This evening in Barnsley we welcomed a new runner to our ranks, Daniel, make sure to give him a cheer! We also had the pleasure of being joined by a couple of GoodGym tourists, Andrew and Daiana, up on their jollies from Sheffield. When we had all of the introductions out of the way, we headed outside from the relative warmth of our meeting place in Glass House TableTable into the drizzley, damp, darkness of the winter's night. Once more unto the breach, dear friends.

Tonight we were off to visit our lovely Locke Park liaison, Anne, to help clear the beds of fallen leaves. As ever, she was accompanied by her furry friend, Zak, who even came with a lit up collar tonight (they must have received my memo about bringing headtorches). We met near the statue of the park's namesake, Joseph Locke, and had a short walk over to the equipment store to gather gear for the task. We fetched a couple of rakes, a couple of shovels and 3 rubble sacks.

We all got the sack(s)!

Our leaf collecting duties tonight were focused on the beds near the steps up to the statue. Fallen leaves gather in the sloped beds and need to be removed. A couple of us used rakes to move the leaves from the top of the bed to the bottom, where the rubble sacks lay in wait for their fill of leaves. Shovels were used to scoop up the leaves; scooper job folks! Before we knew it all 3 robust rubble sacks were full. Well, as full as they could be so the gardeners would willingly cart them away in the daylight tomorrow. We proceeded to drag them around the corner to a more sheltered spot where we left them for collection. We finished the job in a super quick time, well before I had planned to leave, so we must be fast folk. It was time to put the tools back in the lockup and head off for some fitness frolics. We said goodbye to Anne and Zak, then had a brief discussion about possible fitness activities. It was unanimously decided that if was preferable not to do our fitness on the equipment in the dark park, instead to do it at the end of the run. So we set off back down the hill at a leisurely pace, chatting about all things GoodGym on the way.

On arriving back near our starting location, I explained what we would be doing. We'd be using the stairwell of the carpark to complete our fitness activity. We would all squat on each step up one flight of stairs, then box jump up the next, alternating these exercises until we reached the top. Andrew took some very classy snaps of this, and even got a picture with a somewhat Shakespearian feel- '2B or not to be?' (see picture 5). I'm glad to say that we all managed to reach the top, where we stretched off indoors and celebrated our night's achievements.

Until next week!

On a not too chilly November evening we had one of our longest runs to a group run task at just over 5km each way. After a very brief warm up and count off we set off on our journey.

The team stayed motivated on the mostly uphill route to Hillsborough, knowing that we had a fantastic winter indoor task set up by Amazing Alex from Age UK to get to, as well as the satisfaction from feeling the muscle burn from those hills - the best runs are the ones you still feel the next day right?

Once at the Pavilion we counted the runners in and I breathed a sigh of relief that we hadn't lost anyone. This in no small part to Backmarker extraordinaire Serg, and the group effort on navigating our way through trendy Kelham.

Heading indoors we saw the 4 keen Goodgym elves that had gone direct to the task getting stuck into the shiny paper and pritt stick. A very well organised set up by Alex meant that GG Sheffield got straight to task, using our artistic flare to create as many Christmas cards for the Age UK volunteers as we could in the time. Although we were speedy, quality was ensured by our QA Manager Michelle, providing appropriate feedback where it was due.

In no time at all our time was up and after a quick refreshment and group photo we headed back into the night and the super streets of Sheffield.