, we still had a few circuits to do in Tower Gardens:

• high steps
• skipping
• sprints
• elbow to knee walk/jog (Amy's choice)
• mountain climbers
• tricep dips
• press ups

..and with all that done, we headed back for a rest!

A bunch of GG Yorkies ran to Danesmead Wood for help move some massive tree trunks!

The Friends of Danesmead Wood wanted to build some seating areas made of tree trunks, but the trunks were big and heavy and required a bit of people power to move them.

Babs and Adriana were on sawing duty, sawing some of the thinner bits of wood into manageable chunks.

Armed with loops of ropes, the rest of us worked in little teams to move the trunks into two areas of the woodland. There were a few small distractions like a really good rope swing, a fun woodland den and two crazy dogs, but we managed to stay focused and get the job done.

The great thing about helping with tasks at Danesmead Wood is that Jude always brings amazing snacks and today was no exception - we munched on some flapjack and millionaire shortbread before running our separate ways.

GG Yorkies split into three teams to tackle different tasks across the city!!

We welcomed four fantastic new runners to the gang tonight; Jenny (who's one of the crew trying to start GoodGym in Harrogate), Emma, Pete, and Darren, who accidentally found himself at a Community Mission at the weekend and loved it.

The first report of the night comes from Nick (who forgot he was leading tonight but made it across Hob Moor without getting lost once!):

We set off across Hob Moor with newby Darren at the front and Ed controlling the back of the pack. Our task was to widen the cycle path by cutting back the well known shrubs Evergreenii Redberryus and Thornybushicus Ouchmythumbii (Note, possibly not their real names, Egg)

Pretty soon the builders bag was full of cuttings and we elected Ed to jump in it and squish as he was tallest. One broom, a bin bag and another Ed squish later and it was time to turn for home.

Leanne 'I am always very prepared and responsible as Run Leader' Allsopp suggested Indian File as a run back but because we finished our task super quick we slowed it down with:

• squat stops
• star jump intervals
• Morecambe and Wise style skipping intervals (copywright of Jenna
• lunging in a long line only pausing briefly under the rail tunnel for a wall sit

We should hold it until a train came past!

Seconds later, one did. Needless to say we held the wall sit until the last carriage went by - hardcore.

The next report is from my team at Rowntree Park

We set off to meet Beki in Rowntree Park for an exciting lock in. There were actually two cyclists who were really locked in, so we left them out first. Our task was to shift two tonnes of soil from bags, and onto the borders, ready for new grass seed.

5 minutes in and there was still no sign of our three walkers.

We're en route! - Katie

2 tonnes just is not enough for GoodGym, and it didn't take long for the last wheelbarrow to be filled. In fact, we filled the last wheelbarrow before the walkers even arrived, but that's because they'd gone the wrong way up the river and were basically out for a lovely evening stroll and covering many more kilometres than the runners.

The final job was to stomp down all the soil and there team were feeling particularly bouncy, so we did bouncing on the soil to compress it.With all the headtorches, we decided it was a bit like a disco/rave but with much dirtier feet.

With the walkers now in situ, we completed some mini exercise challenges on the way back to base including:

• Rail squats
• Rail presses
• Wall sit with cactus hand presses (yes, that's the real exercise name)
• Mini sprints
• Star jumps

...followed by a core session which included sit ups with high fives, all sorts of partner exercises, plank tag and a team plank tunnel with Richard doing one massive commando crawl!

The final (heavily edited) report is from Tim's team, 'Shed Seven'

Shed Seven were Going for Gold in the toughest task yet. Sprinting across Hob Moor in the twilight sun, we arrived at Foxwood in record time. After quickly assigning 3 different project managers (who put Tim in charge? Egg) we rapidly made progress wasting time orientating ourselves. Then the screwing began. Craig started screwing whilst Stef held firm. Then Tristan decided to have a go screwing and got the second screw in with a bit of force from Tim. Max "pro-screwer" Spicer stepped into action and found a screwdriver with appropriate girth to start screwing at record pace!

Is that label meant to be upside down? Paul

Turns out the doors were in fact back to front and upside down. That 'L for left' sign really had been important.(Sorry Tim, felt that 'we remedied a slight technical error and left', wasn't detailed enough. Egg) Once that was sorted, we realised the rain guard that held it all together was missing, so we just screwed everything we could and left.

&%

amp;$£% SHED!! - Stef

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