For the second week in a row, we had a last minute task cancellation, and once again, our triumphant taskforce overachieved by pulling a trio of tasks out of the bag to replace the original one.

We welcomed Rachel to her first Goodgym task and Marianne to her first Goodgym York session, and congratulated Mitch on his epic PB at Kielder half marathon yesterday.

Then, after a Mr Men themed warm-up, we split into three teams:

Delightful Dom took his team of four around the corner, a whole 140m away, to continue weeding at Prospect Terrace.

He said: A small group braved the 140m run to Prospect Terrace, continuing on the good work started last week. Local councillor, Pete, brought us a heavy bag to fill and we got started.

Four of us cleared weeds from the beds, making space for a wider range of plants and pollinators in the spring. We spent a good chunk of time, and pretty much cleared the beds of all the 'weeds', meaning more plants will have a chance at growing - to the benefit of the humans and pollinators of Prospect Terrace!

We then went on a gentle 1.6km run to cap things off before heading to the Ackhorne

Marvellous Mitch took his team of 8 to meet Valiant Vicky at Park Grove School

(His legs were a bit worn out from his epic run yesterday, so Pete actually led the run, while Mitch pedalled slowly behind!)

Mitch said:

We arrived at Vicky's school and faced the large pile of soil we needed to shift. The task was to barrow and shovel this soil and fill in some raised beds.

In GG fashion we got stuck in. It may have been pitch black, some of us may have forgotten our headtorches, but after 40 minutes we made a massive dent in the pile!

One more session and we will have this pile cleared!

Legendary Leanne took her team of 7 to Fishergate Triangle to continue to prepare the ground for creating a wildflower meadow (aka weeding)

She said:

St Nicks were pleased to find that we could offer an extra session this week which may very well bring us closer to victory in the war against those remarkably resilient weeds. Fortunately they're much easier to dig up nowadays due to our previous efforts, and we managed to (re)clear two significant sections of the triangle. Our task owner, Maeve reported that there should soon be a delivery of woodchip which will be spread over the soil to slow down the regrowth and give the wildflower meadow a chance to get underway.

On the mention of a triangle-based fitness session on the way back to base, a trio of goodgymers mysteriously remembered they had some urgent business to attend to back home, so didn't run back with us. The last four standing made our way to Tower Gardens where we ran some intervals along the sides of the triangle there, and threw in some skipping, lunging and galloping for good measure.

Another successful trio of tasks completed. See you next week for more Goodgym York adventures!

😳 Well, this week’s group run started with a bit of drama as our task cancelled 20 minutes before the session!

🦸‍♀️ Never fear though, a trio of terrific Taskforce members organised a task each, providing a triplet of terrifically taxing tasks for our gang of 24.

🔨 Laura led a group to Holgate Community Garden for the infamous “post-whacking”. Here’s what she had to say:

🍐 6 of us carried the posts and equipment to the garden and bashed in posts around the young fruit trees to stop council mowers from damaging them.

🌱 Meanwhile, Abi, Dom and Martin C kept it local, cracking on with some weeding at Prospect House. Apparently they made a “good ol’ dent”, which is excellent news. They also “apparently” did 500 press ups each. I think I’m tempted to believe the former more than the latter!

🚸 The rest of us headed to Park Grove to continue shovelling the big pile of (now sodden) soil, clear more of the ground for it to be laid and cut the under-layer into just the right shapes.

✂️ With the three wheelbarrowers working incredibly hard (despite wonky wheels and uneven ground), we made good progress with the soil pile. Meanwhile, the weed-clearers dug and extracted to their hearts’ content, under a variable level of shelter from the rain. The cutters had fun tessellating various shapes of underlay to be covered with soil.

🌧️ Progress was swift, undeterred by said rain and Vicky was “delighted” that we were able to come tonight. It was soon time for a group photo and fitness.

🪜 Fitness took place under the shelter, with steps handily provided to offer us our theme. Step-based fitness it was then, and a co-operative affair, with everyone offering suggestions of their favoured step-based activity. Step ups, heel raisers, press ups and tricep dips all made the cut, and were then repeated.

🍋 Nicely warmed, it was time to head back to base for a cool-down and stretch. We were treated to some delicious lemon bar bites (thanks Barbara!) before parting ways to head to the pub/home.

🙌 Thank you everyone, for your patience in the initial chaos and particularly for the sourcing of the triumphant task trio. See you next time!

• I’m aware this isn’t actually a pun but the opportunity to use the word triumvirate was too good to miss 👌

Today four GoodGymmers headed to Prospect House to help bring some order to the planty area outside Prospect House in Bishophill.

Pete, one of the local Bishophillbillies community group, worked with us on these last year and asked us if we could return to tackle a jungle which has sprung up since then.

We spent a good 50 minutes working on the area, stripping away crispy weeds and a load of stickywilly, and by the end we'd made a real impact on the beds with 4 big bags filled - carving out a bit of space for other plants (including some pollinators who have been clinging on to life, just about) to recover and thrive.

Mission accomplished.

Today we helped sort through an enormous compost pile that has accumulated in Bishophill community garden, separating he material to enable optimum biodegrading.

At the same time we chatted about an extremely broad range of topics, including the eccentricities of the english language in which there are over 250 words for woodlice - favourites included chucky pigs, cheesy logs and granny grunters.

5 GoodGym/cold weather enthusiasts spent 45 minutes finishing off weeding a green space for local residents

We spent two hours helping local volunteers tend to various tasks at the community garden in Bishophill, including removing litter, collecting stray pieces of wood to be chipped for mulching and managing an unruly series of compost piles.