Although it's a relatively short street to litter pick the road is a favourite for making whipped cream it seems so we had quite a few cannisters to pick up. As well as takeaways being enjoyed in cars, with whipped cream being a must for dessert, it's a great place for hanging out and for passing small packages between cars. We were thinking it was a little late in the season for seed swapping but they're probably getting their kale in and their overwintering broad beans organised. Great to see that community spirit is alive and kicking on South Street. It's a very convenient place for meeting your friends and spending some time.

Alongside Linda from Friends of Sheaf Valley Park, we had a lovely litter pick with a bonus visit to Park Hill bins to do our recycling and general waste disposal. I've got a bag of cannisters at mine incase there's something useful to do with them. A man from the Star stopped to chat to us. Seems he's noticed the excessive use of whipped cream in the city too and has picked a bag up too. The fun never stops!

Thanks for coming along. Lovely to see everyone and make the street look so much better!

Lum. An old English word for a lake or a pool, which is what the area of woodland within Norfolk Heritage Park is named after. A trail that we make a fair bit of use of while on our Wednesday runches winds its way down the little wooded valley, so it was particularly great to be making a difference to somewhere we can appreciate regularly.

We met up with a few of the Friends of Sheaf Valley volunteers in the Lum and split into 2 teams.

• Team holly cut back
• Team rubbish collect

We then swapped over half way through the session.

The holly encroaches on the rest of the woodland, blocking the light for flora like the bluebells, which are already showing their shoots despite it only being January. Global warming for you... Anyway, it's the ideal time of year to deal with because there's minimal risk of trampling flowers, and birds are not yet nesting so won't be disturbed.

We filled a fair few rubbish sacks too - and shifted lots of plywood and even some artificial grass (!).

The lum was left in a much tidier state then when we arrived.

Afterwards we retreated to the cafe for a well earned cuppa & (in some cases) chips.

Until next time...

Happy running.

In the first of this weekends double header of Goodness we headed up to Norfolk Park to meet with LOVELY LINDA of FRIENDS OF SHEAF VALLEY PARK (FOSVP) who met us at 'THE CENTRE' in the park and walked us to the start of the steps down to 'THE LYM' where we met with other FOSVP volunteers with tools and instructions in hand.

We split into a couple of teams, one doing a litter pick of the area with the others getting stuck into some Holly removal , which had definitely taken a hold of the area!

Nor-folking way - David Higham's reaction to seeing the amount of Holly!

The teams got straight to work with loppers, saw's and brawn to hack down the invasive species that had taken over with some chopping down and some dragging the remnants up the bank and pilling up neatly.

I am the drag Queen - Charlotte Hutton - self proclaimed!

After an hour or so of top work we gathered in front of our massive bush for a group photo before returning tools and tidying up before Linda 'saw' us off to our next task in the city at CRUSE Bereavement Centre. Read the next report for more...

Good Gym Sheffield met up with Super Sara and Lovely Linda from the Friends of Sheaf Valley Park for some Sunday morning, high -altitude litter picking. Nine runners set off from the train station for the long climb up to Skye Edge playing fields; the sleet started to come down just as we arrived at the top. Un-deterred we set about picking up bottles, cans and paper, while Stephen and Tom got in some strength training by carrying a sofa up a steep field to the road. More furniture, doors and tyres joined the ever-growing pile of refuse .

"Can someone help me with this, I'm feeling a little tyred" - Stephen

As the weather got worse we pressed on and after an hour in the cold the area looked much better and we had a big pile of rubbish to show for our efforts.

Nothing keeps you warm like the glow from a good deed

Our mission accomplished, we slid and skated back down to the centre of town for coffee and almost vegan cake kindly made and offered by belated Birthday Kat & Amazing Ash in the Showroom.

12 tenacious & triumphant runners ran 5km to help make Sheaf Valley shine in preparations for Amphifest 2017 this weekend.

Photobombed!

After a brief brief and a group photo with an extra honorary member in the background we took stock of numbers and had DASHING DAVE as our back marker for the night before heading off into the drizzle to meet LOVELY LINDA at the sparkling STEEL CITY STEPS who greeted us with grabbers and bags and told us all about Amphifest this coming weekend.

We split into two teams and for 45mins picked every bit of litter we could find totaling 12 bags! Great job everyone!

After dumping our bags we used the surrounding area of the park for some great fitness including:

• Box Jumps up the Amphitheater

• Stair Sprints up the Steel City Steps

• Hill reps up the parks pathways

Everyone did a great job on the exercises putting in some great hard efforts which will pay dividends!

We took an alternative route back crossing GRAFFITI BRIDGE and finished with some stretching in front of our home of the SHOWROOM CINEMA

Extending our vocabulary...

Sticking around for a drink we extended our vocabulary, learning the definition of SNURGLING and reminiscing of the wonderful times of when THE ROCK was cooking and wanting all to smell his culinary delights.

Thanks so much to all who came out on the drizzly eve to help the local community prepare for this weekends festival!

Happy Running!

Tom :)

21 tenacious Good Gym Sheffield runners ran 2km and cleaned the famous Steel City Steps in South Street Park

We welcomed a huge group this week with some new and returning runners to the Sheffield clan:

Beckie Brackett Felicity Jackson Stephen Gilmer Tom Read Nicola Christopher Dyer

Give em a Cheer!

We love our Stainless Sheffield!

The much used Steel Steps that lead up from the train station and past the glorious amphitheatre in South Street Park were not looking quite glorious before last night with weeds and overgrown grasses encroaching on one of the best walks up to one of the best views in the city, used by hundreds of people coming to and from the station each day.

A bit weedy. A bit mucky. A bit unloved.

Friends of Sheaf Valley Park invited @ggshf to come along and make them look as good as they should and WE DID!

FoSVP’s Lovely Linda will met us in the amphitheatre laden down with spades, ho's and brooms and we used them to (carefully) skim the surface of the steps to remove said weeds and muck! They now look amazing and welcoming, not least when AmphiFest 2017 rolls around on 3-4 June.

The people of Sheffield will this morning gasp and rejoice in how the stairs are now looking miraculous without all the weeds and grass.

Following the task we of course make best use of the stairs for some FANTASTIC FITNESS and sprinted all the way to the top, ROCKY theme tune ringing in our heads!

Finally with the help of some well placed lamp posts up a hill we did some hill rep intervals - Sprinting to the lamp post, recovering on way down then sprinting to the next, all the way to the top of the hill! Some great efforts put in by all! This type of training is tough bit it works wonders!

Following the task and fitness session we headed back to our new home at the Showroom Cinema for some well earned liquid refreshment and a natter.

Next week we are off to REACH homes at Heeley City Farm to help finishing off the first prototype eco house made out of a shipping container and incorporating some great green tech!

Don't Delay, sign up today!

Hopefully we will see as many people come along next week as possible. We also had a small spot on BBC Radio Sheffield this week! If you want to listen back you can here , we are on at 1.23.30

See you all next week! Happy Running!

Tom :)